Tele pickup tapping

[Gustav0]

I'm being curious here, do you think that a tapped Hot for Tele or Quarter Pound will match the output of a stock Squier Affinity pickup? Looking to upgrade mine because I love the neck on it, and I like the idea of a hot bridge pickup which you can tame down when you use the middle position. (The stock neck pickup sounds good enough for me, so no need to replace it. Saves some money as well )

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Tele pickup tapping

Match? Not exactly but your basic idea is sound.

Coil tapping the new pickup will require either a mode switch or a push-pull pot.

 

[shawn7oh]

Re: Tele pickup tapping

Ahem... I can answer that. It will work perfectly with it. Keep the same 250k pots. Do experiment with your caps, .011, .015, .022, .033 work best, I like the cheapest assed caps I can find. The sound will be a little rough and inconsistent at first, but will mellow out after a while.

I have never tried a quarter or hot for tele, but I have bridge rails in a tele, and it's awesome. You get humbucker output and sound, then use the split of you want (I don't use the split much). The sound balances out well with the stock neck pup, no issues. My rails are not Duncan, I believe they're Alnico V. Duncan rails are ceramic. Nothing wrong with Ceramic.

You may have to reverse the bridge pup hot and ground, the wiring around for some (maybe yours) neck pickups may be necessary. If it sounds wimpy or thin, try reversing the hot and ground on the bridge pickup... or use the "reverse phasing" instructions on the diagram.

Here is the wiring diagram for the quarter pound, it details the coil tap wiring, and mentions the switch at the bottom:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/images/products/electric/telecaster/501010-105.pdf

Use the hot rails for tele wiring diagram, and substitute the mini switch for the push-pull. Drill a small hole in your control plate between the Vol and Tone knobs and mount it there.

Use a mini toggle switch. Oh yeah, the rails have everything a regular tele pup has, but then you gain the ability to play hard rock and a little metal on it. Also, you can bend without losing the note, a big big plus, I like to bend on leads. single coils just always lose it on big bends, and with rails it's never an issue. That's the main reason I love rails. You only gain, lose nothing.. Good Luck!

Here's me tele, a Peavey, good as any Fender, with the rails it kicks ass:
https://forum.seymourduncan.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=34655&d=1348494388

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Tele pickup tapping

When I mentioned changing the selector switch, I had in mind a CRL five-way for the custom shop '53 Tapped Tele circuit. This offers bridge (full output), bridge (full) + neck, neck, neck + bridge (tapped), bridge (tapped).

 

[Gustav0]

Re: Tele pickup tapping

Thanks for the answers guys, Happy to see that it would work I prefer to keep the stock 3-way switch and mount a mini-toggle for the tap/split. Thanks for the pdf as well shawn (nice Peavey btw, the blue pickguard looks odd but in a good way!)
Now I need to think a bit about all that, see what pickups the local store has in stock. Thank you!