What's the hottest, most metal Tele bridge pickup?

Alright, so I got the Tele, LOL. Now I need to make up my mind regarding what pickup to drop in it!

Anyone have an opinion on the Lace Sensor Red?

ToneFiddler said:
well you said cheap, or else i would have recommended the bare knuckle cobra T.
still sounds like a tele and not like castrated Humbucker.
also the zhangbucker super paul bunyan.
those are my 2 favorite real heavy sounding tele PUs
Click to expand...
Tell me about the Cobra T. How hot is it?
 
Frankly said:
He does not play the Heavy Metal, but Frank Lee recently read that J. Mascis useth the BG1400 in his Tele.
Click to expand...

I was going to mention the BG1400 also. Then again. I haven't tried one myself. But I'd love to someday.
 
Rex_Rocker said:
Alright, so I got the Tele, LOL. Now I need to make up my mind regarding what pickup to drop in it!

Anyone have an opinion on the Lace Sensor Red?


Tell me about the Cobra T. How hot is it?
Click to expand...

'Hotness' doesn't always sound or 'feel' that great to play...hotter pickups are generally darker, and seriously compressed.
 
Mincer said:
'Hotness' doesn't always sound or 'feel' that great to play...hotter pickups are generally darker, and seriously compressed.
Click to expand...
I agree... but the Tele's going to be plugged in into the same setup as guitars with Black Winters and X2N's. I don't want it to sound weak and dry by comparison. I'd rather not adjust the settings drastically. Particularly the gain, LOL.
 
We'll currently that guitar is disassembled, because it's getting a finish, but i could put that pickup in another guitar, if you can wait a week or two.
it's way more output than the screamin demon and i think i used the same setting as i would with EMG 81s.
But don't take my word for it, check their soundclips and you can compare it to some buckers.

But reading some of you're post recently i am not sure the EQ right for you. It's a bit smilie face EQ and for a tele it has quite some lower mids.
maybe you're better of with something like a hot rails or DM superD/TZ? But i never tried those...

I like a tele with the normal bridge to be a tele. even though i don't like a vintage tele bridge PU, some tele characteristic still needs to come trough.
all the downsize buckers will never sound as great as the originals in a Les Paul, Explorer etc.
If you don't want a tele to sound like one, get a bridge, that will enable a Std. Humbucker mounting. that's how i'd do it.
i got the tele shape with all kinds of bridges (short bridge or a locking trem and normal buckers).
They even come with TOM bridges...
But i guess it's too late for that now:eek:
 
Gotta go Hot Rails. DMZ makes a number of Hot Tele pickups, but for metal, and I like them. But if the question is metal, Hot rails is the easy answer.
 
ToneFiddler said:
We'll currently that guitar is disassembled, because it's getting a finish, but i could put that pickup in another guitar, if you can wait a week or two.
it's way more output than the screamin demon and i think i used the same setting as i would with EMG 81s.
But don't take my word for it, check their soundclips and you can compare it to some buckers.

But reading some of you're post recently i am not sure the EQ right for you. It's a bit smilie face EQ and for a tele it has quite some lower mids.
maybe you're better of with something like a hot rails or DM superD/TZ? But i never tried those...

I like a tele with the normal bridge to be a tele. even though i don't like a vintage tele bridge PU, some tele characteristic still needs to come trough.
all the downsize buckers will never sound as great as the originals in a Les Paul, Explorer etc.
If you don't want a tele to sound like one, get a bridge, that will enable a Std. Humbucker mounting. that's how i'd do it.
i got the tele shape with all kinds of bridges (short bridge or a locking trem and normal buckers).
They even come with TOM bridges...
But i guess it's too late for that now:eek:
Click to expand...
I don't mind the smiley EQ. I'd actually be alright with that as long as it's heavy-sounding and has more of a modern chunk than classic Tele twang.
 
Rex_Rocker said:
I don't mind the smiley EQ. I'd actually be alright with that as long as it's heavy-sounding and has more of a modern chunk than classic Tele twang.
Click to expand...

oh, it’s modern, no doubt. heavy also. i don’t like super middy pickups. with the cobra the mids are not overbearing to my ears and setup. but of course they are high output, they are much more packed in the mids than vintage.
no twang left, but they are still single coils and somehow still sound somewhat like a tele.
they got good clips. you can compare it to a lot of buckers. the riff raff for example is a cross between a 59 and a pearly gates, i would say.
i like more duncan humbuckers than i can fit into guitars so i didn’t try a lot of bare knuckle humbuckers and other brands. so i can’t really say anything about their high output ones.
(with tele pickups i wasn’t fully satisfied with the duncan palette, so tried far more other brands. doesn’t mean that duncan tele pickups are not great)
 
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OK, so thought I'd report back. I got my Esquire today, and I installed the Hot Rails in. Well, first impressions weren't so good. It's surprisingly hot, which I dig, but it's REALLY thin. Like... it's got no low-end at all! Maybe I'm too spoiled by high output pickups in my Les Pauls, but this is too much... or should I say, too little.

I'm going to tweak my settings a bit, but so far, not really feeling it. It's not too bright, mind you. It's got a pretty cool upper-mid spike like the Black Winter, thing is it's got no low-end to back it up.

I'm disappointed.
 
Interesting, I have never heard of the Hot Rails being described as thin. There is not a ton of low-mid thump but not thin to my ears.
 
yeah, thin isnt usually how anyone describes the hot rails. how close do you have it to the strings? i find they usually sound best fairly close compared to a real single coil which i prefer a bit further away
 
That is a very interesting opinion of them...have had Hotrails is multiple guitars and none of them where ever close to thin. Not saying your ears are wrong–just shocked to hear someone describe them as thin.
 
you will never get a tele with a single coil sized bridge PU sound as big as a LP with a full sized bucker. no surprise there.
I even have the same effect switching from one les paul to another. one just has that super deep bass acoustically, the others cannot reproduce, no matter the PU ( OK i didn’t try all the pickups out there, but…).
they all sound kind of bland afterwards (but they are much better for softer stuff)
amp knobs have their purpose but their limit, too
 
Some of the Tele bridge humbuckers came with a diagram for a "power-boost" function. I've always thought it was a typo. It simply reverses the blk/wht coil, which would cause phase cancelling. Make sure you didn't accidently follow that mistake. (If it is one.)

Duncan_Power_Boost.png
 
Yes, the BG1400 is 'heavy' for a Tele, but not really metal. I would make sure both coils are working properly on that Hot Rails, or that it isn't accidently wired in parallel or something.
 
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