Candy Apple Red Thinline Tele

[Verne Bunsen]

Turn it fully clockwise until the position indicator points at "11".

But then you can't hear the built-in reverb that comes with your guitar.  Better put another pickup in the trem cavity and wire it into your output jack, just in case.

Or, you can just do what I did:

I'm sure that would help with the spring noise, but I don't think I'd enjoy the string gauge required to float the trem under those conditions....  :laughing7:

 

[macegtr]

Wow, that tone of red really stands out. Great pictures and guitar  :icon_thumright:

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Wow, that tone of red really stands out. Great pictures and guitar  :icon_thumright:

Thank you! I've had a few Warmoth bodies and necks pass through my hands and the finishes have all been impeccable, but I have to say that this Candy Apple Red is in another league. I'm just so pleased and impressed with it. They do good work!

 

[Slackjaw]

I'm sure that would help with the spring noise, but I don't think I'd enjoy the string gauge required to float the trem under those conditions....  :laughing7:

I was actually referring to *accentuating* the spring noise by cutting the pickup route through to the trem cavity...  :icon_thumright:

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Ah! Now I see! I confess, I didn't catch that initially... Was that for pickup clearance? Or a place to hide your stash?

 

[Verne Bunsen]

I spent some time with the DAW and the soldering iron today, and I have some things to share! Initially I wired this guitar with these options on the 5-Way:

Bridge (Full)
Bridge (Split)
Bridge (Split) + Neck (Split)
Neck (Split)
Neck (Full)

Today I recorded samples, both clean and crunchy, of all of those, then I opened her up and re-wired so that the middle position was Bridge (Full) +Neck (Full), both pickups full instead of split. I recorded samples of that option as well. The recordings were made with Line 6 Helix into Logic Pro X. The strings were not removed when I re-wired it, so they are the same. I did swap that Pure Tone jack out for a Switchcraft, but I'm going to go waaaaaaay out on a limb and say there was no appreciable sonic impact....

Once I had the recordings done I listened to them all over and over, back-to-back-to-back-to-back, and picked the 5 out of those 6 options that I wanted to keep...

It's 12 separate clips, so I figured it would be easier and less cumbersome to post them as a Soundcloud compilation rather than individual links:
<edit: it's 16 now...>

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/vb-tunes/sets/pickup-samples-candy-apple-red-thinline[/soundcloud]


Ultimately I decided to ditch the split bridge pickup in preference of having both combined pickup options, like so:

Bridge (Full)
Bridge (Split) + Neck (Split)
Bridge (Full) + Neck (Full)
Neck (Split)
Neck (Full)

I actually found the split bridge pickup to have some interesting character, both clean and dirty. I didn't consider it a throw-away at all. Had to choose though, and I'm quite happy with the current configuration.

What do y'all's think?

 

[rgand]

Wow, those are dynamite! Outstanding pickups. You did a very good job on them.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Wow, those are dynamite! Outstanding pickups. You did a very good job on them.

Thank you! I am really happy with how they turned out.

 

[Logrinn]

That sounds awesome -VB-.
I agree on your five choices. The only other alternative - for me - if I wanted to keep the bridge in split, would have been not having the neck in full.
But in the end, I think you made the right choices. Sounds great. :icon_thumright:

 

[Verne Bunsen]

That sounds awesome -VB-.
I agree on your five choices. The only other alternative - for me - if I wanted to keep the bridge in split, would have been not having the neck in full.
But in the end, I think you made the right choices. Sounds great. :icon_thumright:

Interesting! That really hadn't occured to me. I was surprised by how much I liked the split neck both clean and dirty; now that you mention it I suppose I might drop the full neck before dropping the split as well, if I had to... Still and all I'm pretty solid on what I've got, and I'm glad you concur! Thanks for the kind words. After investing many many hours between concocting the recipe and actually making the pickups, it is rewarding (and relieving!) to be wildly happy with the results.

 

[Logrinn]

... it is rewarding (and relieving!) to be wildly happy with the results.

As well you should! :icon_thumright:

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Another self-necro-post for me, I'm gonna get myself banned!

In the thread where I discussed winding these pickups, forum member Zhaezzy recommended dedicating a switch position to the full HB neck pickup + the split bridge pickup. I was intrigued, I've got a 90s Telecaster Special with a HB neck and Tele single coil bridge pickup and the combination is a pretty cool thing. Yesterday I finally fired up the soldering iron and took it a step further, putting the full neck + split bridge in position 4 and the full bridge + split neck in position 2. Man, they are cool sounds both of them! I added audio clips to the collection linked above. Actually I re-recorded all of them for consistency....

So, for right now, they're both keepers. I've got it wired as such:

Bridge (full)
Bridge (full) + Neck (split)
Bridge (full) + Neck (full)
Bridge (split) + Neck (full)
Neck (full)

Thanks for the idea Zhaezzy!

 

[rgand]

I like the way that's wired. It's a logical switching order.

It sounds really good in all positions. Thanks for posting those clips.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

I'm happy to post 'em, thanks for listening to 'em!

 

[fdesalvo]

VB: Looks and sounds amazing!

 

[Verne Bunsen]

VB: Looks and sounds amazing!

Thank you, sir!

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Two weeks of night shift with lots of overtime makes a guy think of funny things. And those things take root and you just can’t shake them. And next thing you know you’ve ordered a pair of Revel WRHBs and a new pickguard for your trusty CAR Thinline. More as it develops...

https://revelcustompickups.com/store/wide-range-humbucker/

 

[rgand]

Mmmmmm! I like those. Nice choice.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

The Revel WRHBs have arrived, and they are a pretty handsome piece of hardware!

I wasn't expecting any issues when I installed them, as the body was ordered with the "Standard Pickup Routing", which to the best of my knowledge is WRHBs for this guitar. However I was a bit bummed after I wired up the new pickguard and went to mount it only to discover that the pickup routes were too shallow by about 3/8". Plenty of room for the pickups, but the mounting screws were hitting. I didn't want to mess with cutting the screws, so instead I drilled 8 holes in the pickup routes for the screws to recess into. Not a big hurdle, but I'm still surprised that the standard pickup route for this body doesn't accept WRHBs by default. Ah well, whatchagon'do?

They sound really nice. Lower output than I expected, which is fine by me, but they are still very beefy and true to their name there is a very wide and round quality to the sound. I initially had to check my switch because the single pickups on their own have some of that formant quality associated with pickups combined in parallel. I dig it. At the recommendation of the winder I wired up the guitar with 1meg pots. I'll get some sound clips posted at some point.

 

[Cagey]

Super-sharp!