newbie looking for pickup advice

[jonmar]

Hi peeps.

I'm here looking for some advice on replacement pickups for my tele.

The guitar is an American Standard Telecaster: Ash with a maple neck. Single coils in both positions.

I play modern rock type music but my sound has always been a bit vintage sounding. Think Marshall Plexis instead of Rectifiers etc. I'm looking for a versatile humbucker combo that can go from nice cleans to bluesy overdrive to brutal high gain stuff. I need it to clean up nicely when I roll off the volume on my guitar as I almost never use a clean channel for my clean tones.

Any help and advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Edit: I forgot to mention that I mostly play tuned a half step down. But I have some songs that are tuned BADGBE and AADGBE so the pickups should be able to handle those low notes. I hope all this info is helpful.

[taxi]

My favorite tele pickup is the Rio Grande twangbucker. You need to buy the bridge and the pickup (available as a set from Rio Grande), and do a little routing, but it's well worth it. You'd have to change the bridge and route for any humbucker anyway. Rio Grande's specialty is pickups that are actually two single coils strapped together, so when you split them they sound right. In hummer mode the twangbucker is very hot and screams but still has a touch of that tele twang. When you split it, it's a real tele pickup, so you can do all the tele twangy and bluesy stuff. It's nice and tight for those drop tunings too. My tele is custom-made with an alder body and maple neck, so it might be a little darker than an ash one, but that pickup is a monster. However, if you plan to be in humbucker mode all of the time and you want to depart completely from the tele sound, something like a pearly gates or custom custom might give you a hot but vintage tone.

I don't necessarily recommend any of Rio Grande's "double single coil" pickups at the neck since they are very hot and too dark in hummer mode for the neck position IMHO.
At the neck, I'd go with something with a vintage voice and an alnico magnet. A Duncan 59 is always nice there, and the alnico 5 magnet will keep the bottom tight for those lower tunings. An Alnico Pro II is very sweet but can be a little loose on the bottom; I recently solved that by putting hex screw polepieces instead of fillister screws under the bass strings. Seth lovers also have a very sweet vintage voice.

[jeremy]

welcome to the forum!

are you looking for single coil sized buckers or full size?

[jonmar]

Thanks for the reply Taxi. I'm going to check out that Rio Grande stuff as I haven't heard of those before but honestly I've used the Tele with it's stock pickups for a long time now and I'm confident the single coil twang isn't my thing so I'm not worried about holding on to that with the pickups I'm getting.

Jeremy: I think single coil sized humbuckers would be optimum. No routing needed and it would be a quick job. That's why I came here because I know Seymour Duncan makes some. I've also looked at some DiMarzio pickups but their descriptions didn't really make me think they're right for me. Besides Slash has always been a huge influence on me and I know he's always used the SD Alnico II Pros in all his Les Pauls.

I've been looking at the Hot Rails or the Little '59 for the bridge. But I'm a little worried the Hot Rails might be a one trick pony and not really able to pull off the cleaner stuff the way I would like it to. As I understand it the Little '59 is a little more suited for those overdrivey vintage sounds. What about the Hot Lead Stack? Or the Pearly Gates for Tele from the custom shop? But that might be too expensive for me, as I'm looking to get a neck pickup also. This is one thing I also need help with because I've no clue which pickups work well together in pairs. Having all these options and not having any experience playing any of them is kind of overwhelming.

Also, I've been told by Richard Fortus that low output pickups have better frequency range and dynamic range and thus more clarity than high output pickups. So maybe a moderate output pickups is better for me than a really hot one?

But I know next to nothing about pickups or how they would react with the ash body of my guitar and all I can really do is listen to the clips but I'd hate to just base my decision on those alone which is why I'm here .

To make helping me a bit easier... I'm looking for nice, warm and somewhat crunchy clean and and overdrive tones when I roll off the volume but with great full on distortion for heavy riffs with the volume at 10.

