New Tele Day - sort of!

unix-guy

unix-guy

Master of RTFM
So between a few threads here and The Gear Forum, my Tele GAS was triggered intensely.

Since I had recently seen a Musikraft Strat body on Reverb I decided to check their website. Last time I checked you couldn't even buy bodies only necks.

I checked their in-stock and found this beauty on sale for a great price, so I decided to buy it and order a custom neck. It's a 2-piece mahogany body with a Camphor burl top:

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The neck will be a 22-fret roasted maple 1 piece with a "beak" headstock, 12-16" compound radius with stainless steel medium jumbo frets.

Starting to gather the other required parts... 4-6 weeks lead time on the neck, so I have time.
 
Ok, folks... I need some pickup recommendations.

I'm not really versed in Telecasters and don't know if I want more "traditional" Tele tones or something more modern.

Let me know what I should be looking at!

Will a Strat single coil pickup fit or are Tele neck pickups different size?
 
unix-guy said:
Ok, folks... I need some pickup recommendations.

I'm not really versed in Telecasters and don't know if I want more "traditional" Tele tones or something more modern.

Let me know what I should be looking at!

Will a Strat single coil pickup fit or are Tele neck pickups different size?
Click to expand...
They're different.

Paging @Joe Bfstplk :) I'm pretty certain he's done various tele pickup arrangements, not beholden to tradition.
 
The Fralin Split Blade and Split Steel Pole are fantastic and hum free. My favorite of the bridge pickups is probably the Split Steel Pole 5% underwound. Pairs well with their Split Blade Tele neck pickup, Vintage strength....
 
Have bought a couple of necks from them. They offer options you can't get at Warmoth, like rounded edges, graphite neck support rods, and truss rod adjust at the nut on 7 1/4" radius necks.
 
The best set of Tele pickups I've played is the BKP Flat '50s. They've got enough power to sound big and clear, aren't too thin sounding nor too bright, and just sound like what I expect a Tele to sound like (think Bruce Springsteen, Brad Paisley, Keith Richards, etc.). My tastes run to those types of sounds more than the brighter, thinner sounds of the '70s and more vintage than modern.

The second best set was the Lollar Vintage T. Great sounding set, just missed a little low-mid growl. They were very "polite" pickups, for lack of a better word, but still powerful.

A couple of sets I'd like to try someday are Amber Pickups Twangtone 50 and the Kloppmann BC49 or TL50.
 
iaresee said:
With a mahogany body, I'd build it out more humbucker focused than single coil. So those Fralin blades would be a good call.
Click to expand...
Except they aren't humbucker as far I know. They are "split coil", which I believe uses a different coil for the top 3 and bottom 3 strings.

@Joe Bfstplk - are they humbucker?

I was originally looking at the Anderson TM humbucker but it requires a short/chopped bridge and finding those with a 4 screw mount looks almost impossible if I want a 6 saddle bridge, which I'd prefer (I know I could drill more holes but hoping to avoid that).

Duncan makes a "vintage stack" and they also have the Little 59 in Tele bridge format.
 
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