De-armond Soundhole Pickup In Tele Neck Position?

[Robkay]

Just wondering what the effect of putting an old De-armond soundhole pickup in the neck position of my tele would be.....any thoughts, is it worth the trouble, can we get it to fit?

http://www.sfanger.com/4sale/soundho...soundhole1.jpg

Rob(uk)

[imsilly]

I think some of the best tones ever produced were with Elmore James using those (well De'Armond) pickups, but as for putting them in a Telecaster it might be a bit of a waste. You might have to modify either the Telecaster or the Pickups significantly to pair them together. Even attaching them to an acoustic can involve drilling holes in the thing. Sometimes they also use special jacks that are screw in rather then the more common instrument jacks.

Find a nice old dreadnought guitar to put them in with a 25.5 scale (some blues players prefer even longer scales) and I bet it would sound great. Failing that you could just get someone to wind you are a pickup to the same specs as the De'Armond. They have a the specs on the internet, the magnet type, shape, wire type and impedances. They could all probably be replicated or approximated to get a similar tone and fit into a more useable package.

In fact De'Armond pickups are all over the place, especially on ebay and I bet some of the pickups they made for archtops and acoustic soundholes carried similar specs to those they surplied to manufacturers making solid bodies. I reckon you could find some De'Armonds that could pop straight into a telecaster, with maybe a small amout of routing.

[BigDaddyLH]

If I could find a DeArmond 1100 Rhythm Chief ("monkey on a stick") I would slap it on an archtop and be one happy guy.

[Robkay]

Thanks, i think it was perhaps a crazy idea really but i just thought i'd run it by you guys here, i think i'm going to go with a Charlie Christian of one make or another, the only thing that really worries me is how much 50/60 cycle hum its going to pick up
Rob.