Piledriver bridge with yardbird neck – awesome

[axg20202]

The title speaks for itself. I originally had a full Yardbird set in my US tele. I absolutely love the Yardbird neck pickup. The bridge pickup, while great and a huge improvement over stock, wasn’t quite the tone I was looking for. However, it stayed that way for quite some months because these pickups are more than fine for my purposes and I couldn’t justify the expense of another pickup change. Well, I finally bit the bullet and treated myself to a Piledriver bridge pickup just to satisfy my curiosity. This combined with the Yardbird neck is exactly what I wanted – much more to my taste. I’ll try to post a clip if I manage to get around to it. If anyone wants to make me an offer for the Yardbird bridge pickup, go ahead, otherwise I’ll be putting it on e-bay before I succumb to the temptation to buy another tele for it to go in!

Cheers,

Andy.

[gwEm]

glad you enjoy it! :)

do you think you could describe some of the piledriver tone in words for us?

[axg20202]

do you think you could describe some of the piledriver tone in words for us?

Well, going from stock pickups to the Yardbird set transformed the guitar, instantly improving the tone and adding testicles – clear, articulate ones – while moving on to the Piledriver bridge added several more pairs :-)

Tone is difficult to put into words but I’ll try. The official product desciption is accurate I think. The tone is well-rounded and meaty, with loads of power available, but rolling off the volume tames the beast. I have never played a guitar that responded so well to use of the volume control and it’s down to this bridge pickup. Very versatile. One thing that is definitely true for this pickup is that power does not mean wooly, muffled tone or blatty harshness, and it’s certainly not noisy either. It’s as clear, rounded and articulate as you could want despite the power, so well-executed licks shine through, but then so do mistakes! This pickup definitely doesn’t hide a multitude of sins. That’s the way I like it because the guitar absolutely sings but doesn’t allow me to get away with sloppy playing. I actually felt this was true of the Yardbird bridge too – they both have the potential to encourage me to be a better player in this way.

The middle position with Yardbird neck and Piledriver bridge is fantastic – you get the woody, rich tone of the Yardbird neck (I can’t begin to say what a huge contrast this pickup is compared with the stock junk from Fender) plus the meaty chunk and cut of the Piledriver bridge. Throwing this middle position combination through my Barber Silver LTD and on into my germanium fuzz or tonebender clones is just out of this world. Using my tele’s 4-position switch, the fourth postion placing the two in series is a monster. I had to dial in a slightly different gain structure through my pedals and amp, but when I did….oh boy! I think I still need to tweak the pickup heights to their optimum positions but I’m loving the pickups so far.

Each to their own, YMMV, etc etc. but I will never need another set of pickups in this axe.

[gwEm]

thanks for the description! they sound very tasty indeed :)

[Tellboy]

Did you change to 500k pots? I believe Tim recommends 250k for all the other Tele range and 500k for the Piledriver - obviously you can't have both with the basic tele controls.

[axg20202]

Nope - I haven't changed the pots. Don't plan to either as I'm happy with things the way they are. Wouldn't changing to 500k pots make the bridge brighter vs 250k?

[Tellboy]

Nope - I haven't changed the pots. Don't plan to either as I'm happy with things the way they are. Wouldn't changing to 500k pots make the bridge brighter vs 250k?

Yes - but as the Piledriver is in effect operating in humbucker territory I think 500k pots are usually recommended with it. If you are happy with the sound then no problem. I have installed a Piledriver bridge in my Tele and left the Boss neck pickup in place - I was much happier with the Piledriver when I changed to a 500k pot. Although theoretically this is not the ideal pot for the Boss neck pickup it suited me as (a) I don't use the neck pickup as much as the bridge and (b) I tend to find neck pickups are not bright enough. (I actually prefered the 500k pot with the neck pup)

[axg20202]

Ah, OK thanks. Perhaps I'll give it a try the next time my soldering iron is hot.

Cheers,

Andy.

[HTH AMPS]

use a 500k pot and wire a 500k resistor from the neck pickup 'hot' lead to ground - this will effectively give you a 250k pot when the neck pickup is selected but still have the 500k for the bridge.

 :twisted: