non-traditional pickup suggestions

[rorschah]

I'm building a new tele. I have an old tele that I love to hell, it's my *guitar*, but it's becoming clearer that my right wrist needs strat-style comfort cuts, so I'm building a Warmoth tele. And I'm pretty open on the pickup front.

My current beloved tele is a beat-to-hell old MIM tele and a HD Z90 in the neck, and a SD Jerry Donohue in the bridge. I love this thing. The Z90 is so freaking big and open and dynamic and rockin' and jazzin' and everything. The Donohue pickup is so excellently cranky and expressive. And the middle position is effin' heaven - there's beautiful twang, there's krang, there's fatness, all right under the fingertips. It can be rockin', and it can be sweet and fat and beautiful and sensitive.

The biggest problem is that the pickups are not balanced. And not fiddling of the various heights will change that. The volume drop is so drastic that I really can't switch around that easily mid-song. So for the new guitar, I'm going for a similar level of dynamic and tele-crankiness, but hoping for more balance.

I might do another Z90 or a humbucker in the neck. The real question is the bridge - what can stand up to a big neck while still being vaguely tele? I'm not talking about getting strictly vintage tones - I just need some degree of twang and krang on tap... I'm open to new sounds, as long as they're on the touch-sensitive/dynamic/responsive end of things, and have some crankiness and spittle. Suggest away.

Thanks!

-thi

[11 Gauge]

I've found the Z90 to be one awesome sounding pickup - the only one from HD that has really impressed me (and I've tried most of them).

That said, a really good pairing for a Z90 neck is a S90 bridge. It will definitely hang, volume-wise.

There's another plus for the S90/Z90 pairing - the blend setting on the switch. You get the coolest combination of parallel-wired twang and clarity, with a bit of out-of-phase qualities that just sound unreal. At first I though I actually wired the two out of phase, but realized I did not. It's a really interesting duality going on, that I've never heard from another pickup pairing (especially given it's two pickups from the same manufacturer).

If money wasn't an issue for me, I'd either build a Tele with a pair of Z90s in it, or grab a decent SG and put Z90s in it...

[idylldon]

I'm building a new Tele from scratch out of Koa and Cedar, and I bought a TV Jones Supertron for the neck position to pair up with a bridge pickup I wound myself. The guitar won't be done for another couple of months, but I always wanted to try the Gretsch sound in a Tele.

Cheers,
--
Don

[Brick]

I got a Lollar P90 10% underwound mated with a Van Zandt flatpole. The combination balances quite well. The only thing I'll do when I have time is bypass the tone control for the P90, as I never roll highs off that PU. A really hot P90 will bury most traditional tele bridge PUs.