Author Topic: Pickups, help (Read 5616 times)

PhilKing · « **Reply #15 on:** December 14, 2007, 07:20:38 PM »

I have the Piledriver with a Slowhand strat neck in one tele, Brown Sugar with an old Silvertone PAF mini-humbucker in another and the 55 Flatpole Black Guard set in another. I've also tried the Yardbirds, Boss and Country Boy sets. For what you are looking for, I would get the Flatpole Black Goard set. The neck is a little fatter sound than the regular tele neck (more like a strat), and the bridge is like a nice 50's tele sound. The Brown Sugar bridge nails the Keith Richards tone, so this might not be what you want (though I like it). The Boss set is very Roy Buchananish so gives nice clear drive. The Country Boys have the typical tele tone that people think of. I don't have a set of Yardbirds because they sound just like my 62 tele's original pickups (which is actually a great compliment, as I think they have a superb tone).

Which leaves the Piledriver. I have been playing this a lot because the tone is great when you drive it. I think it really works with the Slowhand neck, but then again I don't have many teles with the original neck pickups! I can get everything from Since I've Been Loving You to SRV's Tin Pan Alley from them. Since I've never tried a set of Fender Texas Tele pickups, I can't say in what way these are different, other than to say that you can clean them up by backing off the volume without losing any tone (I am using the 50's switching with neck, bridge and bridge with treble rolloff, and deluxe vintage capacitors).

lulusg · « **Reply #16 on:** December 14, 2007, 08:01:53 PM »

Sorry no MP3 yet. The alder body, and rosewood neck were a change in the equation of what the Blackguards were original set in( swamp ash, and maple......I think??.. ). Their tone is more early Page than Buchanan, they don't have the Tele spank, and they are not too strat either, very very hard to describe Roho, it has a four way switch, and .015 jensen caps, the electronics is all Rs Guitarworks. By the way it was Phil " is good to be the " King, who turned my attention to the Blackguards. Cheers!

Roho · « **Reply #17 on:** December 14, 2007, 08:13:35 PM »

That's funny, because I was going to buy Fender's Nocaster pickups which when I read the Black Guards, it's like reading about the Nocasters. Thanks, PhilKing.

Also, I would like to stay around the same DC as the Texas Specials or lower, not more. Texas Specials are bridge 10.5k and neck 9.5k The Nocasters are bridge 7.72k and neck 7.9k. The Black Guards don't have this information.

Roho · « **Reply #18 on:** December 14, 2007, 08:39:33 PM »

To have the pickup cover engraved, is that extra $ ?

machine_of_god · « **Reply #19 on:** December 14, 2007, 09:26:06 PM »

Yep :)

lulusg · « **Reply #20 on:** December 15, 2007, 04:30:27 PM »

Black Guards show 5k on the neck & 7k on the bridge.

Stefanio · « **Reply #21 on:** December 16, 2007, 02:24:10 PM »

You could just put The Mule in the Neck position and find some good tele pickup who fits you in the bridge

well then you have to modify the pickguard and the guitarbody for the humbucker to fit

38thBeatle · « **Reply #22 on:** December 16, 2007, 02:34:36 PM »

I can only recount personal experience of Country Boys- great early classic Tele tone.They certainly crank it out when required but as I have not tried all the others, my input is not of a lot of help. If you check back through the players section there are some clips of my guitar that Steve did. There is also one I posted some while back.