Three pickup Tele

[B Valley]

I want to change one of my teles to a three pickup setup. I can't decide between a stock bridge pickup and two standard Tele pickups or a stock bridge pickup and two Strat pickups. Wiring will be standard Strat with a 5-way switch.
Has anyone had any experience with this?

[mrothacker]

I have been experimenting recently with my Xaviere (Guitar Fetish) telecaster , I bought it for just this reason . There are way too many pickups from way too many manufacturers to spend the time and effort to go through .So to narrow it down the first question I ask myself is what kind of sounds do I want to get from the pickups ? In my case I wanted a good Tele neck and bridge sound but in the middle I thought Tele bridge but hotter , which usually means less highs . Now the in between sounds ideally for me the 4th position would have that quacky sound that is found on some Strats ,and the 2nd position well Ive never found that too useful . A little side note here is if you have a music store with a big selection of guitars go and try a bunch of Telecasters (and Strats) out , just to listen to the pickups. I did this last year at a Guitar Center in Greenville SC . I played every Tele in the store . What I found is I liked the Neck pickup on the Am Deluxe and the bridge pickup on the Korean Lite Ash . That is the Fender Scn noiseless neck and the Seymour Duncan AlnicoII Pro for the bridge . So at that point I had an idea of the tones that I was interested in hearing coming out of my Tele .

Right now in that guitar I have DiMarzio Twang Kings in the neck and bridge positions and in the middle I have a DiMarzio Red Velvet Strat size pickup . The Red Velvet is designed to go in the bridge of a Strat to make it sound like a Tele . I have to say that all three sound great including the in between sounds , but the guitar is more of a blues or rock sounding instrument now compared to country . Also what I did this time to get a useful 2nd position is that Ive wired this way;
1st - neck
2nd - neck and bridge
3rd - bridge
4th - bridge and middle
5th - middle

In a nutshell , imagine the sounds you want hear , than read mfgrs descriptions to find a pickup to give you that sound . If you dont know what that sound is than go to music stores and play every guitar with a single coil pickup in it . Then dont expect to get it right the first time , so expect a few changes after that , oh yeah , harmony central.com is a great place to read pickup reviews , but be wary of each review pay attention to the styles of music they play and also the gear they play through . Good Luck