tele neck pickup?

llew

I use the neck pickup on my tele with the cover off because it sounds great that way.I found the tone with the original chrome cover too muddy and bassy.My problem is I prefer the tone with the cover off but I love the classic look of the cover on! I've heard that the nickel/silver covers sound much more like the natural sound of the pickup,does anyone have any experience with the nickel covers?Cheers.

chrisj1602

Try a twisted tele pickup.

ICBM

Nickel-silver does sound more transparent than brass, yes - ask TheGuitarWeasel where he gets his. Different metals affect the amount of effect the cover has on the magnetic field of the pickup, which is one of the reasons they dull the tone.

You can also fit the cover without grounding it, which takes away the other reason - capacitance from the coil to the grounded cover. That can make quite a difference, depending on whether the magnetic effect is larger or smaller. Just leave out the little ground link from the eyelet to the cover tab.

OilCityPickups

Nickel covers don't interfere with the eddy currents in the magnetic field like brass ones ... and thus filter far less treble out.
All the tele pickups I make have Nickel covers ... plus (sorry for the plug) I sell them separately on my site. I got fed up with (Bugger)Allparts never having them in stock so I started importing them myself
They are a bit of a faff to fit ... as you need to bend the lugs very carefully to avoid breaking them (nickel is a tad less malleable than brass).

llew

Cool what's the address of your site mate?

impmann

Oil City pickups - google is your friend :-)

EdGrip

Or, the address is in his signature.

llew

Great stuff,cheers everyone.

llew

Just ordered a nickel cover from oil city pickups so we shall see.

OilCityPickups

It shall be in the post to you Monday :-)  Cheaper than changing your pickup ... I think you'll find it a good deal better than the brass baked bean cans on most lower end Tele pickups.

Remember to plan ahead when you do the job ... I like to pre bend the two tabs at the rear edge of the cover and then angle the tab at the front slightly forwards ... so that you can slide on the cover with the lugs clear of the windings ... then last of all bend the single front tab into place. I don't solder the earth 'tail' back to the single lug ... I attach a separate earth to one of the back legs and run that back to a pot ... that way if you ever want to do a 'phase switch' you already have a 'lifted' earth. If you have an issue I'll do a photo series on here first to let you see how I do it.

ICBM

I would avoid connecting the cover to ground at all unless you find noise is a real problem - it may not affect the tone as much as the cover material, but it does take off a bit of top-end as well.

llew

Ok i'l try that cheers.

OilCityPickups

ICBM said:

I would avoid connecting the cover to ground at all unless you find noise is a real problem - it may not affect the tone as much as the cover material, but it does take off a bit of top-end as well.

Adds a little noise without it ... so to me it's a six and two threes. I'm happy not to connect the covers on my own Teles ... but some people find they get a tadge of extra noise without ... some don't.
Single coil noise doesn't worry me much, but there are folks who get as anal as a sea cucumber about it

llew

Haha you said anal ">

OilCityPickups

Should I have said sphincter-esque?

llew

No it's not as funny to someone as immature as me.

OilCityPickups

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