Neck humbucker on a tele

Johnnyseven

This seems a fairly common mod but whenever i've tried it there is a big imbalance in output with neck > bridge. What am I doing wrong?

WezV

what bridge and neck pickups have you tried, a volume balance should be easy to achieve with a hot tele bridge and a PAF style neck. 

Personally i prefer mini-hums or filtertrons over full humbuckers

munckee

WezV said:

what bridge and neck pickups have you tried, a volume balance should be easy to achieve with a hot tele bridge and a PAF style neck. 

Personally i prefer mini-hums or filtertrons over full humbuckers

I have filterton which alegree matched to my creamery red 79 bridge pickup. Sounds great

Cols

You do need a vintage voiced humbucker for this; a modern high-output megabucker is unavoidably going to overwhelm the bridge singlecoil.  Aside from that, it’s worthwhile spending some time fiddling with pickup heights to get a good balance.

guitars4you

munckee said:

WezV said:

what bridge and neck pickups have you tried, a volume balance should be easy to achieve with a hot tele bridge and a PAF style neck. 

Personally i prefer mini-hums or filtertrons over full humbuckers

I have filterton which alegree matched to my creamery red 79 bridge pickup. Sounds great

I like that combination - custom spec'd a few Custom Shop Tele's like this and James Trussart as well

Winny_Pooh

Firebird or Filtertron would would great, WRHB far less so. Fender finally figured this out when they released the 52 hot rod with an SD mini.

Johnnyseven

I had an Oil City 49er and an Tonerider alnico 2 HB. The height which got the best tone from the HB made it eay louder than the 49er. I had a similar issue with an Oil City Alligator and an Alegree Desert Dew HB P90.

SteveRobinson

My Tele has a Texas Special in the bridge and a mini humbucker from a 70s LP Deluxe in the neck position. They balance fine.

Kebabkid

Look at a Suhr Thornbucker in the neck and a slightly hotter than usual Tele bridge

OilCityPickups

To get stuff to balance you physically need more turns of wire at the bridge pickup than at the neck (the same turn count won't cut it) I usually aim for 750 1000 turns more ... the average lowish output PAF is about 10,000 turns split between two coils ... that means that even a warmish 10,000 or so turn (43awg) Tele pickup will still be quieter due to the volume drop off at the bridge compared to the neck. Using ceramic magnets helps by increasing the magnetic horsepower ... but most folks don't want a ceramic Tele bridge pickup.

thegummy

TheGuitarWeasel said:

To get stuff to balance you physically need more turns of wire at the bridge pickup than at the neck (the same turn count won't cut it) I usually aim for 750 1000 turns more ... the average lowish output PAF is about 10,000 turns split between two coils ... that means that even a warmish 10,000 or so turn (43awg) Tele pickup will still be quieter due to the volume drop off at the bridge compared to the neck. Using ceramic magnets helps by increasing the magnetic horsepower ... but most folks don't want a ceramic Tele bridge pickup.

So do pretty much all Teles with a humbucker at the neck have a louder neck pickup than bridge?

Never played a guitar like that, would be weird I imagine.

OilCityPickups

 thegummy said:

TheGuitarWeasel said:

To get stuff to balance you physically need more turns of wire at the bridge pickup than at the neck (the same turn count won't cut it) I usually aim for 750 1000 turns more ... the average lowish output PAF is about 10,000 turns split between two coils ... that means that even a warmish 10,000 or so turn (43awg) Tele pickup will still be quieter due to the volume drop off at the bridge compared to the neck. Using ceramic magnets helps by increasing the magnetic horsepower ... but most folks don't want a ceramic Tele bridge pickup.

So do pretty much all Teles with a humbucker at the neck have a louder neck pickup than bridge?

Never played a guitar like that, would be weird I imagine.

Firstly a lot can be adjusted out with pickup heights ... dropping the HB and raising the bridge pickup ... secondly, a Tele bridge pickup will cut through a mix better than a HB so that can even it out a bit ... but on pure millivolts output  A PAF neck will always be 'louder' than a standard output tele bridge. 

WezV

That’s why I suggested a hotter tele bridge pickup to match with a PAF.  Something broadcasterish in the 9-10k range.

gets you close enough to get a decent match with some height adjustment

Henrytwang

Go for an alnico 3 humbucker with a dc resistance of no more than 8k, or otherwise use a filtertron. I put a filtertron in the neck position of my home made B Bender Tele and it balances really well and sounds great 

OilCityPickups

Henrytwang said:

Go for an alnico 3 humbucker with a dc resistance of no more than 8k, or otherwise use a filtertron. I put a filtertron in the neck position of my home made B Bender Tele and it balances really well and sounds great 

Agree with alnico 3 (or 4) ... but 8k is a bit too hot to balance properly with even a 9.5/10k bridge single coil ... as the humbucker will be wound with 42awg wire and the bridge tele will be wound with 43awg wire which will give a high DCR bridge pickup reading but still only the output of a 7.6/8k 42awg pickup. Go for a classic PAF with a 7.3 to 7.6k DCR.
A Filtertron will balance well but then it's sub 5k with 42awg wire!

Johnnyseven

Are Filtertrons HB sized?

OilCityPickups

Johnnyseven said:

Are Filtertrons HB sized?

Not in their original form, they are smaller, though several pickup winders do full HB sized versions (including myself).

Johnnyseven

Thanks Ash, i'll look into it.

Henrytwang

Johnnyseven said:

Are Filtertrons HB sized?

No they’re smaller but it’s pretty easy to get a Tele scratchplate with a Filtertron sized cut out. Otherwise you can use a plate with a humbucker cut out and fit a Filtertron ring to cover the slightly larger hole, I’ve done both in the past.

JayGee

TheGuitarWeasel said:

Henrytwang said:

Go for an alnico 3 humbucker with a dc resistance of no more than 8k, or otherwise use a filtertron. I put a filtertron in the neck position of my home made B Bender Tele and it balances really well and sounds great 

Agree with alnico 3 (or 4) ... but 8k is a bit too hot to balance properly with even a 9.5/10k bridge single coil ... as the humbucker will be wound with 42awg wire and the bridge tele will be wound with 43awg wire which will give a high DCR bridge pickup reading but still only the output of a 7.6/8k 42awg pickup. Go for a classic PAF with a 7.3 to 7.6k DCR.
A Filtertron will balance well but then it's sub 5k with 42awg wire!

My Graham Coxon Tele has a Seymour Duncan ‘59. A bit more of a jump in output than I’d have preferred with the stock bridge pickup, but Ash kindly put a few extra turns on something (not sure exactly what as my son ordered it for me as a Christmas present!) and it’s pretty much perfect....