Tele Neck Humbucker.

[jeffstritt]

So I have decided to put a neck humbucker on my Tele. Do any of you guys have a favorite tele neck humbucker for jazz? It will be paired with a Lindy Fralin vintage Tele bridge pickup.

I play a lot of country and rock gigs too, but on those I primarily just use the bridge pickup. I will not coil spilt so I don't really care about if they can be coil tapped, or how they sound coil tapped.

Right now I am considering a Duncan '59, or Seth Lover model. Whatever I go with, it can't be too high output, because it should balance well with the Fralin pickup in the bridge which is pretty moderate output wise.

Thanks guys.

[helios]

Originally Posted by jeffstritt

So I have decided to put a neck humbucker on my Tele. Do any of you guys have a favorite tele neck humbucker for jazz? It will be paired with a Lindy Fralin vintage Tele bridge pickup.

I play a lot of country and rock gigs too, but on those I primarily just use the bridge pickup. I will not coil spilt so I don't really care about if they can be coil tapped, or how they sound coil tapped.

Right now I am considering a Duncan '59, or Seth Lover model. Whatever I go with, it can't be too high output, because it should balance well with the Fralin pickup in the bridge which is pretty moderate output wise.

Thanks guys.

Hello,
I don't have a favorite Tele humbucker, but I did get to compare a Duncan Seth Lover to a Lindy Fralin Unbucker (unsplit in a Hamer Newport), and felt the Fralin sounded better. Any winding/output can be orderd from Lindy. This is not to say that the Duncan Seth Lover's are bad pickups (I moved those into my Warmoth L5S "Parts-O-Caster"). Best Wishes

[Flat]

I'm about to do the same thing to my Tele, Jeff, so I'll be curious what people say.

I'm leaning toward the Duncan Seth Lover, but I'm also thinking of a Duncan mini-humbucker (though I don't like how conspicuous the "S" logo is on the Duncan mini. But that's a minor cosmetic concern).

I had a mini-humbucker from an old Firebird years ago that I put in a Hofner Strat-copy and always liked the sound (though I long since sold the guitar).

I've heard excellent things about Lindy Fralins and Lollars too though...

[SamBooka]

I put an early 70s gibson in my 74 Tele.
Changed the volume pot to 1meg so it wouldnt be too muddy.
With the 1M pot the bridge pickup it much brighter (too bright actually)
I was thinking of putting an un-bright switch in since I already have a minitoggle mounted on the control plate. Wanted to see what would happen if I wired a 1M resistor in parallel with the 1M pot. That way I would be switching the pot from 1M to 500K. The taper would be screwed up but by how much I dont know.

EDIT: PS: While the bridge pickup sounds too bright right now the bridge and neck pickups together sound pretty good. I was a little surprised.

[mongrel]

I had a Carvin H2 Holdsworth in my Peavey tele clone for awhile. This is an inexpensive PAF-like bucker with alnico 5 magnets around 8k. Very sweet singer that dirties nicely with moderate output. I replaced it with an underwound VV HCC to get into a certain Frisell territory which it did nicely. The Carvin is ultra adjustable with 22 pole piece screws but you have to be able to live with the uncovered look.

[jbear]

I'm a huge SD 59 fan (preferring the older type with two sets of screws). I would like to try Holdsworth's though...either the Carvin or the Duncan (no longer made...I think).

[Russ Kapp]

I know you may be sold on the HB sound in a tele, but I have a tele I use for jazz with a LF P-92 that SINGS and SWINGS !

[derek]

My Nash came with a Lollar Imperial that I like just fine. My default neck pup for jazz is always a Gibby Classic 57. Duncan SL, and Fralin UB are also very nice. Tough to find a bad pup these days, unless it is a cheap, stock one.