I’ve just picked up a rather lovely Mexican telecaster and I think this could become my main squeeze for a while.
Although I’m impressed with the bite that a tele SC bridge pick up has, I need something hotter for metal.
I’ve zero experience with single coil sized HB but I’m thinking that might be a good option for the bridge. How close (for heavy distortion) do they come to an actual HB?
Or do I look at getting this one routed at the bridge for a full sized HB ( from what I’m lead to believe this isn’t an overly difficult job for an experienced tech?)
Any thoughts?
Comments
since I’ve gotten older & less angry, the Cool rails is one of the best pickups ever.
oh, how close are they? They’ve got their own thing going on. But so does every single Humbucker.
But if I were you I’d go for a Bareknuckle Piledriver. I toured for years with one of those in my Tele. Amazing pickup that gives you tight, controlled telecaster with ridiculously high output, and yet it’s easy to tame. Metal for days. You have to own one to really understand how good it is.
Routing for a humbucker and finding a suitable HB-cutout bridge that fits the body holes isn't *that* difficult, but it's not trivial either - I would try the small pickup option first.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Leftfield suggestion - Lace Sensor red.
SD BG-1400?
The actual reasons for the fact that SC humbuckers sound neither like single coils or full size humbuckers is fascinating.
If you want to stick closely to the form factor of say a Strat pickup but put two coils in you obviously have multiple size constraints.
One of the earliest example of a mainstream companies making a hum cancelling version of a popular single coil was Gibson with the PAF ... they simply took the 10,000 turns of 42awg wire used on their P90 and split it 5000 (or so) turns on two narrower bobbins with exactly the same coil height. The result was allowed to produce a wider footprint ... and in fact can come very close to P90 tones. Not exact ... but a nice sound none the less.
Now let's go back to our Strat pickup: Typically it will have about 8000 turns of 42awg wire with a much taller coil than say a P90 (one of the reasons for its tone) ... it's extremely difficult to fit two 4000 turns bobbins full of 42 awg wire next to each other to make a reasonably good low output Strat sounding SC sized humbucker .... it's impossible to fill those bobbins with the 5000 turns of 42awg wire needed say for a PAF while reducing the coil height needed to make the coil shape/aspect ratio the same as a normal humbucker. So the manufacturers compromise and reduce the wire gauge to get more turns on ... and this leads to a 'high output tone' on even a relatively low output pickup. This is made worse by the narrow space between the coils reading a short length of string and thus favouring a relatively narrow range of frequencies.
If you want the sound of a full sized humbucker then put one in end of story ... SC sized ones as @ICBM says sound like what they are ... which can be very good indeed - but they sound like 'mini humbuckers' not full sized ones.
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
Much better than the overpowered Hotrails. The Chopper is actually an excellent neck pickup too.
I’m so bored I might as well be listening to Pink Floyd
I’m lucky to have a couple of really good techs local to me so finding someone shouldn’t be an issue.
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
Once you have the right bridge, routing a hole under it in the correct place for the pickup is easy for anyone with the right tools.
If it does prove too difficult, the Chopper T also splits and works well both split and in parallel - three distinct sounds, all good. A friend has an Esquire with one in that I wired up like that.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
split too. Definitely worth trying before routing IMO
I’ve tried hotter in the strat style (up to Tone Zone S) and feel its diminishing returns beyond the Chopper for my tastes in the bridge. Single sized humbuckers sound a bit more narrow in extension, so by the time you’re getting hotter and losing more high end it can start to sound more congested and less open than if you’d just used a standard size humbucker.
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
I've liked the Chopper in a strat, not tried it in a tele but seems to work fine for Kotzen!
The odd thing in the Esquire is that the split sounds more like a Tele middle position and the parallel sounds more like a single coil, which is the opposite of what I was expecting. It gives something not totally unlike neck/middle/bridge on a Tele, but from just the bridge pickup.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
It keeps up pretty well with my Thinline Tele.
One thing to ignore is the "15k" or whatever readings. The little pickups have higher readings but for many of the reasons noted above tend to punch a bit below their weight compared to what you'd expect from a full size HB with the same reading.
I found DiMarzio's website quite useful in describing tones and good pickup pairings.
Do be aware that if you get the black painted rails, the paint will wear off almost immediately and discolour a white/cream pickup cover. I'd go chrome next time.
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https://cziltangbrone.bandcamp.com/album/machine-space-2