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Just put together my first Telecaster and have a few questions for you learned folks. Most of my questions really centre around what the accepted "quintessential vintage Tele" configuration is so apologies these are dull, pedestrian questions. Anyway...

1. Are the bridge and neck pickup usually quite unbalanced i.e. bridge bright and neck a bit muddy?
2. What's the classic pot and capacitor value? I have 250k pots and a 0.47 cap at the moment.
3. Is it both pickups that should have a metal plate on the bottom or just the bridge?
4. My 3 saddle bridge also has some buzzing going on. Anyone have any ideas what it might be?
5. What's the standard pickup output? Is it around 7.2k like I keep reading? Is a hotter bridge pickup usually favoured?

Cheers

Well, a lot of that stuff is personal preference.

Usually you want your bridge pickup hotter than the neck, because the neck pickup is uh, more efficient, or something. You're going to want to play with pickup height to balance the volumes as much as you can.

I know 250k is standard for pots, the cap Im not sure. Most pickups dont have a metal plate on the bottom, as far as Ive seen, but I know the plate on a tele bridge pickup is something tele guys GAS FOR.

as far as the buzzing goes, it could be any component that moves but my first guess owuld be the height adjustment screws on the saddles, although there shoudl be about ten thousand pounds of pressure on each one, that usually gets them settled in pretty well...

Ahh nice one. I've read on TDPRI that the metal plate gives the bridge pickup a little extra bass response or something but don't really know the logic behind it, nor do I really trust the opinions on there 100% of the time. I'm going for new pickups soon so I'll bear it in mind. Think my saddle screws will be needing a "Fran Vaseline" then, it looks like it might be the case or the springs maybe.

1. Yes and no. The neck shouldn't be muddy, but it should sound warmer than the bridge pup. What brand of pickups are you using?
2. Yeah that's fine
3. Just the bridge
4. Adjust the grub screws with an allen key until the buzzing stops
5. That's DC resistance. Output would be measured in millivolts, I guess. Hotter pickups generally have more winds of wire around a magnetic core (either magnetised poles or a bar magnet) to generate a higher output, therefore they have a higher resistance. You can get some shit sounding humbuckers that push 20k. 7k for a tele pup sounds fine to me.

pickups are standard MIM tele pups. to be honest, i got the body in a trade, and only played it a few times with the action jacked way up, so didn't spend too much time with it.

i'd love to see pics with the 3 saddle bridge. GREAT NEWS!!!

Regarding output: a lot of tele players prefer lower output pickups if you're going to a super twangy sound. If you want a hotter "more modern" sounding tele, hotter pickups are your way to go. The RIs have low output and the Highway 1 has pretty high output for stock teles.

A MIM will usually be between the two. Also, if your talking about MIM at some point they switch from Alnico to ceramic and that will effect the sound/standard output for your tele.

I can't really tell what material the magnets are but they look metal enough, can't really identify the year of the body either. The MIM pickups in it are nice but a little unbalanced - the bridge doesn't have a plate on the bottom if that would make a difference. I'd planned to change them anyway. Thanks for the input guys, and Rod, I'll stick some photos up tomorrow after I've had a look at those saddle screws properly. Very chuffed with it so far though.

i was pretty sure it's a 2002, but may be earlier. i can get the serial off of the neck if you'd like?

pre-2006 is alnico. If it were ceramic you would giant bars underneath the pickups.


Chances are the body is poplar but it could be alder. I know I had a 2002 MIM Jazz bass and it was alder with a maple top. So, to be honest, I don't really have any clue what was going on as far as wood goes for the early to mid 2000s

1. Are the bridge and neck pickup usually quite unbalanced i.e. bridge bright and neck a bit muddy?

Until adjusted yes. Of course, this also depends on the pickups/the amount of black shit around them.

2. What's the classic pot and capacitor value? I have 250k pots and a 0.47 cap at the moment.

250k is normal.

3. Is it both pickups that should have a metal plate on the bottom or just the bridge?

Nope. Usually only the bridge if anything. MOJO ARROWS.

4. My 3 saddle bridge also has some buzzing going on. Anyone have any ideas what it might be?

Height screws. May need neck shim to compensate.

5. What's the standard pickup output? Is it around 7.2k like I keep reading? Is a hotter bridge pickup usually favoured?

No clue, but hot bridge is more for modern sounds. Twang = less hot.

If anything the bridge saddles are buzzing because they're too high I think. I currently have a whopping Strat neck on it that's concaved and needs a new truss rod nut so they're nearly as high as I can get them. I vaselined them and they sound a bit better.

I think I need to sort the truss out...

Here are some pics for those interested...



This angle doesn't really capture the height of the saddles but check out how the official mojo Fender bridge plate doesn't completely cover the pickup route!

that bridge plate thing is not uncommon, its noticeable on about 1/3 to almost half of all teles ever produced.

Ahh that's reassuring. It's no big deal, I imagine it'll build up a bit of dust after a few years. I'm still a bit drunk this morning and so have just bought some English made Cat's Whisker pickups last minute on ebay as an impulse buy. I hope they're good.

Meant to be lovely - I believe timhulio has them in his tele.

Yeah, they're ace! Got the vintage med/low output tele bridge pup (can't remember what Catswhisker called it) and the minihumbucker in the neck position.

The Catswhisker chap also repaired (partial rewind) one of the Simeto pickups in my Musima Elgita, which is some pretty obscure shit, for only £20.

Eeeeexcellent. I got a set of what I imagine are the vintage ones (judging by the pictures) for £30. It was in the last ten minutes I saw them so couldn't ask the output but I'll have a check with the multimeter.

So, the Catwhisker bridge pickup doesn't fit inside bridge rout properly meaning at some point I'll have to open it up a bit.

In the meantime I've put the neck pickup in and it sounds alright, except in the middle position the sound is a lot quiter and really nasally. Does that meant they are out of phase or something? I don't really know how this sort of thing works.

Sounds like they are out of phase to me, yes.
I'm unfortunately not the guy to tell you how to sort it though

I googled it and you just switch the ground and hot wires around. Bingo! Except I hadn't swapped the ground on the pickup cover so it was giving off an ungodly buzz. Instead of sorting that out I just took it off completely and now have a nice Strat-like neck pickup. Very happy, however the polepieces are buzzy to the touch - I have no idea why.

I'm actually planning on dremelling the top off and reattaching it, like this guy...

(Picture not linking correctly)