[AniML]

I'm looking for a versatile humbucker combo that can go from nice cleans to bluesy overdrive to brutal high gain stuff.

First, welcome!

From the statement above, you are looking for one pickup that can do it all. You can get pickups that "do it all", but no one pickup will be masterful at all.

What you might want to do is put a hotter pickup in the bridge and a blusier / clean pickup in the neck

I'm not into anything exceedingly high gain so I will defer that answer to those who know, but I would strongly suggest a minihumbucker for the neck to cover your cleans and blues. I have the SD SM-1 in a tele, but from the description of your needs the "Seymourized" version (SM-2?) might suit you better

[jonmar]

First, welcome!

From the statement above, you are looking for one pickup that can do it all. You can get pickups that "do it all", but no one pickup will be masterful at all.

What you might want to do is put a hotter pickup in the bridge and a blusier / clean pickup in the neck

That's probably a very good idea. Thanks! Also, to clarify, maybe "brutal high gain" stuff is a bit extreme. I don't really mean brutal as in slipknot or dimmu borgir or some underground norwegian death metal band. My higher gain sounds would be more in the vein of Smashing Pumpkins (especially Machina), Muse, Rammstein, Guns n' Roses (new and old) etc.

[cakire82]

You can definitely go for STHRs for neck and bridge positions. They are extremely versatile and they sound great. You can also coil split them.

[jonmar]

Thanks! I was gonna ask about coil splitting. I heard or read somewhere that coil splitting a humbucker might hurt the overall sound quality of the pickup. As in a great humbucker, once coil split, would become a mediocre humbucker and a mediocre single coil pickup. Is this true?

If I don't go for the HR set and just get one for the bridge position and wanted a cleaner pickup in the neck position, is there a pickup that especially suits the Hot Rails and makes for a quiet no hum set up?

[Funkfingers]

How generous is the neck pickup cavity on your example of the Am Std Tele?

If you have room to take the new PU (and still allow the pickguard assembly to be slid out from under the fingerboard extension), I suggest Li'l '59 (bridge) and an SD SM-1 Vintage Mini humbucker (neck).

[jeremy]

coil split switches on humbuckers dont in anyway detract from the full bucker sound when it is in normal series mode

so a hot rails in series attached to a switch to split the coil will sound like a hot rails in series. when you split the coil it will change the sound to a brighter, thinner, lower output tone. it wont sound like a vintage strat pup or anything but it can be usable to get different options.

[jonmar]

I've been listening to the clips on the site and I really like the Pearly Gates. The question is does the Pearly Gates for Tele sound the same?

I also really like all the mini humbuckers.

The clips for the Hot Rails and the Lil' 59 are cool too but the Hot Rails is a little too bassy or boomy for my taste. I would like a bit less bass and a bit more treble. But I guess that has a lot to do with amp settings and EQ as well. I'm pretty sure I can get the tone I want out of that. I'd love to be able to play a guitar with one in it to be sure though. Oh well.

The tone in the Pearly Gates and Alnico II Pro clips is really what I would like to get when I roll the volume down just above half.

[Funkfingers]

When auditioning the audio demonstrations, always remember this sentence from the written introduction.

"About the Guitars:
... We kept the pickup-to-string heights consistent between each change of pickups."

This was done to illustrate the difference from one pickup design to the next. You would not necessarily adjust each and every bridge position pickup to the identical distance from the strings.

There is no such thing as a Pearly Gates for Tele, as such. You just install a Pearly Gates HB onto the Tele, probably via a new pickguard. The only word of warning is to make sure that your pickup cavity is deep enough to accept the elevator "legs" of a vintage-style HB.

Fender uses the SM-1 on its '52 Hot Rod Telecaster. On an ash/maple guitar, this dishes up a range of tones that hint at the original T neck position single coil and a crisp HB.

If you do not care for the SD single-coil-sized humbucker Tele bridge replacement pickups, it may be time to consider a beefy single coil. My favourite is the Fender NoCaster unit. There are a couple of manufacturers producing T-sized pickups built along P90 principles. Tele + P90s = fun.

