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Am I crazy?

Constantine
August 11th, 2012, 05:30 PM
I have a vision in my head of putting two gibson '57 humbuckers in the neck and bridge of my tele, and putting my noiseless neck pickup in between the two and going to a 5-way switching system. Is it possible? Would it sound good? Would using a strat pickup in the middle sound better?

yark14
August 11th, 2012, 05:39 PM
Go for it. Sounds like a sweet guitar. As far as strat middle or noiseless neck....just depends on what kind of sound you want it to make.

dsutton24
August 11th, 2012, 05:43 PM
Yep, gotta do it. I've got a Telecaster wit a pair of Duncan Humbuckers in it, and I love it. The middle pickup would just be icing on the cake!

dconeill
August 11th, 2012, 05:43 PM
I have a vision in my head of putting two gibson '57 humbuckers in the neck and bridge of my tele, and putting my noiseless neck pickup in between the two and going to a 5-way switching system. Is it possible? Would it sound good? Would using a strat pickup in the middle sound better?

It's your guitar, do what you want. It's not like you're painting a moustache onto the Mona Lisa.

Is it possible? That's limited only by your cleverness and handiness.

Would it sound good? Who knows - try it.

FuZZBoY
August 11th, 2012, 06:40 PM
Why not? but you'll have to rerout the bridge cavity.
Jeff beck did it...

KokoTele
August 11th, 2012, 06:46 PM
You can certainly do it. The noiseless pickup in the middle will help get you that out of phase quacky sound, though it will be less pronounced than it is on a strat because the lower output of the middle pickup will only be partially phase-cancelling.

I'm not sure that the noiseless pickup will be a great match tonally. They sound a little tame to my ears, while the '57 is not really a tame pickup. The worst thing that happens is you do it and decide to search a little more for something that's a better match.

Also, keep in mind that moving the neck pickup to the middle changes the way it sounds. I've found that doing this makes that pickup sound kind of 2 dimensional. This is sometimes a really good sound for sitting in a crowded mix, though. All that extra harmonic content would make it get lost among the other guitars and keys or whatever, while the flat, slightly chunky sound from the middle position sits right in the pocket.

Nick JD
August 11th, 2012, 08:58 PM
That's the 'superstrat' wiring that HSH Ibanez guitars have.

Positions 2 and 4 use half the HB coils and the middle single coil to get strat quack.

It works best if you balance the coils: if your HBers are ~8K, get a ~4K single coil. If you plan on using positions 2 and 4 a lot, select your strat single coil for the middle, and then choose your HBers based on this.

It's a very versatile setup, not crazy at all.

NastyMojo
August 12th, 2012, 09:33 PM
Its very doable,but I would use a Strat pup instead of the Tele neck Pup. I say go for it! and let us know how it goes! :)