Did I choose the wrong pickups?

[deflectioneer]

Hi, everyone.

A few months ago I ordered the Piledrivers for my Tele. I am now beginning to wonder if I perhaps made the wrong choice, but I am also wondering if perhaps the pickups were just poorly installed.

The pickups my Tele had were the standard pickups that come with the Fender Telecaster American Standard. I had, like many others, heard amazing things about BKP, but the first time I gave them a try after the installation, I was somewhat puzzled. Here is what I immediately noticed:

• The bass is much more present, and much more impressively tracked than what the standard pickups were able to produce.
• The pickups are more quiet and produce less noise.
• They handle high gain much better.

However, I was shocked to immediately hear that I had lost an enormous amount of mid range. While my previous pickups produced a gnarly growl in lower tunings, this seemed to have disappeared completely, and what I was left with was a bridge pickup that tracked well, but sounded quite flat. I've tried to get accustomed to this, but it's starting to become increasingly noticeable in my ears, and I'm starting to wonder if I made the wrong choice.

Perhaps it's just deliberate disbelief on my part, as I ordered these across seas, which ended up costing me Ģ260, but I am also questioning whether or not they were properly installed. The guitar mechanic seemed stressed the day I delivered it, and it didn't seem like he had taken small details like pickup height into consideration. I also ordered RW/RP, but the middle setting is far, far from noiseless. It seemed like a half-finished job.

Which brings me to posting here. Is the Piledriver supposed to sound like this? Is there supposed to be a tremendous removal of midrange in contrast to the standard Tele pickups? Could this be related to the pots or the pickup height?

UPDATE: https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=33026.0

[Dave Sloven]

What value are the pots?  Teles generally come with 250K pots but I would actually recommend 500K for high-output single coils.

If you want to see if this might improve things, just connect the bridge pickup directly to the output jack and see if that improves things.  If it does this would indicate that the value on your current pots is too low.

[deflectioneer]

What value are the pots?  Teles generally come with 250K pots but I would actually recommend 500K for high-output single coils.

If you want to see if this might improve things, just connect the bridge pickup directly to the output jack and see if that improves things.  If it does this would indicate that the value on your current pots is too low.

Is there any way to check the value of the pots without being overly tech-savy? And if the value is too low, would that significantly affect the midrange?

[Kiichi]

The value is on the back of the pots, so if itīs not covered by solder you can just look. Otherwise a multimeter is easily used to determine it should you happen to have one you can get.

Lower pot value dulls down the pickup. Increasing it gives you more of the high end and generally more of a gnarl and such with it. You know how when you roll down the volume you also smooth out the sound of the pickup, even on clean settings? Itīs similar to that.

Also if the mid position is indeed noisy that suggests an error in the wiring. Would not be the first story of a tech doing bad work you find around here.

[gwEm]

What value are the pots?  Teles generally come with 250K pots but I would actually recommend 500K for high-output single coils.

If you want to see if this might improve things, just connect the bridge pickup directly to the output jack and see if that improves things.  If it does this would indicate that the value on your current pots is too low.

thats a good way to go.

my stratele has a 1Meg pot even

[deflectioneer]

This is the current situation:

Any professional diagnostics?

[Dave Sloven]

I've looked at the photos and I am having a hard time picking out anything that looks like a resistance value.  Sometimes they have it written on the side of the pot.  Look for something with a K

Fenders usually use 250K pots.  If the pots have not been changed, that's what they would be.

You will need to get the same shaft type if you replace the pots.  Fenders usually have a solid shaft with the knob held on by a set screw.  If the knobs push on Gibson style then it would use split shafts.

[Tim]

The resonant peak of Piledrivers is much lower than a standard output Tele coil hence why you will have more bottom end response and less emphasis of highs and upper mids. By comparison a standard output Tele coil will reproduce much less bass and therefore the focus will be on mids and highs.
As some of the team on the forum have already suggested, checking pot value would be a good starting point and if you've got 250K pots fitted as standard then swapping out for a higher value will reduce the load on the coils and open out the mids and highs. 300K would be a good starting point or if the tone is really dark moving to 500K or even 550K would do the job.

[Dave Sloven]

I wired a SD Quarter Pound in a friend's Tele straight to the jack and that worked well. Given that the characteristics of the Piledriver I suspect that a 500K pot will do a very nice job.

My Stockholm P-90 has 500K pots paired with a 0.033uf capacitor, and I like that combination a lot.  No shortage of mids.