Leaderboard

Telecaster Pickups for Vintage Tone

Ozopart said:
Have you seen the wiring diagram for a 3 Way Freeway Switch? I am attaching a pdf of it.

If I purchase a neck pickup which is uncovered or open top cover do I then not need the third wire for the Freeway switch? It seems like I wouldn't need it. I know Fralin offers open top cover neck pickups, which I really like. Not sure who else offers this.
Click to expand...
Open top cover yes, no cover probably not unless it has a conductive metal baseplate.

Any metal on the pickup, ungrounded, is functionally an antenna. To fix that, we send that noise to ground with the ground wire, so you have to give the cover an additional path to ground if you intend to use series wiring.

Freeways are a darling of this forum in particular, but I think you’re veering off “classic Tele tones” a bit 🤔
 
Hodgo said:
By the way if you’re capable of soldering at all, adding a third wire to a pickup is easy.
Click to expand...
Not very capable as of yet, but working on it. I just upgraded from a solder pencil to a Weller Soldering Station and will practice a bit before building the actual control plate with the Freeway switch.
 
Hodgo said:
Open top cover yes, no cover probably not unless it has a conductive metal baseplate.

Any metal on the pickup, ungrounded, is functionally an antenna. To fix that, we send that noise to ground with the ground wire, so you have to give the cover an additional path to ground if you intend to use series wiring.

Freeways are a darling of this forum in particular, but I think you’re veering off “classic Tele tones” a bit 🤔
Click to expand...
True on the last. I actually bought the Freeway switch to rewire my Warmoth HH Thinline, but haven't gotten around to that yet. Perhaps I should either stick with a 3 way switch, or buy a 4 way switch?
 
Ozopart said:
Not very capable as of yet, but working on it. I just upgraded from a solder pencil to a Weller Soldering Station and will practice a bit before building the actual control plate with the Freeway switch.
Click to expand...
Use lots of heat, clean and solder the tip between connections, use leaded solder as needed. The Freeway contacts solder like a dream compared the back of the pot. Of course, pre-tin everything and only solder once you have a strong mechanical connection. A set of helping hands goes a long way to that last point.

Ozopart said:
True on the last. I actually bought the Freeway switch to rewire my Warmoth HH Thinline, but haven't gotten around to that yet. Perhaps I should either stick with a 3 way switch, or buy a 4 way switch?
Click to expand...

It’s your guitar but I think a classic Tele covers a lot of ground without any additional help!
 
Hodgo said:
Use lots of heat, clean and solder the tip between connections, use leaded solder as needed. The Freeway contacts solder like a dream compared the back of the pot. Of course, pre-tin everything and only solder once you have a strong mechanical connection. A set of helping hands goes a long way to that last point.



It’s your guitar but I think a classic Tele covers a lot of ground without any additional help!
Click to expand...
You are right. For this one maybe I go with a standard 3 way switch and keep it simple.
 
Ozopart said:
True on the last. I actually bought the Freeway switch to rewire my Warmoth HH Thinline, but haven't gotten around to that yet. Perhaps I should either stick with a 3 way switch, or buy a 4 way switch?
Click to expand...
NOW your on the right track!
 
Ozopart said:
I have certainly heard of TV Jones pickups, but not familiar with them, and for sure I didn't know they made a Tele pickup set. I will look into them.
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I have a set of the Starwoods in my chambered Black Korina Tele and don't plan on replacing them. As soon as I plugged this guitar in I was delighted with the pickups. So many options, though ... so many good options, too! 😵

1752711648710.jpeg
 
ragamuffin said:
I really like the Cavalier Pickups "Fat Lion" (slightly overwound A5 tele pickup) that I have in the bridge of my jazzcaster. Cavalier specializes in tele pickups and has a range of models, might have something to interest you. They're also pretty affordable. Highly recommended, if I were to build another telecaster I wouldn't hesitate to use their pickups. https://www.frettech.com/

As far as wiring mods, series/parallel switching is fun and can be done either with a four-way switch or push-pull.
Click to expand...
For Cavalier pickups with vintage Tele sound, but a bit more "punch", sort of like Eddy Shaver in the Johnny Carson video where he is playing behind Dwight Yoakum on Little Sister, what do you think about the Nashville Lion Bridge Pickup, and either Lion King or Fat Lion King for the neck?
Also, on the Cavalier site it says the following:

Special Lion Info - There is no ground lead base plate strap with all Lion bridge pickups. Included with all Lions is a wired ground washer that slips over any one of the Lion's mounting screws and is soldered to the back of any pot. After putting a Lion mounting screw in the Tele/Esquire® bridge, slip on the wired washer over the screw, then slip on the rubber height adjustment. Without pickup ground strapping, the leads for all Lions can be swapped within the control cavity to fix any possible phasing issue. ....

Based on that, and other verbiage on the site, I assume the following:

The Bridge pickup has two wires, a hot and ground, but also a third wire which runs from one of the mounting posts to the back of either the Tone or Volume pot? Other than that it should be the same as other bridge pickups in terms of the baseplate, ...?

The neck pickup has a hot, ground, and a third ground wire for 4 way switching. If I don't do 4 way switching, it would just be another wire to ground to a pot?

I was strongly leaning towards sticking with Fralin and buying a set of their Blues Special pickups, but the Cavaliers sound interesting and seem to be worth a try.
 
The typical Tele pups have the metal cover / baseplate soldered directly to one side of the coil, so if you need to flip the leads you end up with an antennae that hums like crazy. The separate baseplate/cover leads are primarily for series wiring or out of phase switching, or, as Rob wrote, fixing polarity issues between different manufacturers.

You don’t need it for standard wiring and could just run a jumper from the baseplate to the ground wire.
 
Hodgo said:
The typical Tele pups have the metal cover / baseplate soldered directly to one side of the coil, so if you need to flip the leads you end up with an antennae that hums like crazy. The separate baseplate/cover leads are primarily for series wiring or out of phase switching, or, as Rob wrote, fixing polarity issues between different manufacturers.

You don’t need it for standard wiring and could just run a jumper from the baseplate to the ground wire.
Click to expand...
Sorry to be a bit dumb here but for standard wiring would I just solder the third neck pickup wire (or put another way, the second ground wire) to a pot, and for the bridge pickup I wouldn't need to use the ground wired washer at all?
 
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