Seymour Duncan Lil 59?

[lttoler]

I know this pickup has been discussed many times, but I am still looking for more info on it. I am the only guitarist in a cover band so I'm looking for something a lil thicker. I am mainly wanting to know how well the pickup does clean. I know it wont be vintage twang, but I dont want something very dark either. Does anyone have sound clips or opinions? Thanks in advance!

 

[unchained]

It's dark for sure, but if you replace the volume pot with a pushpull you can get some cool twang out of it. I have one and I switch between series and parallel mode depending on the song.

 

[unchained]

If you weren't so far away I'd let you come by and play it for a while.

 

[luvmytelecaster]

The clean is exactly why i'm not getting one, and i'm in the market for a tele brideg HB right now. Had one in a strat and the cleans were just lifeless. As he said above, dark, but not in a good way. Just dull. Split wasn't great either.

 

[Turmoil]

I much prefer an overwound single coil like a quarter pounder. The 'Lil '59 just looses too much of the Tele character for me.

 

[FatTeleTom]

The Lil '59 doesn't sound dark at all to my ears, but I use 500K pots. Your mileage may vary if you have 250K pots.

 

[Tommy Biggs]

I have one in a Strat Bridge - I can't imagine it being a good twangy clean at all, but mine isn't split.
I don't really use it for Cleans on the Strat - every other option sounds better. I keep it because it gives versatility on the strat and yields pretty good rock tones for an easily reversible HB option. Not bad in position 2 - but true single would be better, it tends to overpower the Strat single - and I imagine it would do the same to a tele neck pup. I would be less forgiving about that.
IMO there are lots of better choices.

I liked the DiMarzio Pre-B1, it's not a favorite here although not really criticized.
I also like the SD Vintage Stack® Tele (lead & rhythm) STK-T3b & STK-T1n, quiet and still a bit o' twang. very useful for rock with the right pedal and or amp.

 

[jetagegreg]

My recommendation would be the Duncan Pearly Gates for Telecaster, which is basically a Li'l '59 with Alnico 5 magnets, instead of ceramic. One of these in an Esquire, with a 3-way switch wired parallel/single-coil/series, will give you all the rock you want. Plus it's quite articulate clean.

-GB

 

[luvmytelecaster]

I should clarify what i meant.1st, i think i said it was a strat lil59, but teh tele model should be basically the same tone. I use my volume knob to clean up, so i'm not talking about a clean amp setting and the guitar on 10. I'm talking you're using some distortion and you turn the guitar down to say 5 to get clean. The lil 59 did not sound good like that. Dark may have even not been the best way to put it, but dull or lifeless probably is. So for me it was a all or nothing pickup. Not what i like in any position because i like to use a good single channel tube amp and control everything from the guitar. The lil 59 just didn't do that well, nor did it blend well with the middle position. Whether that would also be an issue with a tele blending it with the neck i don't know. But it lost the strat quack badly, and i use full size HB's now which allow for great quack. Anyways, that my feeling about them....clean ain't happening. OD is pretty good tho. Best SC sized HB i ever found was a lawrence XL250 which unfortunately is not longer made. Think of it as a lil 59 but with more sizzle in the OD tone and a very good clean tone no matter how you get it, and an output thats a bit hotter. Wish i had one for my thinline, but they are hard to find and i'm not even sure he ever made them for tele.

 

[Turmoil]

The Lil '59 doesn't sound dark at all to my ears, but I use 500K pots. Your mileage may vary if you have 250K pots.

I finally got around to swapping in 500k pots, and did this pickup ever come alive! Seriously, if you've been like me and been underwhelmed by the sound of the lil59, try it with 500k's!

It's been musical chairs with pups in my am STD for the last couple months. Me thinks the lil59 is gonna stay in there for awhile.

 

[FatTeleTom]

Cool.

One of the tough things about sharing "tone" opinions regarding any piece of guitar gear is that just about every element in the chain is dependent to some degree on what comes before or after it in the signal chain. And it's especially true for pickups, where pots, cable runs and other impedance issues, etc. can really make a big difference.

 

[Wrong-Note Rod]

Mine sounds somewhat dark and not very snappy in a clean setting.... I dont use it as such. I also have the strat version in a strat, and I use the number 2 toggle position for clean, thats pretty good.
+1 on the quarter pounder, and the Muy Grande from Rio Grande is another great hi output tele bridge that sounds great cranked up but still kinda has a tele twang to it, a little bit anyway.

