Revel Steel Pole Tele Mojo Pickups

[Verne Bunsen]

This is my Nashville. I bought it new back in 2008 or so, from a Guitar Center somewhere near Danville, CA. It has no Warmoth parts presently, but it will be getting a new neck as soon as I can stop blowing my guitar budget on other things.

This is a set of Steel Pole Tele Mojo pickups by Revel. They are billed as "50% Tele, 50% P90", and they look killer. I couldn't pass.

I've got them loaded, but I'm still working out the wiring.

I'm going to attempt a rather ambitious wiring for this installation. I'll be using a Rothstein 5-Way Tele Super-Switch wiring which gives the following:

1 - Bridge
2 - Bridge + Neck (Series, Out of Phase)
3 - Bridge + Neck (Parallel, In Phase)
4 - Bridge + Neck (Series, In Phase)
5 - Neck

I'm going to augment this already daunting schematic with a push/pull tone pot that, when pulled, will replace the neck pickup with the middle pickup, so that would give me:

1 - Bridge
2 - Bridge + Middle (Series, Out Of Phase)
3 - Bridge + Middle (Parallel, In Phase)
4 - Bridge + Middle (Series, In Phase)
5 - Middle

Should be interesting.....

 

[rgand]

This looks really good. The tort really looks nice with that cream/white-ish/whatever-it-is color.

... it will be getting a new neck as soon as I can stop blowing my guitar budget on other things.

Well put. You're not alone in that. :laughing11:

Those pickups sound like they'll be cool. Be sure to post back how you like them. Interestingly enough, I've been looking at a set that has that same look. Hmmmmm....... thanks for posting that link.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

I definitely will! I will plan on doing some sound samples too, although with as many switching options as will be present it might just be a full length LP  :laughing7:

The color is “Honey Blonde”, which I believe is a shade yellower than Butterscotch? It came with tortoise and I thought I didn’t like it, swapped it out for black..... and realized that I missed the tortoise! This one came from Terrapin Guitars, cut for the Tele Neck pickup in the middle instead of a Strat pickup.

Out of curiosity, which pickups have you been scoping out?

 

[rgand]

I definitely will! I will plan on doing some sound samples too, although with as many switching options as will be present it might just be a full length LP  :laughing7:

Out of curiosity, which pickups have you been scoping out?

Cool. I look forward to hearing what they sound like.

Here are the ones I'm considering. Cream Tele Pickups by Alexander Pribora.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Those sound good! I like the look too, very distinctive. The “open cover” for Tele neck pickups is a great thing. I like the exposed pole pieces but any uncovered neck pickup I’ve played has ended up with the high “E” stuck in the bobbin. Frequently. Open cover to the rescue!

(PS- I had edited my previous post to address your comment on the color of the Nashville which I missed initially)

 

[BigSteve22]

...I like the look too, very distinctive. The “open cover” for Tele neck pickups is a great thing...

I'm definitely liking that look too! I had planned on using an open cover on the neck pup of my Blackbird Tele, but the Bill Lawrence L-202TN didn't allow for that. Those pups seem like a great option.  :icon_thumright:

 

[rgand]

Those sound good! I like the look too, very distinctive. The “open cover” for Tele neck pickups is a great thing. I like the exposed pole pieces but any uncovered neck pickup I’ve played has ended up with the high “E” stuck in the bobbin. Frequently. Open cover to the rescue!

(PS- I had edited my previous post to address your comment on the color of the Nashville which I missed initially)

Yeah. I also like the open cover for looks and paracticality. They have to affect the tone some, too.

Honey Blonde. I like it. Thanks.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Yeah. I also like the open cover for looks and paracticality. They have to affect the tone some, too.

For sure! When I was more actively experimenting with my pickup winder I did comparisons between Tele neck pickups with no cover vs brass cover vs nickel cover, there is a big impact on tone for sure. Not good or bad, just one more tonal variable. As much as the type of magnet I'd say. Never played around with open covers, would be interesting to see how much of that affect is attenuated by opening the top.... Same applies to covered humbuckers. If I recall I think Bill Lawrence made plastic covers for his Keystone pickups.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Well, the Super Switch wiring did not disappoint: it was every bit as much of a fiddly pain in the arse as I'd hoped.  :tard:

I was also reminded of why I do not like the CTS push/pulls...... It is nice to have a high quality full sized pot, granted, but the layout of the switch terminals and the pot lugs is such a cluster, not fun.

