Modifying my Fender Player Series Tele with a neck humbucker

[fenderPS]

Hi all

I'm sure this has been asked before but I'm going to ask it.

I want to put a neck humbucker in my Fender player series telecaster. I want a Keith Richards sound as I use the Tele in just open G for playing the stones.

Now you ask "why didn't I just buy a player series HH or SH?". Answer is I wanted a black Tele and Fender don't do aplqyer series in black in the HH or SH.

What humbucker would anyone suggest to drop in to have the Keith sound?

What will I need to do to put the humbucker in and what mods will I need to do?

Anyone any idea of the cost to do this mod excluding the cost of the humbucker?

All ideas welcome

Thanks all

 

[Danb541]

Not much. I assume you'll need to make the pickup route bigger unless it's already routed for a HB. Basically to do it on the cheap, it's the cost of a good sharp chisel and new pick guard. Assuming you're sticking with (2) 250K pots.

 

[Freeman Keller]

Pickguards are available from a lot of sources

https://warmoth.com/pickguard-tele-custom

Without seeing the body under yours there is no way of knowing if body routing would be required. If I was doing it I would use a proper router and template. Humbuckers like different pots and caps than single coils - you'll have to decide which to optimize for. Without knowing more I would guess that it would take two to three hours in my shop plus parts. You know what you pay your tech.

ps - I don't recomment pickups, that is a very personal subject. I let people play my guitars and tell them what they are playing, but that is it. No idea what Keith played.

 

[Phrygian77]

I just put together a Fat Thinline using a Jerry Donahue bridge and a Seth Lover neck. It's wired the way some people suspect Micawber is wired which is with a blend control instead of a tone control.

 

[Matthias]

I think players are all routed for HBs. In which case it can be as simple as unsolder neck pick up hot and ground, put on new pickguard and humbucker and solder new leads where hot and ground went before.

However, may also want to mod the wiring… An HB might be a bit dark with stock 250k pots that I presume Players have. HB guitars often use 500k but I think some single coil/HB combos use 375k. Not sure on the best tone cap. You may want to research how Keef’s is wired if you’re shooting for the exact tone. Teles are a pretty straightforward wiring job though, or at least most standard modern schematics are.

Replacement pots, caps and wires should cost under 30 euro for very good quality parts. New pickguard maybe 20 euro for a decent third party one. If you pay a tech, it’s not a massive job.

 

[tenthstreet]

Confirmed that the Player is already routed for a humbucker. Just had new pickups installed on a new Player and the person who modified it mentioned that, although mine was a standard neck pickup.

Pots are 250, so what @Matthias mentioned is on point! I went with a pro to take care of my modifications because I’ve never soldered. There are solderless systems for Teles and humbuckers, but I wanted a fairly permanent approach.

 

[Maguchi]

Hi all

I'm sure this has been asked before but I'm going to ask it.

I want to put a neck humbucker in my Fender player series telecaster. I want a Keith Richards sound as I use the Tele in just open G for playing the stones.

Now you ask "why didn't I just buy a player series HH or SH?". Answer is I wanted a black Tele and Fender don't do aplqyer series in black in the HH or SH.

What humbucker would anyone suggest to drop in to have the Keith sound?

What will I need to do to put the humbucker in and what mods will I need to do?

Anyone any idea of the cost to do this mod excluding the cost of the humbucker?

All ideas welcome

Thanks all

Not much. I assume you'll need to make the pickup route bigger unless it's already routed for a HB. Basically to do it on the cheap, it's the cost of a good sharp chisel and new pick guard. Assuming you're sticking with (2) 250K pots.

The pickup rout should already be routed out for a full size humdinger on a Playah'. Prolly just have to cut out the pickguard or get a replacement pickguard for a coupla sawbucks or less. Here's a pic a my 2019 or 2020 Playuh' with the pickguard off, and back together. I'm assuming yours is prolly cut for a humbucker too. When I had mine apart. I changed the pickups out and the caps to Orange Drops, the pots to CTS, the switch to an Oak Grigsby 4 way and a Switchcraft jack. The standard electronics are OK but nuthin' to write home about. If you got the guitar apart already, the primo parts are cheap, so it's a good time to upgrade.

