Neck Pickup for Fender Telecaster

[KirkP]

I adore the stock tele neck pup tone, it is perfect for everything. I must admit that some gig locations cause some loud buzz that's hard to tame. I have a friend that had a deluxe copper foil shielding job done on his tele, and it is as quiet as a humbucker. I'd almost opt for that, than swap out that gorgeous sounding neck pup.

Single coil buzzes drive me nuts. One of my favorite features of a Tele is the handy knurled knob to allow the buzz to be killed with quick brush of the hand.

There are usually two orientations of the pickup where the buzz can be nulled out. In high noise environments I’ll try to find one of them and rotate my playing position as required to keep it there. Unfortunately, sometimes that sweet spot forces me to rotate 90 degrees from where I’d like to face or involves tipping the guitar forward or backward a little. Tipping forward is especially awkward. By rotating 180 degrees that than be converted to a backward tip, but that’s not practical if it puts my back to the audience.

In most environments these measures work pretty well to tame the single coil buzz. Unfortunately my main jamming parter has a high voltage power line overhead that’s so noisy that I must use these measures even with humbuckers. If I hold a single coil guitar at one of the two nulling directions I can kill the buzz, but the sweet spot is so narrow I can’t keep it there while playing, so I’ve given up on bringing single coils there.

[takauya]

I'm not a fan of Telecasters for jazz, but Bill Frisell is the only exception and he sounds always the same (to me) no matter what kind of pickup is on his tele. lol

[Headshot]

Almost finished with a jazz Tele build...but wondering if I should mount the neck pickup direct to the body, or mount to the pickguard. Is there really any difference?

[Cunamara]

Is there a difference? I believe so. Do I have proof? No.

But I believe that mounting the pickup directly to the wood of the guitar sounds different than mounting it indirectly (e.g., to a pickguard). You might like one sound better than another.

Think of an archtop- set in, neck-mounted or pick guard mounted. They obviously sound different. The more the pickup is removed from the vibrating wood body of the guitar, the lighter/brighter it sounds. That might be just what you're looking for- a body mounted pickup may be muddy and hard to hear in some instances and a floater might cut through the mix nicely. Think of a Tele pickup, screwed into the body, versus a Strat with a pick guard mounted pickup.

The problem there is there are some many confounds: pickup designs are different, bridge designs are different, a Strat often has springs in the tremolo, etc. Even the parallel slab the Tele body versus the non-parallel faces of the Strat effect tone. I think even mounting with rubber tubing versus metal springs will make a difference.

But I could be full of ****, too.

[mad dog]

No proof here either, but the teles that sound best to me all have neck p/us hard mounted to the body. Could be just a coincidence of course.

MD

[Herbie]

The main difference in the sound is this: if You think that the sound is weak and You should lift the pu, with the body mounted pu You have to take the pickguard away before You can adjust the pu. And then screw the pickguard screws back.

If the pu is mounted in the pickguard You just turn two screws and the job is done.

There might be some other differences too.

[Jehu]

I think any difference is dealt with in slight tweaks of height; convenience doesn't matter, it's easy either way.

For mine, I went with a body-mount to avoid more screws in the pickguard. It looks cooler with less screws.

[Headshot]

Thanks guys, I will probably body mount it...the neck pickup is a noiseless and sounded incredible in a cheap Tele that I took it from.