Tele Quarter Pounder - other possibilities?

[BenZene]

I got my QP for Tele Bridge yesterday and dropped it in, replacing the Tex-Mex thing that was stock in the guitar.

Well, the QP has a good deal more output, but the highs seemed to roll up and dissapear. I thought maybe some 500k pots would do it, but not having any one hand, I just tried wiring the pickup straight to the jack to get a sample of the full signal.

I'm still a little dissapointed.

The other thing is, while I hear more gain with the higher output pickup, I used to be able to pull pinch harmonics out all over the neck, even with the stock pickup, and still can with the stock bridge pickup in my MIM Tele Special. Now they're just gone. It sounds like I'm just muting the string. What gives?

I assume that the two things are related.

I'm considering a swap to the Hot Lead Stack, but for a humbucker called "hot," the Duncan tone chart lists it with barely more output than the Vintage Tele Lead.

Any suggestions?

 

[Curly]

Re: Tele Quarter Pounder - other possibilities?

I'm going to try a Hot bridge, but I won't have the results for a while ...

the output of the Hot Stack is listed at 21K - that's pretty hot!

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Tele Quarter Pounder - other possibilities?

I'd try the Jerry Donahue. I can pinch off harmonics and shape notes with my pick easily with the Jerry Donahue.

It seems to me that in order to pinch off harmonics the pickup has to have a certain VOWEL like quality to the mids. Most full size humbuckers have it. Few single coils do.

A good P90 has that pronounced "quack" or "ow" to the mids. A good Tele pickup has at least a little of that quality too.

The JD has that vowel like quality in spades! The mids are very pronounced and have a quality almost like a wah wah set to its sweet spot.

To get the most of that effect from the JD I have it set to about 1/16" away from the strings when I hold the strings down at the 21st fret.

Lew

 

[jeremy]

Re: Tele Quarter Pounder - other possibilities?

stacks are not high output pups in general. it may be 21k but an 9k single coil is probably as loud. the hot stack has some extra juice for sure.
i like my qp tele lead, sounds great thru my marshalls and fenders. it doesnt feel as good as some others but people in the audience think its one of my best sounding rock guitars

 

[Kelsey]

Re: Tele Quarter Pounder - other possibilities?

What neck pickup are you using, and do you want the bridge pickup to match it in output and/or eq? That might narrow the search.

 

[BenZene]

Re: Tele Quarter Pounder - other possibilities?

it doesnt feel as good as some others but people in the audience think its one of my best sounding rock guitars

Yeah, see that's the thing. I can tell that there's pleasing tone there for the listeners, but the pickup just seems to respond differently than I'm used to. I think it's just got a little less attack than most.

This isn't the first time that I've heard good things about the JD. I may have to pick that one up, and just swap the QP into my backup.

I'm not too worried about matching the neck pickup - I don't have one!

Thanks all for the input.

 

[Kelsey]

Re: Tele Quarter Pounder - other possibilities?

If you're going esquire, then I would definitely choose the JD for versatility unless you need extra noise reduction. I've heard from a couple of people who really like the Little 59 for Tele, and there are some versatile wiring options available for it from what I hear, but it is certainly not a vintage Tele pickup.