Neck pickups - why is tele type better for jazz than strat?

Megii

The title is speaking just from my own experience, I have no arguments with those who can get a good jazz tone from a strat. But I can't really - probably could get my strat to produce something "OK", but it's still kind of starting from the wrong place for me - too quacky, maybe too much in the upper mids, hard to describe... Nice tones, but just not right for jazz, which is a big interest for me. My tele, on the other hand - plug that in to my Polytone amp, and it sounds great for jazz on the neck pickup. Still a single coil tone, and not lacking in sparkle or detail, but it has that jazz kind of tone - again apologies, I find it nearly impossible to describe the difference in tone, but whatever it is, it makes all the difference to me.

Specs wise, the tele neck pickup is 7.0K, wound with 43 gauge wire, alnico 3 magnets, and has the metal cover (brass?). The strat pickup is 5.9K, 42 gauge wire, also alnico 3 magnets. Not sure how that compares in terms of number of winds, given the different gauge wire types used.

So, since I'm in the early stages of building a second strat, I'm wondering if I can't make the neck pickup better for jazz, and more like the pickup on my tele. If I had a strat pickup made to similar specs to the one on my tele (but no metal cover, so it still looked like a strat pickup) would that do the trick? I'm thinking alnico 2 or 3 magnets, and maybe 7 to 8K ish resistance with the 43 gauge wire.

OilCityPickups

43awg wire will help ... the cover ... even if it is nickel will filter some of that top too ... so I'd suggest an slightly hotter wind to make up for the lack of it. Perhaps 8.5/9k alnico 3, flush pole

Megii

Your advice much appreciated GW, thank you.   Probably not purchasing the pickups just yet, but will have to see what the finances are looking like when I do...

Jalapeno

A Teletype ? For Jazz ?

Megii

Jalapeno said:

A Teletype ? For Jazz ?

Might need a bit of extra routing to get it to fit I suppose... 

koneguitarist

Looks a bit heavy to me, more metal ?

Megii

Not so good for jazz then?

ICBM

Yawn. It's all about the characters per minute with that sort of thing, rather than the musical content.

Seriously, I think the main reason the Tele neck pickup is better for jazz is the cover. (Which I know TheGuitarWeasel doesn't always agree with!) It's a tricky thing to get right though - the right cover softens and fattens the tone, the wrong one muffles and muddies it.

Megii

ICBM said:

Seriously, I think the main reason the Tele neck pickup is better for jazz is the cover. (Which I know TheGuitarWeasel doesn't always agree with!) It's a tricky thing to get right though - the right cover softens and fattens the tone, the wrong one muffles and muddies it.

Hmm, that could well be the case I guess, in which case I'm perhaps lucky that the neck pickup on my tele happens to have the right cover. And that said, my hope would be that it would still be possible to not have a metal cover for the proposed strat pickup (not sure if such a cover has ever been made for a strat pickup anyway), and for aesthetics still a fairly standard-looking strat pickup, but with the kind of tone I'm after. GW's suggested higher resistance/wind might do the trick perhaps? Or how about dispensing with any kind of cover, and just having tape/string to protect the windings - could maybe get a bit of a fatter coil shape that way, which might help matters... Not that I know what I'm talking about lol.

elkay

Just a thought, but as you're self-building, how about putting a tele pickup in the strat neck postion? Would certainly be quite unique, I'd imagine.

Richardj

Does it have to be a conventional single coil?  I have a Fender Lace Sensor Blue in my old Strat and it's much rounder and softer (well, less 'spiky') than a standard single coil.  I have Fender N3s in my other Strat and in the neck of my 'hog Tele and no complaints about the tones you can get out of those.

Megii

elkay said:

Just a thought, but as you're self-building, how about putting a tele pickup in the strat neck postion? Would certainly be quite unique, I'd imagine.

Not a bad idea - it did occur to me as well in fact, and certainly possible. I guess it's just not the way I'd want to go - I just like the idea of keeping to the strat pickup "look", or at least fairly close to that.

Megii

Richardj said:

Does it have to be a conventional single coil?  I have a Fender Lace Sensor Blue in my old Strat and it's much rounder and softer (well, less 'spiky') than a standard single coil.  I have Fender N3s in my other Strat and in the neck of my 'hog Tele and no complaints about the tones you can get out of those.

I guess the answer to that one is yes, I do want to stay within the realms of the conventional single coil - would be nice if I still got some strat quackyness happen when neck and middle p'ups combined. Although actually, I agree with you re the Lace Blue - I have used that pickup myself, and it's a good 'un, but just not what I'm after for this build. And I've no doubt about what you say re the N3s.  

octatonic

Megii said:

Not so good for jazz then?

But it works in all keys.

Megii

octatonic said:

Megii said:

Not so good for jazz then?

But it works in all keys.

Bum bum! 

impmann

I think it has more to do with actual positioning than the cover. I've fitted a Tele neck pickup into a Strat as an experiment - and it didn't sound "right".

ICBM

impmann said:

I think it has more to do with actual positioning than the cover. I've fitted a Tele neck pickup into a Strat as an experiment - and it didn't sound "right".

The Tele neck pickup is in the same place as the Strat - or so close it shouldn't matter. (The neck side of the coil is in the same place relative to the neck, so the centreline of the Strat pickup is about 1/16" closer to the bridge.) It's the bridge pickup which is different.

The two pickups do definitely sound different even without the cover, and more so with it.

Megii

impmann said:

I think it has more to do with actual positioning than the cover. I've fitted a Tele neck pickup into a Strat as an experiment - and it didn't sound "right".

Take your point impmann, and doubt I'll be going that route anyhow. Actually still not at all decided, but getting a custom made neck pickup does seem very possible at this point.