Not Happy with the Neck Pickup on my Highway One

I have owned three Teles’, A MIM, an American Standard, and now a Highway One.

I like the Highway One’s bridge pickup which is a little hotter than the American Standard but neck pickup does nothing for me.

I loved that neck pickup on my American Standard. The American Standard’s neck pickup was very smooth and glassy. I am currently missing that glassy-twangy Tele neck-pickup sound that I love.

I really like the Highway one’s feel and the jumbo frets so I will probably keep the guitar and eventually change out the neck pickup.

Any suggestions for a good glassy replacement neck pickup (brand, model#, cost, easy to install)?

Thanks ahead of time.
Gridlock

I love my Texas Special neck pick up. I bought It many years ago and it came in it's own package. I didn't have to buy the set... I don't know if you can do that today or not. I guess you can... Powerful and real clean and bluesy. And loud and full. BOUTIQUE, AND NOT EXPENSIVE....

Have you tried adjusting the height of the pup? Amazing the results that can be achieved by a simple twist of some screws.

M

Nevermind

If you liked the Am. Std. neck pickup, go with that.

Thanks for quick response guys. I don't see an adjustment on the Highway One. No screws showing, maybe under the pickguard?

Captcoolaid,
Very nice offer. Good people on this forum.
Thanks.
Gridlock

I don't see an adjustment on the Highway One. No screws showing, maybe under the pickguard?

You're getting warm! :wink:

I'll give it a try.
Thanks

What a great question. What is a good replacement Telecaser Neck Pickup?

There are so many, but I'm Humbucking guy.

If you like Humbuckers, I can advise on a number of different models I have installed in my old Teles. However, one pickup that has really impressed me is the Seymour Duncan Vintage Tele Stack model I paired up with a Joe Barden Tele bridge model in my 1961 Esquire. I know, what an awful thing to do to a vintage guitar like that.

Along with all the other crazy wiring I did to my Esquire, the Duncan Stack is wired up to a series/parallel switch. The parallel mode offers up a softer Jazz, Blues, airy tone. In the series mode, the pickup yields a heavy thick tone. Perhaps this pickup could blend well with your hotter bridge pickup. But I recommend setting up a pickup like this with a S/P switch to give you some versatility.

These pics are of the first stage of wiring I performed on this guitar. I have since finished the project with a 4-Way position pickup selector switch for the combinations of Neck Pickup through a large filter cap (vintage Tele Style), Neck Pickup, Neck & Bridge, and Bridge Pickup alone. The mini toggle switch is for the series/parallel options for the Neck Pickup. The volume pot is a 250K push/pull pot for series/parallel options for the neck pickup. The tone pot is a 1meg push/pull pot that works a master series/parallel switch that bypasses the pickup selector switch and puts both pickups in series. The value of 1meg allows for that quick wha effect.

I can now do a lot of things with this guitar that I can't do with the standard Telecaster wiring.

I guess what I'm saying here is that there is a lot of stuff you can do with pickups and passive wiring. And Telecaster are perhaps the most practical guitar to play around with this stuff.

Fender twisted tele is awesome. Very Strat like and fairly affordable these days.

I love the Texas special pickup! really full sound,nice and clear, and really powerful!

You'll probably have to take the neck off (or lossen it) to get to those screws, because you got that 22 fret overhang. No big deal.

I'm not real sure if this is what your looking for but i fell in love with my neck pickup i installed in my fender deluxe tele. I was reading about my newest favorite player brad paisley and found he uses an adder pickup in most of his guitar's regardless of what bridge pickup he has in it. I put one in mine and its the best sounding pickup i've ever heard hope this helps.

You'll probably have to take the neck off (or lossen it) to get to those screws, because you got that 22 fret overhang. No big deal.
Actually, the Highway One neck pickup mounting arrangement is one of the most epic fails I've ever seen for sheer, boneheaded stupidity.

They were going for the 'VINTAGE!!! VINTAGE!!! VINTAGE!!! VINTAGE!!!" (FMIC cannot seem to meaninglessly overwork that term enough) pickup mounting, then forgot about the fingerboard cantilever.

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Fortunately, I had an extra American Standard pickguard around, so I only had to pull the neck once.

Couldn't live with the HTA3 pickups, OV's were on sale for $42 (and good luck on ever getting that price again), so I switched out.

Pickups have to be astoundingly bad for me to switch them out, but the HTA3s qualified. ~16K DCR in the bridge on a Telecaster just seems nuts to me. FMIC does not always make brilliant choices.

I think the problem was the difference in A3 and A5 magnets. With A5s, if the coil is insanely overwound, you have adequate magnet strength to lower the pickup until something better happens. The A3s are very weak, and somehow lowering them just didn't clean it up, it just mushed out.

In general, I'm not convinced that swapping pickups performs the miracles generally attributed it, and pickups are merely one link in the tone chain anyway.

The best-sounding Telecasters (to my ear) all had 50890/88 pickups AND THE RIGHT AMP. :wink:

I can relate with the OP. According to Fender, the hwy 1 comes with "distortion friendly, modern sound" pups, whatever that means. Bridge is not bad, but the neck is way too dark sounding to me, with little definition and zero "glassiness" that I love so much in a tele.

After reading so many rave reviews, I have a set of keystones on order. They will be installed on my hwy 1 within 15 minutes of arriving.

Since you like it go with the Am Std.

Sounds like a real pain just to get to the pickup for an adustment or to replace it and I am not keen on removing the neck. Maybe I will just wait and trade in the Highway One for an American Standard the next time that Guitar Center has another Used Gear event .

Thanks All.

A real pain...? No. Just loosening some screws and retightening. Certainly much easier than going to buy a new guitar. You can avoid replacing your strings if you put a capo around the 3rd fret first before loosening the tuners. This will keep the strings from popping off so you can re-use them. I like to put a bit of tape around the nut though. It works for me.

Pre-'12 AmStd neck pups are the best deal going!