Noval_novice wrote:Duncan Broadcaster is great, too.
Ohh, yeah. That one is real nice!
Gabriel
Bridge pickup for Tele
Moderators: pompeiisneaks, Colossal
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G. Hoffman
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Mon May 23, 2011 9:54 pm
- Location: Minneapolis, MN
- Contact:
Re: Bridge pickup for Tele
Ohh, yeah. That one is real nice!
Gabriel
Re: Bridge pickup for Tele
Lots of options from Don Mare and they all sound GREAT just depends on what sound you're looking for.
Lots of clips and examples on his site;
http://www.buckcannon.com/
His tapped pick ups are cool, I'm saving up for the three speed to put in my strat for the lowell george thing with some added flexibility.
-E
Lots of clips and examples on his site;
http://www.buckcannon.com/
His tapped pick ups are cool, I'm saving up for the three speed to put in my strat for the lowell george thing with some added flexibility.
-E
Re: Bridge pickup for Tele
I have tried a lot of tele pickups over the years and installed many more for clients. I have never heard any thing better than a Lindy Fralin. Although, I did recently install an old Van Zandt bridge pu that worked quite well. I have never tried a Dimarzio that sounded right in a tele. Or a lace pu. But then I am old school about what I think a Telecaster should sound like. I keep hearing that old 54 esquire I had. Big Bold strong yet just the right amount of twang.
Re: Bridge pickup for Tele
+1 on Harmonic Design. For a sample listen to. Redd Volkaert.
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David Root
- Posts: 3540
- Joined: Fri Aug 04, 2006 3:00 pm
- Location: Chilliwack BC
Re: Bridge pickup for Tele
I have wound a lot of pickups, maybe 250 or so, and repaired a lot of old classics too, before I became besotted with amps. Teles are interesting for a few reasons. Talking about the bridge pup of course.
Like all the classic pups, they change character as the grade of magnet changes. Alnico 5, 3 and 2 are all different. 3 is nice in a Tele, 2 not so much, 5 is the standard.
If you use the baseplate or not makes a big difference. Without it a Tele becomes almost elegant. Lollar's Teles are a case in point. Fralin's very good too. With the baseplate we are back in Big Twang City. The baseplate material and thickness matters. I used some very old copperplated steel that was very very close to the original spec material. I had a bunch made up, still have lots of them.
Then there is Broadcaster vs. Tele. The very first instruments in '50,'51 had pups wound with 43 ga wire, same as the neck pup, which remained 43 ga. These sound bigger and meaner than 42 ga, but could very quickly get muddy if overwound.
The classic wind is to 7.5K DCR (42 ga). The original Broadcasters were all over the map, and IIRC there are some that should be muddy because of a high DCR wind but aren't, sort of like PAF anomalies. Reason for that probably lies in the winding process variations, tight, loose, lo scatter rate, hi scatter rate etc. and/or over spec thickness of insulation, which was pretty common in those early days.
Finally, aforesaid winding techniques. These old pups were all hand wound by people with varying levels of knowledge, skill and experience. The top artisans of today, and going back to Bill Lawrence, are all IMO a leg up over Leo's people because they consciously study the results of changes not only in winding techniques but also in materials.
I don't know if the string windings over the coil make any difference or not, could very well damp mechanical resonances from a loose coil, however I never used it and I managed to build some good sounding Tele bridge pups.
One more thing, the bridge baseplate thickness and material make a difference too. That's a matter of taste, most folks are so used to the thin bridge baseplates they don't cotton to the thicker harder plates available today. Depends how precise you like your twang I guess, with or without hair!
The toughest pickup to nail 100% is undoubtedly the best old PAF humbuckers. Not because they have two coils, but because they have more tone altering components than single coils (slugs, bases, covers etc. where the materials make a huge tonal difference). They're also the most difficult to assemble properly too.
I bought all my magnets pre-magnetized, which is an amateur way of doing it. I did have a gaussmeter so I matched pole piece strengths as best I could. If I were going to do it professionally again the first thing I'd do is buy a pickup charger and degauss all the magnets I still have. Expensive but the only way to go because it gives you one more big control over the tone, magnet strength.
Like all the classic pups, they change character as the grade of magnet changes. Alnico 5, 3 and 2 are all different. 3 is nice in a Tele, 2 not so much, 5 is the standard.
If you use the baseplate or not makes a big difference. Without it a Tele becomes almost elegant. Lollar's Teles are a case in point. Fralin's very good too. With the baseplate we are back in Big Twang City. The baseplate material and thickness matters. I used some very old copperplated steel that was very very close to the original spec material. I had a bunch made up, still have lots of them.
Then there is Broadcaster vs. Tele. The very first instruments in '50,'51 had pups wound with 43 ga wire, same as the neck pup, which remained 43 ga. These sound bigger and meaner than 42 ga, but could very quickly get muddy if overwound.
The classic wind is to 7.5K DCR (42 ga). The original Broadcasters were all over the map, and IIRC there are some that should be muddy because of a high DCR wind but aren't, sort of like PAF anomalies. Reason for that probably lies in the winding process variations, tight, loose, lo scatter rate, hi scatter rate etc. and/or over spec thickness of insulation, which was pretty common in those early days.
Finally, aforesaid winding techniques. These old pups were all hand wound by people with varying levels of knowledge, skill and experience. The top artisans of today, and going back to Bill Lawrence, are all IMO a leg up over Leo's people because they consciously study the results of changes not only in winding techniques but also in materials.
I don't know if the string windings over the coil make any difference or not, could very well damp mechanical resonances from a loose coil, however I never used it and I managed to build some good sounding Tele bridge pups.
One more thing, the bridge baseplate thickness and material make a difference too. That's a matter of taste, most folks are so used to the thin bridge baseplates they don't cotton to the thicker harder plates available today. Depends how precise you like your twang I guess, with or without hair!
The toughest pickup to nail 100% is undoubtedly the best old PAF humbuckers. Not because they have two coils, but because they have more tone altering components than single coils (slugs, bases, covers etc. where the materials make a huge tonal difference). They're also the most difficult to assemble properly too.
I bought all my magnets pre-magnetized, which is an amateur way of doing it. I did have a gaussmeter so I matched pole piece strengths as best I could. If I were going to do it professionally again the first thing I'd do is buy a pickup charger and degauss all the magnets I still have. Expensive but the only way to go because it gives you one more big control over the tone, magnet strength.