The good, and somewhat surprising, news is that everything works perfectly. Which is a good thing because if it hadn't I'd probably have just chucked the whole mess and put in a Strat switch, haha! My very early impression is that the pickups do indeed live up to the "50% Tele, 50% P90" description. I had fully expected most of the Tele character to be sacrificed for the P90 grunt but it is not the case at all. The guitar still sounds like a Tele but with a little something else besides. I dig very much. The push/pull functionality is actually pretty intuitive once you get your head around it: it isn't a 3-pickup guitar so much as a dual 2-Pickup guitar...

I told Jesse who runs Revel that I intended to use series switching and he expressed some concern that it might be a little much, but the series (in phase) positions sound really good. Definitely dark, but that is part of what you are after with that sound: dark and meaty.

The parallel sounds are really nice, with a healthy heaping of the formant sound that I associate with P90s in parallel.

I'm a bit on the fence about the series (out of phase) sounds. They are really, REALLY, honky. I immediately thought of Monty Python's "Here Comes Another One", haha!

[youtube]SAf0qmjiX7M[/youtube]

TL/DR: These pickups sound fantastic, look killer, and the switching options are fun.

I will make sound samples and get them posted. Although I'm not sure when...

 

[rgand]

Very cool that you got it going again. Don't you just love tight quarters when soldering?

It really looks great with those open pickup covers. I look forward to the recording when you get a chance.

For sure! When I was more actively experimenting with my pickup winder I did comparisons between Tele neck pickups with no cover vs brass cover vs nickel cover, there is a big impact on tone for sure. Not good or bad, just one more tonal variable. As much as the type of magnet I'd say. Never played with open covers, would be interesting to see how much of that affect is attenuated by opening the top.... Same applies to covered humbuckers. If I recall I think Bill Lawrence made plastic covers for his Keystone pickups.

I've noticed a distinct difference with full covers on humbuckers vs no covers. I did't know Bill Lawrence made plastic ones. It makes sense if you want to preserve a certain tonal quality.

 

[BigSteve22]

Impressively complex wiring! And that's a great idea: Not a 3 pup, but a dual 2 pup system. I'm real interested in hearing what that sounds like, so don't forget to post those clips...  :icon_thumright:

 

[Verne Bunsen]

It is no small undertaking to capture both clean and dirty samples of all the different options in a wiring like this one, lemmee tell ya. But that said, here they are, all 18 of them:

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/vb-tunes/sets/nashville-telecaster-revel-steel-pole-tele-mojo[/soundcloud]

I was playing the Line 6 Helix Deluxe Reverb model with the onboard Timmy pedal for dirt. Reverb came from Strymon Big Sky. Recording setup was Helix straight into Logic Pro X via USB.

I've gotta say, this is a thing I am liking. Really digging these pickups. Even the Series/Out of Phase sounds are growing on me. You wouldn't use them for everything, but there are some cool sounds to be had. For example, check out the arpeggiated chords about 5-7 seconds in to the 9th track (Bridge + Neck Series/Out of Phase - Clean), a really nice chimey sort of thing happens there.

I played a lot with the pickup heights, they are quite responsive to adjustments. I found that running them very low got some really smooth, mellow sounds that I liked, but it stopped sounding like a Tele. I brought them back up and that's where they'll stay.

Enjoy! I'm going to bed now.....

 

[Rick]

Sounds great.  Love the bending or whammy.  Out of phase sounds excellent.

 

[rgand]

And enjoy, I did. Those really sound amazing! Great choice. I really like those pickups. Are those the 50% or 75% ones? Or maybe a mix?

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Thanks guys! They are the M42s, which is the "50% P90" wind. The M43s are the "75% P90" wind. Now that you mention a mix, kinda makes me wish I'd got an M43 for the middle. Ah well  :laughing7:

 

[rgand]

Thanks guys! They are the M42s, which is the "50% P90" wind. The M43s are the "75% P90" wind. Now that you mention a mix, kinda makes me wish I'd got an M43 for the middle. Ah well  :laughing7:

Thanks. Those are a good choice. I was thinking an M43 for the neck since those tones are warmer anyway. You could probably choose neck/middle setting to get a similar tone to what the neck position would otherwise deliver with an M42. That said, there's nothing at all wrong with what you have now.