Tele kit pickups

JRgtar · July 25

Hi,

I appreciate this might be at the lower end of skill levels for this board, but hoping you can advise nevertheless.

I’m putting together a basic tele kit and - on first build - the pickups sound pretty feeble. Whilst I work on the body finishing, which my Dad is advising on despite being in poor health, I’m looking at whether it’s worth upgrading the electrics and pickups: this may be a guitar I retain for sentimental reasons so would like it to sound ok. I’ve seen a wired loom and pickups for £180 from Alegree, but any other budget recommendations for doing that? I play blues, but really just after a classic tele sound at low cost.

Also, is it worth me trying to convert from a top loader to a through-body style? Will I hear a great difference?

Finally, good value tuner recommendations?!

Advice on above welcome! Thanks

ICBM · July 25

JRgtar said:

I’ve seen a wired loom and pickups for £180 from Alegree, but any other budget recommendations for doing that? I play blues, but really just after a classic tele sound at low cost.

Look on Ebay for second hand Fender Mexican Tele pickups - they go very cheaply, in fact you can barely give them away… not because they’re no good, but because a lot of people take them out to replace with something more expensive and there’s no demand for them otherwise. Even the cheaper type with ceramic magnets on the bottom are actually OK, although the reissue type with alnico rod magnets are better. I’d be amazed if you have to pay more than £40 for a pair.

The switch, pots and jack make no difference to the tone really - pots maybe a tiny bit, but only slight, and possibly debatable.

JRgtar said:

Also, is it worth me trying to convert from a top loader to a through-body style? Will I hear a great difference?

No. It makes a difference to the feel when bending notes, but not noticeably to the sound.

Drilling the body for through stringing is much trickier than it looks, even with a proper drill press - the drill bit will wander slightly in the wood, and the ferrules may conflict with each other on the back. (Or at best just look obviously out of position.)

JRgtar said:

Finally, good value tuner recommendations?!

Vintage or modern type?

Either way the answer is probably Wilkinson. Gotoh are good too, but a bit more expensive.

BillDL · July 26

JRgtar said:

I appreciate this might be at the lower end of skill levels for this board, but hoping you can advise nevertheless.

Please don't ever put yourself down like that. Some people know loads about the technical side of guitar specifications and about building and modding them, but the vast majority of players have never set up their own guitar let alone changed electrical parts. Everybody that is quite knowledeable about this kind of thing had to learn from scratch, and they aren't going to turn up their nose or scoff at the apparent simplicity (to them) of questions like yours.

May I ask where you bought the kit, perhaps with a web link to it so we can see the components supplied. That would help us to assess what kind of quality the supplied pickups and electrics are likely to be so that we can suggest "better" pickups without breaking the bank. ICBM's suggestion of 2nd-hand Mexican Tele pickups is a good one that you would rarely go wrong with, but if you would prefer good affordable new ones there are some brands that are very good for the money.

I would normally suggest that before people run out and buy "better" pickups for the kit guitar they have just built or a new assembled guitar they have bought, they first experiment with the height of the pickups. Too close to the strings and it can muffle and damp them, and too far away can make them sound weak. Even a cheap pickup can sound OK or even good if you get the height just right. Some kits come with crap strings while others come with branded or unbranded good ones, and rubbishy strings can make a guitar sound worse than it should. Obviously testing out the pickups that came with the kit would mean assembling and stringing it, but if you did then decide they weren't good a pickup swap on a Tele is usually very easy and can sometimes be done by just slackening the strings until they are very loose, but otherwise it would just cost you another set of strings.

How good are you at soldering? Did the kit come with quick connectors for the electrical loom to save you from doing any soldering or, if you haven't already done so, will you have to solder all the connections yourself?

Do you or your Father have a simple electrical multimeter that can be set to measure DC Resistance in kilo ohms (kΩ)? Although the DC Resistance isn't a definite way of evaluating pickups for their "strength" of output, it would probably give you a very rough idea of whether the supplied pickups are particularly "weedy" compared with fairly standard Tele pickups. You just need to touch each probe to the bare wire end of each of the pickup wires.

paulnb57 · July 26

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/269637/fs-fender-tex-mex-telecaster-pickup-set#latest

Funkfingers · July 26

BillDL said:

JRgtar said:

I appreciate this might be at the lower end of skill levels for this board, but hoping you can advise nevertheless.

Please don't ever put yourself down like that. Some people know loads about the technical side of guitar specifications and about building and modding them but the vast majority of players have never set up their own guitar let alone changed electrical parts. Everybody that is quite knowledgeable about this kind of thing had to learn from scratch and they aren't going to turn up their nose or scoff at the apparent simplicity (to them) of questions like yours.

The only dumb question is an unasked question.

Despite appearances to the contrary, I do not answer questions to show off. I do it because thinking about guitar problems helps to exercise my few remaining brain cells.

