replacing pickup on tele 72 deluxe

[JEMC]

Hello,

I want to replace the wide range buckers on my tele dlx, but the problem is, these are bigger than normal humbuckers. Is there anyway to make normal humbuckers fit into my tele? thanks in advance

[Newfie_J.]

There are replacement pickguards that fit regular sized humbuckers.
I think WD makes them. Try changing the pots to 500K first before deciding to change pickups. If you havent already done it you will notice a big differance in sound. Not so muddy. Good luck.

[JEMC]

Yeah I switched them to 500k long time ago, but I still wanna replace them. Can I also just add pickup ring instead of replacing the whole pickgaurd?

[jivetrain]

this subject is coming up a lot lately. you seem disinterested in fooling with the wide range humbuckers any further, so i don't know if this will appeal to you but it's the best fix for the muddiness of the pickups. most people who tried this have agreed that it made the sound 10x better. any questions you have will probably be answered in that thread so give it a thorough read

[Wardpike]

I'm with JEMC. I think the wide-ranges leave a lot to be desired, soundwise, and would go with either a replacement pickguard, or new pickup mounting rings for new pups.

What do you want it to sound like?

My strongest recommendation is get a brace of Tom Holmes HBs, my trout, and then use the coil connecting wire to create coil splitters...sending the bridge one to ground (with a switch) and the neck one to hot (with a switch). Then you will have nice smooth HBs with good tele tones available with the flick of a switch.

I hope I've been helpful.

[Wardpike]

and oh yes, let me know if you want a wiring diagram.

Cheers,

Ward

[JEMC]

thanks for the advice!

truth is my music style changed quite a bit, I used to play punk but nowadays I'm only playing metal. TBH I'm not using the tele deluxe nowadays but I recently stumbled on the jim roots signature, which inspired me to mod my own into a metal guitar as well(pls don't flame me for wanting to use a tele for metal). So I'm thinking of putting some duncans in it. Oh and thanks for the offer, but I installed pickups before so I know how to.

[Wardpike]

DUDE! Who would ever flame you for playing metal??? Metal is country's close cousin!! PLUS, Metal and Country are the two last bastions of truly progressive guitar playing and exploration, IMHO.

I started out playing country as a kid, and when I hit my teenage years and Van Halen and Randy Rhoads entered my psyche, I went totaly metal for many years... but went back into country over the past 15 years again and I see complete synergies between the two music forms.

And as John 5 has demonstrated, you can be both a country and a metal player and do it all on a Tele!!

Cheers, fellow head-banger.

[jivetrain]

well if you're playing metal the wide ranges probably aren't for you. i think they sound great for playing clean once you've done the mods to them, but i've never used them with distortion.

[TELE_BLUES]

I took mine from a mim apart for a look see and was surprised to see they're just standard sized humbuckers with a waxed cloth surrround to make 'em fit in the larger size covers

[JEMC]

Hey guys I'm back!

So I finally got some time on hand to mod my tele deluxe. But I have one last question: Can I put mounting ring(like those found on gibsons LP) on my tele's pick gaurd, and put the new humbucker in there?

[VincentLudovico]

Originally Posted by jivetrain

this subject is coming up a lot lately. you seem disinterested in fooling with the wide range humbuckers any further, so i don't know if this will appeal to you but it's the best fix for the muddiness of the pickups. most people who tried this have agreed that it made the sound 10x better. any questions you have will probably be answered in that thread so give it a thorough read

Adjust the height of the pick-up with the 4 adjust. screws so that the bass polepieces are lower than the treble. This can reduce the thick wooly sound that the re-issue wr's can make. It could be possible to replace the alnico bar magnet with a Cunife bar-though I'm not 100% sure. Vincent.

[robt57]

If you PUPS/Git is CIJ, just popping in some MIM RI Amnico WRHB may server you. Also I thenk the J5 WRHB are way hotter than the MIM RIs so just RI 72 MIM ThinLine PUPS are the smoothest IMO. I think also Rio Grande has something, athough not on the web pages last I checked, send them an email I guess.


I think I'd sure sawp out POTs before swapping PUPS. If you have CIJs and find them too harsh try smaller value POTS, it you feel too muddy open it up with some 500k to 1-meg POTs....

[juangumbaz]

Hi all,

I'm new to the group. I have a '72 or '73 tele deluxe (it's been in my possession for about 15 years) that's been modified over the years. It is currently painted fire engine red (not my choice) with EMG 81s in the bridge and neck positions. I'd like to bring it back to the original form but I see that most people think the stock pickups (which I have) were a bit muddy sounding. I could just swap out the EMG for the originals to hear it for myself, but before I do I'd like your collective opinions on what I might gain/lose with this switch.
For starters I know my output will suffer, however, I'm hoping to gain a bit of warm tone which is lacking in the EMGs.

Your thoughts are much appreciated.

[thestratomaster]

^^ what kind of music do you play? emg 81s don't really belong in a tele deluxe IMHO

[Telenator]

Originally Posted by juangumbaz

Hi all,

I'm new to the group. I have a '72 or '73 tele deluxe (it's been in my possession for about 15 years) that's been modified over the years. It is currently painted fire engine red (not my choice) with EMG 81s in the bridge and neck positions. I'd like to bring it back to the original form but I see that most people think the stock pickups (which I have) were a bit muddy sounding. I could just swap out the EMG for the originals to hear it for myself, but before I do I'd like your collective opinions on what I might gain/lose with this switch.
For starters I know my output will suffer, however, I'm hoping to gain a bit of warm tone which is lacking in the EMGs.

Your thoughts are much appreciated.

If you and the OP are talking about original vintage guitars, why don't you and he swap pickguard assemblies? You both want what eachother has. This could be very simple!

If you're talking about original vintage pickups in that Tele and need the closest replace pickup on the planet for that guitar using the original CuNiFe magnets, tap me a line. I have a dead-on hand made repro for that guitar.

[OaklandA]

These guys will make a loaded pickguard for you with your choice of Fralins, EMG, Suhr, etc. :

http://www.metalshopmusic.com/

*no affiliation....just passing on some info

[ChipOnly]

I have a 72 Custom RI and, besides switching to 500K pots for the WRHB RI, I noticed a considerable difference in clarity when using a Zvex Super Hard-On (a clone, actually) first in my effects chain. I suppose one could chalk that up to the high input impedance. Just something else to try, hope it helps!