a little help with tele pickup choice!

[will4009]

hello guys

i am a bit new to the whole customising a guitar and i have decided to build my own out of parts that i have sourced, and now comes the tricky bit.  i cant decide which tele pickups to go for. i like to play blues and classic rock mainly and i want my guitar to sound as good as possible, and as i have herd a lot of good things about bare knuckle i thought i would post here!

i would be greatful for any help, as i am a total pickup novice.

thanks
Will

[38thBeatle]

I am guessing that you are looking for the classic Tele tone by which I mean ( but it might not be what you are after) is 1950's 1960's ish. If so then you should be looking at the Blackguards or Country Boys. I only have experience of the latter but there are some well informed guys here who have described Blackguards in such a way that makes me want a set. I am sure you'll also get a suggestion about Yardbirds but by questioning and answering you'll hone in on a particular model.
Welcome to the forum by the way.

[AndyR]

I heartily concur with Mr 38th :D

I suspect I'm one of the "well informed guys" on Blackguards - many thanks, I just like them, and tend to theorise a lot about why I like things!! :lol:

At work now, so haven't got time to go searching too far, but here's a couple of recent threads we've had about tele pups, which I guess might have some of the thoughts you want to hear...

http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=19323.0

http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=19289.0

[will4009]

thanks for the info. i really like the look of the blackguards, but whats the difference between the 55 stagger and the flat 50? sorry if its a silly question, thanks again.

Will

[Elliot]

The 50 bridge has more omph and less jangle - more rock less country, or at least hot country.  If you are a novice and play blues and classic rock I would either get a Brown Sugar set or the Flat Pole 50 - although you might find the neck to the FP 50 to be a bit subtle (personally I love it, its instant Curtis Mayfield/Little Wing type tone)

[Philly Q]

If you are a novice and play blues and classic rock I would either get a Brown Sugar set or the Flat Pole 50 - although you might find the neck to the FP 50 to be a bit subtle (personally I love it, its instant Curtis Mayfield/Little Wing type tone)

I keep hijacking people's Tele threads to ask about neck pickups, so apologies - but it does seem to be an extraordinarily grey area!  All those ancient BKP product descriptions focus almost entirely on the bridge models of calibrated sets (single-coils and humbuckers).

It's been said that the BG50 neck is "Stratty", and I've gathered it's not as bright as the Yardbird neck, but I still have no clue how it compares with other neck models.  What's the Brown Sugar neck like?

[AndyR]

If you are a novice and play blues and classic rock I would either get a Brown Sugar set or the Flat Pole 50 - although you might find the neck to the FP 50 to be a bit subtle (personally I love it, its instant Curtis Mayfield/Little Wing type tone)

I keep hijacking people's Tele threads to ask about neck pickups, so apologies - but it does seem to be an extraordinarily grey area!  All those ancient BKP product descriptions focus almost entirely on the bridge models of calibrated sets (single-coils and humbuckers).

It's been said that the BG50 neck is "Stratty", and I've gathered it's not as bright as the Yardbird neck, but I still have no clue how it compares with other neck models.  What's the Brown Sugar neck like?

:lol:

I reckon the time has come for you to email/phone Tim... "not buyin anything at the moment Tim, but I'm just trying to get my head round these 'ere neck pickups - them losers on the board ain't no help no how..."

Oh yeah, and post the answers - we all want to know as well :D

[Jazz Rock]

I don't think it has been mentioned yet, but I should be able to give a bit of advice on the Boss set some time soon... :)

Andy, 38th, I see you are the Tele gurus of the forum. Thanks again for your advice.

Will, if you want to take advantage of my very recent research for a tele pup set, just dive into the clip section and do search on the different pup mentioned so far. There is a gold mine tele sound and it helped me find out a bit more about what type of tele sound I was really after.

[Philly Q]

I reckon the time has come for you to email/phone Tim... "not buyin anything at the moment Tim, but I'm just trying to get my head round these 'ere neck pickups - them losers on the board ain't no help no how..."

Oh yeah, and post the answers - we all want to know as well :D

Do you really think I'd survive that phone call without buying anything?  :lol:

[gwEm]

If you are a novice and play blues and classic rock I would either get a Brown Sugar set or the Flat Pole 50

wise wise words.

if you play harder classic rock to pure hard rock, look at The Boss

[BigB]

if you play harder classic rock to pure hard rock, look at The Boss

Hu ??? Don't know s... about tele pups yet (but I should learn really soon now - there's this lovely B&W japanese custom '62 RI that had my name on it and that's on the way home - more on this tomorrow...), but I would have thought of piledrivers for harder rock ?

[gwEm]

if you play harder classic rock to pure hard rock, look at The Boss

Hu ??? Don't know s... about tele pups yet (but I should learn really soon now - there's this lovely B&W japanese custom '62 RI that had my name on it and that's on the way home - more on this tomorrow...), but I would have thought of piledrivers for harder rock ?

it depends on the tone you want :)

[tomjackson]

BG's best suited to blues and Rock'n'Roll.  They will cover classic Rock with the right amp but if that's you bias I'd perhaps opt for a neck HB and something with a bit more grind/chunk in the bridge.

I find my BG bridge great but not an instant classic rock pickup (to it's credit), but with the right amp cranked it can rock.

The neck is as Elliot said, it has stratty spank and is great for hendrixy chordal embelishments to almost SRV soloing....

Don't forget that the bridge itself can have almost as much impact on the tone as the pickup itself so choose a good one....

[Ratrod]

If I wanna do classic (hard) rock with my BG I just give the tone knob a quarter turn. Fattens it up nicely, almost P90-ish. Never had a pickup that responded so well to a tone knob.