Planning 1st Build - Thinline Pickup advice

[bamboofrog]

Hi All

I am after a bit of advice. I have decided to take the plunge into building my first warmoth guitar. I have always wanted a semi acoustic and have decided on a thinline telecaster, but being my first project I have lots of questions that need answers.

I am thinking of a Korina body with a figured top, (going for the natural finish), possibly a goncalo alves neck, kingwood or pau ferro fingerboard.

At present I am trying to decide on my pickup configuration and I am torn between the traditional twin tele single coil, twin p90s or a hybrid of the two (p90 neck, single coil bridge). I mainly play blues and rock, I listen to a far bit of BB King and John Lee Hooker, I also really like the rickenbacker's tones, so I probably should think about humbuckers ??? so many choices. If I had the money and could convince my wife I would make one of each

As you can probably the planning is still in its infancy so it may be a while yet before I get things up and happening, any advice and guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

 

[Telenator]

Have you considered the Fender Wide Range Humbuckers? The original ones sound really great for blues. They have the power to push the amp into overdrive but they also retain a nice, tight low end. Very Fender sounding!

 

[m4rk0]

Goncalo Neck + Korina body + P90's.... sounds a bit like my thinline!!

I can absolutely recommend this combination.. it won't sound jangly like a rick though.. but if you want a great warm tone, it will be great!

http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=4221.0

 

[bamboofrog]

Thanks for the replies, Marko I saw your thinline while browsing the forum, really beautiful looking guitar, I am very envious. How does it sound?

 

[Vol. Knob]

I'm planning my first build too, only I've already got the pickups selected (and loaded into and Epiphone LP custom as a "Place Holder" until I sell off other gear to fund a Warmoth).  I'm getting all the bridge, pickup, pots, etc together before I buy the neck & body.

As I've recently discovered Reed James Custom Pickups (http://www.reedjamescustom.com), and got my hands on a set of their woodbuckers, they have become my favorite humbucker I've ever had the pleasure of using.  He winds them on exotic wood bobbins and offers exotic wood mounting rings too.  A tad more expensive then other options, but far sweeter eye candy (IMHO).  I have a set of Telebuckers on the way for my Fender '69 Thinline RI.  He does P-90s too.

He'll work with you on what your sound is.  How many winds, output etc.  He's a small custom builder.  A guitarist who likes to tinker, just like the rest of us.

 

[m4rk0]

The P90s I used came from Jon Moore..
He does mostly custom orders too, but for less money.
He charged 120 for the set of P90s, and I specified the magnet type/size and the # of windings
http://www.tonefordays.com/

 

[-CB-]

I have always wanted a semi acoustic

The Tele Thinline is not a semi-acoustic, its a semi hollow - much different.  Don't expect being able to pick it up and get acoustic tones without an amp.

(p90 neck, single coil bridge)

You'll never get these to match anywhere remotely close in volume.  The P90 will drown out the SC in the bridge, such that your "both" position on the selector switch will have only two usable tones - bridge and neck

like the rickenbacker's tones

Sounds like a set of SC's to me.  Ric's are good for/known for that.  You might want to try something like a Phat Cat in the bridge and neck.  They pretty much nail that Ric tone - and thanks for mentioning Ric's, it gives me a better way to describe the Phats.

 

[bamboofrog]

Thanks for the info and advice, I think P90 & single coil was mis-thought example, maybe singlecoil / humbucker would have been more appropriate.

I referred to the thinline as a semi-acoustic as this is how it is referred to in Melvyn Hiscock's book on building electric guitars, but I take your point that without an amp the volume of the guitar will not be as loud as an acoustic. Equally isn't the gibson 335 is constructed in a similar way to the thinline i.e a solid middle block with hollow sides (although carved out)?

Cheers for the heads up on the ric tone I will look into a the phat cats as they sound pretty promising.

 

[Telenator]

Now, don't go slaggin' my playing but, what do you guys think of this pickup?

Neck position. Deluxe Reverb Re-issue amp. Tone controls set on "5."

