Telecaster Vintage Pickup Questions!

So I have finally called an end to my Stratocaster vs Telecaster debate and I have decided to get the good ole Tele first. I really want to get a nice early 60's vintage tele sound out of it and I was looking for some advice on some really really nice vintage sounding pickups. I willing to pay alot hah

Welcome to the forum.

The baseline for vintage Tele pickups is the Fender Original Vintage set. $81 at Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Fender-Accessories-099-2119-000-Electric-Guitar/dp/B000WIPGG8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342388610&sr=8-1&keywords=fender+original+vintage+telecaster+pickup +set

Lots of other choices out there, you can spend a lot more money if you want These will nail the vintage sound.

Hah thanks, do you have any pointers to any good makers of more expensive vintage pickups?

Yeah. Jason Lollar. I have a few of his pups, and he's rewound a couple of others. He's the guy who wrote the book on pups. Virtually everyone learned from him. I made a mistake and bought a Fralin for my Strat bridge. Way too dright! Lollar's for me!
http://www.lollarguitars.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=telecaster-pickups

Lollar makes great pickups, check out Mick Brierley as well. If you describe what you want to him he'll wind it for you:

http://www.brierleyguitarpickups.com.au/

I just put a set in my Tele and love 'em. Klein pickups would be another guy to check out.

Hah thanks, do you have any pointers to any good makers of more expensive vintage pickups?

From what I've heard, for pure vintage reproductions, Don Mare seems to be in a class of his own. Hopefully someone else can chime in with some first hand experience.

The other thing to do is to talk directly to the winders, most of them are very helpful in finding what you want. If you're not on a budget, you're pretty much guaranteed to get an outstanding pup. Don Mare, D Allen, Lollar are just a few of the top notch winders.

Don Mare is a great choice for vintage pickups. Call him up and talk about what you want. He's a genius at figuring out what a player wants and winding a set to suit.

I have his Supersport bridge and Stelly neck in my #1. Great set. I haven't heard of anybody that wasn't completely happy with his stuff.

http://donmarepickups.com/pussetsfortele.html

If you're not sure what you mean by "nice early 60's vintage tele sound" I'd absolutely recommend dropping OVs in your guitar first as Ricky suggested. It is the point of departure for Telecaster pickups. With those in your guitar, playing how you play and through your own rig, you'll get an idea of which direction you need pickups to go in. You might think you want dark or twangy, but what you hear in your head might be different than what would happen if you order a set of boutique pickups after talking with a winder. Get to know what the OVs sound like, then drop big cash on something custom... you can always sell the OVs you take out in the classifieds on this forum. You might take a little bit of a hit on the price, but I sure wouldn't mind spending an extra $20 to make an informed decision. Heck, you might even like the OVs, not a damn thing wrong with them (after all, they are what's under the hood on the American Vintage '52 Reissue Telecasters).

Don't spend a bunch of money just to spend a money of money and say you have something boutique, spend money to make the guitar sound better... That said, there's nothing wrong with any of the custom winders mentioned above, they all make great pickups and get a lot of respect on this forum.

60s Tele? Fender '62 Tele Custom pups. They are good ones as are the OV.

Thanks for all the tips! I'm just buying a 60's white telecaster and I wanted some pointers to some nice stock vintage pickups to get that Yardbirds early Led Zep sound when paired with my Tonebender, but as what Psyched said I think I'll just start with the OV's and go from there.

Would suggest you play it for a while with whatever pickups it has before changing things.

You may not need to change anything - any tele with the right amp should be able to get you pretty close.

Keep in mind that you don't have a sound engineer and recording console worth $150,000 like when groups cut singles etc in major studios in the Sixties.

"vintage tele sound" can be lots of different sounds, since most of those 50's-60's pups weren't all the same in many ways. there are 50's tele bridge pups that are FAT, almost p90 toned. most of the 60's tele bridge pups are Very treble oriented because they're underwound with respect to some of the 50's vesions. while some are well into ice-pick-in-the-ear range.

so, describe the kinda tele bridge tone yer after ... treble/shrill ladden, somewhere middle-of-the-road, or fat 'n' thick twang.

this is all about pure pickup tone - direct to a clean amp and no modulation.

....

I put the OV in my mim tele and really like them. Improvement over the stock ceramics and not a lot of coin.

If you are getting a 60s Classic model I highly recommend trying the stock pups for a long while . I had one & IMO the pups are very nice & the bridge pup is pretty easy to 'thicken up' & rock with. May well be all you need.

Play w. pup height, tone & volume knobs as needed & thru a decent amp.