My 4 pickup Tele!

[Ubehebe]

Hi everyone:

I’m completely new here, but it looks like a great forum. And I figured it was the best place to see what people think of my four-pickup Tele.



This is actually my second Tele like this. A customer saw the first one and had me build him one.

I wasn’t sure how it would sound, so I went with a cheepy Turser body for the first one in case it was an abortion. But it came out so well that I sold one and have orders for another two.

The customer liked the Turdster better than a MIM Tele so I used a Turser to build his too.

Of course, the only thing left of the original Turser is the body, neck, string ferrules and string Tees. Everything else was replaced: Gotoh tuners, Gotoh bridge, GFS fatbody pickup for one neck pup, Highway One Fender chrome-cover for the other neck pup. Burns Rez-O-Matik Strat-like single coil for middle bridge pup and a Highway One Fender bridge pup for the main bridge, new push-pull pots, new Fender five-way switch, no-name mini .048 cap, custom Pickguardian pickguard (thanks Tony!), body cavities and pickguard back all shielded with copper sheeting and star grounded, and a other parts that I’ve probably forgotten.

Anyway, the brain storm for this Tele came because Power Teles and other three-pup Teles that I have seen basically have a Strat-like pup selection. You lose the Tele pickup signal path, especially the ability to use just the bridge and neck pups. I won’t bore you with the switch settings for my Tele, but basically ANY pickup combo is possible, thanks to two push-pull pots, two three-position toggles and a fender five-way strat switch. And I mean any pickup combo: bridge and neck together, and anything else you can dream up, plus you can knock the neck out of phase and combine neck and bridge in series.

Extra pickups were added to expand Tele sound possibilities but still retain the Tele sound. In other words, you have two choices for neck pups and two for bridge.

I’m not a Tele expert like everyone here (I collect Burns London guitars), so I want to hear what you all have to say, good and bad, plus suggestions. I purposely did not use any humbuckers because I wanted to keep the true Tele signature sound.

Plays like a dream after a fret leveling and setup (although the Turdster factory setup wasn’t bad to begin with). Captures everything from a classic Tele to a mellow jazz box, if you can believe that (with N + N2 + B2). GFS fatbody by itself nails Street Fightin Man intro. Lots of hum-cancelling choices as you can imagine.

Wish the Turdster came with a maple fingerboard, but at the time they just had the rosewood, but it’s a great neck with beefy frets, much better than a MIM Tele, IMHO.

In later versions, I have been able to get the second bridge pup lower and closer to the “normal” bridge pup, although I wonder how much a half-inch matters. Can’t really hear any difference.

Had to use smallish gauge wire in the control pocket because there’s so much wiring in there for the pickups, but signal seems strong without any buzz or interference.

Blah blah blah. Wrote too much already. Hope you like it!!!

[w0odman]

Awesome job man. Must have been a wiring nightmare. I would like some more details on the wiring if you don't mind. I'm a glutton for punishment as far as wiring goes.

[Wardpike]

That's a great guitar! Although I love my Esquire more than all other guitars, I have always wanted to have a 4 or 5 pup Tele! Steve Morse had an impression on me as a younger man.

Please, more info on your wiring scheme!

Kind regards,

Ward

[getbent]

cool looking guitar! Wow, Darwin, Ca! That is impressive!

Great job on all the options.

[Ubehebe]

Thanks for the compliments!

The wiring took a little doing but wasn’t a nightmare. Then again, I do a lot of custom wiring.



The limited real estate on the Tele control plate really presented a challenge. I could have done a variation on the ol’ Dan Armstrong three toggle-switch array, but I wanted to preserve the control panel’s “Tele” look. (BTW, the Dan Armstrong three-toggle array is the most overlooked, BEST switching setup for any three pickup guitar. Absolute genius.)

The Fender five-way knife acts like a normal five-way Strat knife. UNTIL you pull on the volume control. That adds the N1 pickup to any combo on the knife switch, so with the volume pulled you get:

1 (B1 + N1) --- the Tele combo

2 (B1 + B2 + N2 + N1)

3 (B2 + N2 + N1)

4 (N2 + N1)

5 (N1)

That’s how you can get ye olde Tele combo N1 + B1.

There’s also a fairly simple three-position on-off-on toggle-switch trick that you can use to choose either coil of a humbucker or combine both coils of a humbucker. I treated the two center pups (B2 and N2) as a humbucker. Depending on the position of that toggle, you can add N2 or B2 or B2&N2 to the combo notches of the knife switch.

In other words, when the toggle switch is in the center position, you are selecting B2 and N2. So in notch two on the knife switch, you get B1, B2 and N2. In the bottom position of the toggle you only add B2, so notch two of the knife would give you B1 and B2.

It sounds complicated but it really is easy once you use it for a while.

Now, if you want to get complicated, use that toggle in combination with the push-pull that adds the N1 pickup.

The other push pull gives you series on B1 and N1. The second toggle changes the phase on B2. I chose B2 because --- even though it will be out of phase with B1 --- it will also make that combo hum-cancelling. (A pat on the back for me on that one.)

Got a headache yet?

[e-merlin]

Nice! Very Steve Morse-esque. I like to see something different every once in a while.

Welcome to one of the best forums on the 'Net!

[woodman]

i've built three 3-pickup Teles, but this is the first one with four i've seen in recent years. i love crazy wiring schemes, but unlike you, i can't do wiring worth beans (hands too big and clumsy for fine work). so when i dream up a new scheme, i take it to a tech pal ... when he sees me coming, he just sort of shakes his head.

my new favorite sound, recently discovered, is N&B series/out of phase. we're talkin' honk!

[octatonic]

I reckon you can get a lipstick pickup in between the two middle pickups.

:-)

[Edutainment]

Originally Posted by octatonic

I reckon you can get a lipstick pickup in between the two middle pickups.

:-)

Oooh good idea. Good to see I'm not the only one here who likes a good lipstick pickup.

[Ubehebe]

Yes, there's room for a fifth pickup, but I have had problems with five pup guitars.

In other crazy wiring projects (this is not my first nor most complicated) I found that theoretically more pickups mean more interesting and usable sounds. But, unfortunately, it's not a case of the more the merrier. The pull on the strings from the pickup magnets does add up and can create problems, especially with some of the hotter single coils. Four pups is pushing it, I found, and I usually had problems with five pups.

Too much magnetism "pull" and you get what I call "Stratitis," although I may not be using the term correctly. The result is that the guitar always sounds out of tune, or drifts in and out of tune as the string vibration fades because the magnets are fighting over the strings. It isn't a musical sound at all. It's nasty.

I spent a lot of time on a five-pickup Burns Marquee (which is like a Strat) but had to abandon it because it sounded so out of tune. Individually the strings were in tune, but chords sounded out of tune and awful. That's why I limited myself to four pickups on the Tele.

But a lipstick would be a great addition. In fact, the chrome cover and the GFS fatbody do sound similar. I may just try a single coil lipstick instead of the fatbody. Thanks for the suggestion!

[blacklinefish]

You did a fine, clean job of it. If someone desired a 4-pup guitar, I think this is the model for it. It has 4, but it doesn't give the impression that you were going out of your way just to fit them on there. It's like a best-solution, rather than weird compromises. It doesn't insist on itself, if you know what I mean.

--gh