The guitar is a Fender Telecaster Thinline MIM Reissue body with an American Standard neck.

http://home.comcast.net/~nicholas.caruso/Docs/WRHB.htm

 

[-CB-]

Thanks for the info and advice, I think P90 & single coil was mis-thought example, maybe singlecoil / humbucker would have been more appropriate.

I referred to the thinline as a semi-acoustic as this is how it is referred to in Melvyn Hiscock's book on building electric guitars, but I take your point that without an amp the volume of the guitar will not be as loud as an acoustic. Equally isn't the gibson 335 is constructed in a similar way to the thinline i.e a solid middle block with hollow sides (although carved out)?

Cheers for the heads up on the ric tone I will look into a the phat cats as they sound pretty promising.

Yes, the ES-335 (333, 345, 355), or ES-13x or ES-12x all have various solid blocks up the middle, but even more than that - they are THICK topped, like a Tele Thinline.  Acoustic guitars are incredibly thin topped.  Tops on thinlines are resonant, but not acoustically projecting.  When I play my 333 or Thinlines unplugged, they're "a little" louder than playing a solid body.  Then again, my SG's are louder than my Teles or LP's... about as loud as the thinlines, and the SG's are solid.

Here's the thing with pickups - the neck pickup on guitars gets more string vibration passing over it, and because of that, it playes louder.  Normally, if both pickups are about the same strength, the neck pickup is set down low, to compensate for the extra volume (and/or the bridge pickup is set higher).  This works to a point.  Then, some pickup "sets" have a stronger bridge pickup to compensate.  Those are about 10-15 percent "hotter" and that gets it just about right, depending on the tone settings.

When you pair a loud pickup like a P90 or HB or other strong pickup at the neck of a Tele, then the bridge pickup has to be REALLY hot and really close to the strings to keep up.  In fact, its hard to achieve balance with a HB in the neck, unless you have a rather low wound (and very sweet toned I might add!) neck HB.  A Gibson BB-#1 (not BB-Pro#1) would be a good one, and a hotter bridge pickup (Fralin, say 15 percent over) would be good.  The result would be a darker tele bridge - and since some folks say the Tele is a bit "ice pick in the ear" a darker bridge pickup would be good.  It would certainly have a lot of tele "quack".

There are HB bridges for the Tele's.  Less traditional, and they need a different route, but they work, and then balancing problems are less of an issue.

Balancing - on the LP BFG, it has a hot P90 and a BB#3 and they just barely balance out.  I used that on my one Tele Thinline and the aftermarket Gibson P90 was even hotter! I need to "unwind" it a bit, if I can, or just rewind it to a more desirable tone... say in that 7.2 ish range.

Hope that clarifies!~

 

[bamboofrog]

Cheers CB, thanks for the clarification on the pickups, it will be kept in mind when selecting the pickups.

I suppose semi-acoustic is a bit of a misnomer. I understand that it would be overly loud acoustically (this is often a benefit when my wife and baby head of to bed ) but would it give me that woody resonance similar to a ES??? I think it is that 335 tone that I am after rather than the traditional tele, but I like the smaller body size of the tele thinline.

I think I will get the body routed for humbuckers then I have the choice of traditional humbuckers or humbucker sized p90s

 

[OzziePete]

Cheers CB, thanks for the clarification on the pickups, it will be kept in mind when selecting the pickups.

I suppose semi-acoustic is a bit of a misnomer. I understand that it would be overly loud acoustically (this is often a benefit when my wife and baby head of to bed ) but would it give me that woody resonance similar to a ES??? I think it is that 335 tone that I am after rather than the traditional tele, but I like the smaller body size of the tele thinline.

I think I will get the body routed for humbuckers then I have the choice of traditional humbuckers or humbucker sized p90s

If the ES 335/345/355 sound is what you want in a Tele Thinline  :icon_scratch: , maybe the humbucker routs are the way to go. Try to get some low powered PAF sounding humbucker to go into the Thinline and see how that sounds (sorry I have no idea what are the better sounding PAF like humbuckers  :dontknow: ).

BTW, to me, that sort of sound is a long way from the P90 sound you were originally asking about. Not many ES models with P90s.