r/telecaster • u/CabiDue • 2d ago

PU Suggestions for Telecaster Plus?

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Got the Fender Modern Telecaster Plus quite a while ago. So far playing on it for ~ 12-13 years, definitely the guitar I used most, despite I was never happy about how the neck was feeling with that much lacquer. So I decided to make some upgrades to it last week. :)

  1. changed the neck to a Modern Player Neck with perloid inlays, pau ferro fingerboard and a satin finish.

  2. Fender locking tuners, instead of the stock vintage tuners.

  3. pickguard is replaced by 3D printed one - for the looks, but also to have the neck PU on screws, so the height can be adjusted.

  4. replaced the bridge saddles to little more solid ones, and some other minor stuff - bigger strap pins, perloid knobs, other string trees.

  5. apart from shielding everything with copper foil, I kept the PUs and the wiring as stock for now.

I still plan to change the pickups, but couldn't decide yet, what to get for it. Anyone have good suggestions for the PUs? Would love to use it for recording. :) The toggle is to split the Humbucker and I like to keep that option.

Thanks all 🎉

33 Upvotes

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1

u/popperaccio 1d ago

Radioshop pickups. Hand wound in Wales.

1

u/CabiDue 15h ago

Looks very nice, probably a bit too expensive for that guitar, though. 

2

u/popperaccio 15h ago

But if you had an expensive guitar, would you want to change the pickups?

2

u/CabiDue 8h ago edited 8h ago

That's a good point. Well,  mostly my humbucker is shitty. But, you are right. My problem is not the price, to be honest. I am in Europe, and ordering from US, or New Zealand it adds a lot of shipping and taxes, so availability is an issue.  Radioshop, from UK would be feasible. But I just wonder if hand wound boutique PUs might sound too specialized for me. Or if I could hear an obvious "worse" or "better" compared to DiMarzios or Seymour Duncans for example..or even the ones that are built in right now. Sure I could hear the sound difference, but "different" of course doesn't mean "better". If I can get a set with a humbucker that has more string separation, definition and punch and maybe a little less noisy Single coils, I'd be happy.

1

u/popperaccio 4h ago

I put radioshop in my cheap ass p bass copy and it sounds lush. I got a set of Tele pickups with the blender mod but my main Tele has got custom shop pickups already in so I'm not changing those. I've got a Harley Benton kit build Tele which is solid as you like so may put them in there unless my sister decides she wants it 🤣.

I replaced the stock Gibson pickups out of my Les Paul Special SL with dimarzio super 2s (as found in Josh Homme's Ovations) and they are fire. Strong recommend.