Custom Telecaster Project - Part 3
The Pickups:
Like putting a souped up engine in a hot rod, it was time for the adding some extra heart and soul to the custom Fender Telecaster. I was looking for a fat rich buttery blues tone. But I also wanted responsive pickups. I wanted to interact with the guitar and amp.
Kevin from smitspickups.com wound a set of pickups for me. You tell Kevin the tone you are looking for, he dials them in. We settled on Alnico 5 magnets for a powerful signal, his standard bridge pickup, and a mildly hot “Hawkeye” Telecaster neck pickup. Of course, wound in different directions to cancel hum in the mid position. Then Kevin said “I could leave them unpotted”. I couldn’t wait to see how they would sound. I wasn’t too worried about feedback with the moderate volumes I play.
The pickups sounded so good, and so “Tele” I wanted to match them up with a classic Fender blues amp. Finding a Limited Edition Blues Jr with a Celestion speaker, the pair delivered more than I expected. The Blues Jr. is very expressive, changing tone as the attack and volume changes. The pickups blew me away. All three positions sound great. For the first time, the tone knob had a purpose on a guitar. With the neck pickup, it is bright. Rolling the tone knob off a bit lets me adjust how much bite I want. Even half way down it still sounds rich and full.
My favorite tone of all (so far) is the middle strings at the 12th fret with the bridge pickup. For this recording I rolled just a bit of treble off. Recorded with a Bluebird mic and no post processing. The recording sounds good, but didn’t quite capture all of the rich bass. The Blues Jr. was set to a reverb = 3, all other knobs at 6.
SHGP Telecaster bridge pickup, scatterwound, unpotted
The mid position is quite versatile. Here are some power chords with the mid position (both pickups)
SHGP Telecaster mid position
The neck pickup is rich and mellow. It also sounds great with a Boss Blues Driver pedal. Here is a sample of some clean tones around the 3rd to 5th fret.
SHGP Telecaster “Hawkeye” neck pickup, unpotted
The project was a great success. The guitar and amp combination is very expressive and very inspiring. I’ve just begun to explore all the quality tones it can generate. The custom handwound pickups really brought the rig to life. And, for me, leaving the pickups unpotted gave the guitar a personalized custom touch.
The scatter wound pickups sound great, of course. But the the responsiveness has to be played to be experienced. The richness of tone inspires “less is more” blues riffs. No need to jam a lot of notes in. This guitar wants to be played.
Maybe the next guitar will be a Strat…………..
- the MuseTags: TeleProject