 

[Turmoil]

Update. I finally installed a coil tap switch on the lil59. It's really quite good sounding a a single coil as well! This pickup now gets my complete stamp of approval.

 

[Stylemaster]

I finally got around to swapping in 500k pots, and did this pickup ever come alive! Seriously, if you've been like me and been underwhelmed by the sound of the lil59, try it with 500k's!

I just bought a used Lil '59 Tele bridge pup at a neighborhood gear swap-and-sell thing. My current pickups in my go-to part-o-caster are: the Duncan Minibucker SM-1 neck (like what's in the '52 Hot Rod Tele) and the discontinued DiMarzio Virtual Vintage Hot Tele bridge (which I like much more than the Area Hot T that replaced it). At some point my curiosity will over take me and I will have to swap out the DiMarzio for the Lil '59. From what I've read on this thread and others, the SM-1n mates well with the Lil '59 and your journey/review is encouraging (I use 500k pots and a .022uf cap with this guitar). What I'm hoping for from the Lil '59 is a sound like a Gibson-style full size humbucker only with more top end - also that it's not as ho-hum through a cleanish amp as everyone says it is.

 

[FatTeleTom]

For what it's worth, I was just installing a treble bleed (or "volume kit") set-up in my double-Fat Tele yesterday, and was reminded just how good the Lil '59 sounds to my ears.

Both clean and overdriven tones sound great. Nice and full with some top-end snap. That's with 500K pots.

For the volume kit, I went with a .001micro cap in series with a 100K resister (Rat Shack didn't have the 150Ks I was hoping for). That seems to work really nicely, at least at home volumes. Will test it at rehearsal next week.

 

[Stylemaster]

For what it's worth, I was just installing a treble bleed (or "volume kit") set-up in my double-Fat Tele yesterday, and was reminded just how good the Lil '59 sounds to my ears.

Both clean and overdriven tones sound great. Nice and full with some top-end snap. That's with 500K pots.

For the volume kit, I went with a .001micro cap in series with a 100K resister (Rat Shack didn't have the 150Ks I was hoping for). That seems to work really nicely, at least at home volumes. Will test it at rehearsal next week.

My control assembly was already wired with a "volume kit"/treble bleed. What are you using for the neck pup?

 

[Wrong-Note Rod]

as the others have said, clean is not what this pickup does well.

this one, however, does clean up pretty well. You;re never going to get surgical clean like a strat into a twin with anything like this, but this one is about as good as it gets.. this ones for strat, but i think they make em for Tele as well, not sure

(link removed)

 

[FatTeleTom]

My control assembly was already wired with a "volume kit"/treble bleed. What are you using for the neck pup?

It's the Fender DH-1 that came stock on the American Series Fat Tele (I think it's a Seymour Duncan product as well?). It works really well on its own, and blends very nicely with the Lil '59, both in full humbucker mode and split.

I've also got a Strat pickup in the middle (a Fralin Vintage Hot), and the Lil '59 does a decent "quack" in combination with it.

With respect to the Lil '59's clean tone, I think people have such widely diverse ideas of what a good clean tone is (and even what constitutes "clean") that you'll probably have to try it to see if it works for you.

Tom

 

[Stylemaster]

With respect to the Lil '59's clean tone, I think people have such widely diverse ideas of what a good clean tone is (and even what constitutes "clean") that you'll probably have to try it to see if it works for you.

Tom

I kind of figured that for myself. The "clean" tone as compared to what? On TDPRI it means, IMO, compared to a true vintage style Tele bridge pickup and there is no other formula for a pickup that could ever come close. Now if we were talking "clean" tone on a Les Paul forum, well that would be something entirely different.

 

[FatTeleTom]

I kind of figured that for myself. The "clean" tone as compared to what? On TDPRI it means, IMO, compared to a true vintage style Tele bridge pickup and there is no other formula for a pickup that could ever come close. Now if we were talking "clean" tone on a Les Paul forum, well that would be something entirely different.

Exactly.

If you're looking for a noiseless version of the classic Tele bridge pickup tone, then it makes no sense to even consider a pickup explicitly designed to emulate the tones of a PAF-style humbucker!

As for how good a job the Lil '59 does at making a Tele sound like a '59 'burst Les Paul, I have no idea (having never played a '59 LP). But I do think it does a pretty good job of giving you good (clean and dirty) bridge humbucker tones.