Telecaster Pickup Questions

[ratrob]

Hello all,

I'm a DIY-er that's going to start upgrading his own mid range guitars since I'm too cheap to keep buying $3000 high end gear. This is my first post and I appreciate any advice you guys can give me.

My first project is my daughter's MIM telecaster that plays very good but the hum is annoying as hell. Also, my daughter is into the whole screamo genre right now and the single coils don't exactly scream. What I'd like to do is put a Hot Rails in the bridge and a tighter single coil in the neck like an STR-3. Does this sound like a good match? I"m thinking the rails should give my kid the crunch she needs and the STR-3 can clean up in the neck. Does anybody have any other pickups that have sounded good in the neck with the hot rails in the bridge? Let me know and I'll check out some sounds.

Second question. Although I know this won't give me the original tele twang I going to split the coil of the Hot Rails to make the guitar more versatile. I've read some people saying this is a great mod that allows you to clean up the tone on the bridge PU and some people say that that this is a waste of time because splitting the small coils makes the tone if very weak. Has anybody ever split their hot rails on a tele? is it worth the extra time in wiring and buying the push/pull pot to do this?

Once again, I appreciate any help you could give a rookie here.

Thanks,

 

[Butch Snyder]

Re: Telecaster Pickup Questions

Hi ratrob, welcome to the forum! I think the HotRails will be great in the bridge. The STR-3 is the Quarter Pounder Tele neck pickup and I don't find them very tight. In fact, to my ears, they're a bit dark and kind of muddy. Why not try the Hot Rails for Tele neck position? You can wire to be in parallel and with that you get the full-size humbucker tone and in parallel, it's a tighter, brighter single coil type tone; but you keep the hum-canceling that you lose when you split the coils.

 

[ratrob]

Re: Telecaster Pickup Questions

Thanks Butch,

I'm going to check out this configuration.

 

[astrozombie]

Re: Telecaster Pickup Questions

Thanks Butch,

I'm going to check out this configuration.

Feel free to leave the single coil in the neck. I don't know how old your daughter is, but when I was a younger teen growing up, we didn't really use the neck position for a lot of stuff. If you switch to the hotrails, keep in mind you need a 500K volume pot for it. TRY TO GET IT SOLID SHAFT. I had to get mine split, like the knobs were push-on, and it was a pain to use the standard tele knob with it.

I've had a MIM Tele for years and have done all kinds of stuff to it, so if you have any questions on mods, please feel free to ask. Welcome to the forum!

 

[Lu_B]

Re: Telecaster Pickup Questions

Welcome to the forum.

I asked about spliting rails once for a strat project I was thinking about (never came off in the end!) and was advised it could be done but was a bit of a waste of time tone wise.

I've had a MIM Tele for about 10yrs that sports Quarter Pounder and Hot Tele Tapped. Theres some jiggery pockery going on using a 5 way strat switch, to give me
1. Hot bridge only
2. Hot bridge and neck combined
3. neck only
4. Vintage output bridge and neck combined
5. Vintage output bridge only

Lewguitar recommended the config and it sounds really good.

 

[bluesbend]

Re: Telecaster Pickup Questions

Welcome ratrob!

As Butch said, the STR-3 is a very dark sounding pickup. I like the STR-2, or you could go with a Lil '59n strat in there.

 

[ratrob]

Re: Telecaster Pickup Questions

HA, I was just about to post another message asking if I needed to put a 500k POT in the guitar since I was upgrading to the Hot Rails. You answered my question already!

I was going to change out the Pots anyways; I figured it wouldn't be that much more work and hopefully the sound will payoff.

Thanks Astro (and to everybody who's replied , great forum here)

 

[idsnowdog]

Re: Telecaster Pickup Questions

In my experience the QP is hard to find the right value pot for. With 250K pots they are too dark and muddy. With 500K pots they are bright and loud, but they are a bit too bright, loud and hard sounding. I tried modifying a 500k pot with a resistor to 375k and it was a good compromise, but the taper of the pot was screwed. In the end I just went back to 500k pots. A rosewood fretboard might tame it a bit though.

 

[Rich_S]

Re: Telecaster Pickup Questions

... TRY TO GET IT SOLID SHAFT. I had to get mine split, like the knobs were push-on, and it was a pain to use the standard tele knob with it.

Astro, Astro, Astro... Don't you know about these?

To the OP - kuidos first, for being a cool Dad. MIM Teles are the greatest mod platforms in the world.

Sadly, I've never tried a Hot Rails. I do have a lot of experience with the tapped Quarter Pounder - it really does give usable tones with both the full coil and the tap. I use the tone pot to roll up and down between the two, or you can use a toggle switch, or use a 5-position pickup selector. Lots of options. Unfortunately, it does not address the hum issue, as it is a true single-coil.

If hum really is a big deal, I'd say simpler is better. Try the Hot Rails with some else humbucking in the neck position. Your number of possibilites expand greatly if you consider Strat p;ickups for the neck. The MIM Tele is routed for a humbucker at the neck, so swapping in a Strat pickup is easy - all you need is a pickguard (<$20, see GuitarFetish, Warmoth, or any one of dozens on other oline dealers). The vintage Stack for Strat is a good pickup that would give you a very single-coil-ish sound in the neck. Auto-tapping both pickups in the middle might be interesting, too.

For a kid, I would keep it simple, though... stick to a 3-position switch and avoid the push/pull pots.