Some of my replies are founded on past experience of similar repairs. Others are arrived at from first principles.

One of the disadvantages of experienced based advice is that it is possible to have seen too many variants of the same guitar design. For example, the pickup selector options on a PRS Custom have changed several times during the history of the model. It is necessary to ask with which era the control circuit complies.

SteveRobinson · July 26

ICBM said:

JRgtar said:

I’ve seen a wired loom and pickups for £180 from Alegree, but any other budget recommendations for doing that? I play blues, but really just after a classic tele sound at low cost.

Look on Ebay for second hand Fender Mexican Tele pickups - they go very cheaply, in fact you can barely give them away… not because they’re no good, but because a lot of people take them out to replace with something more expensive and there’s no demand for them otherwise. Even the cheaper type with ceramic magnets on the bottom are actually OK, although the reissue type with alnico rod magnets are better. I’d be amazed if you have to pay more than £40 for a pair.

A customer of mine who is in a "household name" band plays Mexican Telecasters with both types of pickup. He does okay.

Funkfingers · July 26

Dom Estos?

PeteC · July 26

In the "budget but very good" category I've had plenty of success with 'Alegree's budget stuff ( he also makes some rather excellent higher end pickups too ) and Tonerider pickups.

JRgtar · July 26

Thanks all, a lot to read and digest here, but some really useful thoughts. I will get back to all, but a few quick answers:
- It’s a Harley Benton tele kit.
- I’ve no soldering experience, but am keen to learn.
- @ICBM thanks for the top loader conversion opinion, really useful (I was thinking it looked easy, but you’ve set me straight).
- @BillDL useful pick-up thoughts, thanks. I guess I have a tele sound in mind, but you’re right: strings and general set-up not helping here.

I’ll feedback more on this project, and undoubtedly have more questions, many thanks!

Funkfingers · 2:09AM

Some of the advice posted so far - including mine - has been offered without detailed knowledge of the guitar kit under discussion.

It would help either to be told what brand the kit is or to see photographs of the relevant parts. e.g. The bridge - is it stamped like a vintage Fender or is it a modern, machine from solid, affair? It would also help to be shown either the machineheads or the holes drilled through the headstock to receive them.

Regarding the "pretty feeble" pickup output, the traditional single coil neck/Rhythm position pickup is certainly no fire-breathing monster. On the other hand, a good one, set up properly, can sound huge. (A professional quality amplifier helps.)

If the kit guitar has a larger than traditionally-sized neck pickup cavity, you could elect to install a more powerful unit. Strat, P90, Firebird and others are all worth considering. The downside is that your pickguard would need modifying to accept such a pickup.

BillDL · 2:50AM

Thanks for the answers to the questions @JRgtar. I still have the wiring harness and pickups that came with a Tele kit from another manufacturer. Somebody I know had bought the kit, screwed it together, and then abandoned the job. I finished the build for him but transplanted new electrics into it because I wanted to and had the parts rather than actually needing to. I would hazard a guess that the pickups and wiring harness on that other kit were very likely to have been made in the same factory as those used in the Harley Benton kit, or will be the same comparative quality. The wiring loom comprises quick connect wiring and the pickups are very generic ones with bar magnets rather than magnets as polepieces, and in general you will get a better sound overall by upgrading them, but you wouldn't have to spend a lot to get a noticeable improvement. The sound of pickups is obviously subjective, and I have a couple of guitars with very similar generic budget pickups that sound great.

If you know somebody that's handy with a soldering iron you could snip off a section of wire with the quick connectors from the supplied pickups and have them solder that short section to the wires of replacement pickups so you can still use the quick connectors and save you from soldering the wires tof the new pickups to the switch.

One thing. Have you applied a finish yet? I notice that the wood has been given a coat of sanding sealer ready for spray finishing. If you are going to dye or try and oil finish it, the sanding sealer coat would have to be sanded off completely back to wood or the finish will look patchy where the dye or oil can't soak in through the sealer layer.

[EDIT: Added for @Funkfingers]

https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_eguitar_kit_tstyle.htm

Body: Rengas (routed for single coil Tele pickups only)
Neck: C profile, Maple with unshaped paddle headstock, 2-way (double action) truss rod.
Fretboard: Amaranth, 22 frets, 305mm (12") radius, 648mm (25.5") scale, 42mm nut.

Bridge: Traditional style top-loading 3-barrel non-compensated saddles.

Electrics: Quick connect wiring harness, printed circuit switch, mini pots with push-on metal knobs (may be the thin round shaft type that's more or less one unit once fitted), budget bar magnet pickups, pickguard drilled for neck pickup mounting with screws and springs. Side mounted jack on metal plate. Body pre-drilled for the jack plate.

drofluf · 4:11AM

How did you find the build? I’ve got the Thinline version on order, but they keep pushing back the delivery date

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Tele kit pickups

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