[jeremy]

if you have the coin, the custom shop can make you a pearly gates single coil size humbucker

[jonmar]

There is no such thing as a Pearly Gates for Tele, as such. You just install a Pearly Gates HB onto the Tele, probably via a new pickguard.

If you go to the main site, then pickups -> custom shop -> pickups for tele, there's a Pearly Gates for Teles at the bottom of the first page. Says price is $150 which is not too bad I think. Here in Norway I have to pay pretty much the same for a regular Hot Rails!

I think all the SD pickups sound great though, it's just a matter of picking the right ones I guess.

I would really like to avoid any routing and would prefer to just be able to stick the pickups in and go. So it'll probably going to be the Hot Rails in the bridge. I haven't seen the Hot Rails set here in Norway yet though, and I'm not sure I want one in the neck position. Maybe a vintage Stack in the neck?

[taxi]

I have a hot rails at the bridge in my frankenstrat, but it's next to a Dimarzio VirtuAl II. There are 4 pickups in this strat, with two next to each other at the bridge. It's wired so the bridge pickup can be either/or/both.

The hot rails is extremely mid-heavy and can be very muddy. I rarely use it alone, except for some very high-gain soloing that requires a violin sort of tone. I usually use it in combination with the other bridge pickup in parallel. I would avoid the hot rails as an "only" bridge pickup, you're right, one-trick-pony.

[SFW]

Rio Grande Muy Grande set and deal with the hum. The tone is worth it.

[jonmar]

I dunno, it seems that I have to either choose bewteen the full on high gain sound or the more vintage sound. And to be honest the vintage side is way more important to me. I really like the sound clips of the Alnico II Pro and the Pearly Gates, as well as the mini humbuckers. Maybe I should just give in and let them carve up my beloved Tele . I don't know why I'm so uncomfortable with the idea of someone routing my guitar. But I am.

I listened to some Hot Rails stuff on youtube and it's really not my thing I think. I'm not a shredder at all.

This would be a much easier decision if I was changing the pickups on my Epi Les Paul Custom. Pearly Gates in the bridge with an Alnico II Pro in the neck. Or maybe a Custom Custom/ Pearly Gates combo for a slightly heavier tone overall.

Guys, am I overthinking this?

[AniML]

I dunno, it seems that I have to either choose bewteen the full on high gain sound or the more vintage sound. And to be honest the vintage side is way more important to me. I really like the sound clips of the Alnico II Pro and the Pearly Gates, as well as the mini humbuckers. Maybe I should just give in and let them carve up my beloved Tele . I don't know why I'm so uncomfortable with the idea of someone routing my guitar. But I am.

I listened to some Hot Rails stuff on youtube and it's really not my thing I think. I'm not a shredder at all.

This would be a much easier decision if I was changing the pickups on my Epi Les Paul Custom. Pearly Gates in the bridge with an Alnico II Pro in the neck. Or maybe a Custom Custom/ Pearly Gates combo for a slightly heavier tone overall.

Guys, am I overthinking this?

Yes, you are overthinking it - I do the same thing all the time

I have never used A2Ps but I think the Pearly gates is an excellent choice in either or both positions as well. I have a set in my Les Paul. I already recommended the Minihum to you for the neck so that suggestion still stands IMO. The PGs do a very nice warm-clean and can crunch into the harder tones you described - but will not do brutal without infusing some mud. The Mini will get you into cleaner territory than the PG (think of it as a higer output tele neck pup in this regard) but will not go as far into the gain end of the spectrum. Choices, choices.

[bluesbend]

Lil '59 bridge with a STR-2neck should give you what you're after.

Welcome!

[Laughing Kookaburra]

Lil 59 in the bridge. That would work well for Smashing Pumpkins type OD.

My all time favorite in the neck is the DMZ Virtual Vintage T neck. There is a model that has since replaced it, but I don't know the name.