tele_tone
June 29th, 2012, 05:54 PM
I have a '05 alder body, rosewood fretboard , babiczs full contact Bridge, American standard tele. Neck pickup seems to be my biggest problem, I have had a vintage 70's Gibson mini , sm-1n, and a sm-3n in it. Sm-1n l liked the most, except it needs a but more low end without adding more mids or highs. My bridge is Seymour Duncan Stk-3b with 500k pots, switch is 4 way, with Eldred chocked wah mod, and I love it. But I need to get the right neck pickup. I play mostly bluesy stuff with the neck.
telequacktastic
June 29th, 2012, 06:03 PM
What kind of neck pickup do you like the most? I've seen guys use a strat pickup, humbuckers, p90's, charlie christian style... What is your fav neck pickup tone?
tele_tone
June 29th, 2012, 06:40 PM
Firebird, I have Heard the sm-1n in a ash maple combo and love it. But the alder rosewood cuts the bottom end too much, I don't know off MJ can wind one that sounds like the vintage Duncan with more bottom end, Low E just needs a little bit more bass. The sm-3n is too much mids but bottom end is fine.
jefrs
June 29th, 2012, 07:05 PM
I would recommend using 250k pots with the stk, as does Seymour Duncan
http://www.seymourduncan.com/images/products/electric/telecaster/501015-110.pdf
Without a 250k vol pot that pickup is going to be very gritty.
With the lower value pots you will probably be able to raise the bridge pickup to bring its bite back. That brings us to the neck pickup.
The neck pickup will always be more powerful than the bridge pickup because of greater string excursion there. The stacked humbucker is a "high output" type but not as much as a full humbucker, it is essentially a noiseless single-coil (the hum-cancelling coil cannot see the string, it just cancels hum). So the neck pickup, whatever it is, will need to be raised too. The lower value pot will give it more bottom-end, raising it will increase the top.
500k pots are mainly for 2+2 controls on full humbuckers, the vol pots are in parallel then...
You seem to have a selection of good neck pickups. Re-try them with 250k pots.