 

[TokyoPortrait]

Hi.

I'm assuming below you have no experience with this sort of thing.

First step, take your pick-guard off and find out if it already has a rout already for humbuckers. I'm guessing not, as I believe Player Series only come in traditional single coils or HH, correct? But, have a look and tell us. You might get lucky.

If you need to route, you can do it with good chisels and care, as has been mentioned, or some kind of router / trimer. I'd recommend a hand held router / trimmer & some practice. You can do a good job with a router, but you can also make a mess really quickly (fractions of a second!). But, there's no reason why you can't do it with a good chisel or two and just going slowly. Actually, going slow and steady is the order of the day, whatever method you use.

You'd also be best served with a template, to guide your routing. Essential really, if using a router. I believe you can buy them for some pickup brands. But, if you take your time, you can also make your own out of MDF, etc. See first photo below.

If routing, you might end up with gaps and things, depending on the size of the humbucker you go with and how it mounts. See second photo below where the original single coil rout extends past where the TV Jones ends. So, you'll need a pick-guard too, and that might inform where you choose to actually rout.

You'll need a soldering iron too. Get something decent. Learn how to tin it and use it. Practice first. It's not hard at all, but can be fiddly. You might need some alligator clips or self clamping tweezers, etc. to help with the fiddly bits. And I'll repeat, practice. A messy, poor or dry joint is a common problem, as it accidentally shorting things out. But really, it's easy after a little practice and I don't know why people make such a fuss about it. Good skill to have.

Then you need to settle on a wiring scheme. Just do a lot of research and see what you like the sound of. You will probably need to change the values of the pots, etc. Again, lots of options. Probably you will want something like 500k pots because of the humbucker, and some extra wiring mods to make the single coil think it is seeing a 250k vol pot (see third photo below). Not hard to do. Again, research and then asking here once you've made your wiring choice.

Which humbucker? No idea. But according to a Reverb article, it's a Gibson PAF. If I were doing it, I'd start with a neck PAF style from Bootstrap pickups. Because, their products are both great and reasonably priced (reasonable enough that even import duties might not hit too hard - again, more research).

https://reverb.com/news/a-blackguard-named-micawber-keith-richards-no-1-fender-telecaster

https://bootstrappickups.com (no affiliation, just a very happy customer).

Costs?

Whatever a router plus bit or chisels cost. Don't buy an expensive router, but don't buy some cheap no-name brand either. You may know someone with one you can borrow too. Research the size of the chuck and bits before you buy, as they come in a couple of sizes.

Same applies if you go with chisels and hammer. Find out here what sizes people would recommend and get decent ones. Or borrow. So, however much that costs where you are.

Wire, pots, and resistors, capacitors, pick-guard etc. - probably not very much. Thomann has Allparts CTS 500k audio pots at €7,80 each I see, and 'fancy' capacitors* ranging from around €1,48 - €2,85, etc. Maybe you can get them cheaper in other places, like Amazon? Often you can get sets of a range of resistors or capacitors for very little money.

So, figure out if you need to rout, figure out what wiring scheme you like the sound of (pun intended), figure out what humbucker you want to try (first ), and come back and ask more questions. There are a lot of people on here with way more experience than me that can help you.

Hope that helps for now.

Pax/
Dean
* in a passive guitar circuit, the capacitor type does not matter, as it's just sending stuff to ground, so anything the right value will do (others will argue differently though)

 

[Caffiend]

My 2c. My Player Strat was routed HSH from the factory and I gather that since about 2016 or so this is normal. I’m not 100% certain about teles although at least the neck would make sense. Not sure if all teles would have an HB rout at the bridge, I’d have thought that would cause bridge issues. Easy to find out, slack strings and take the guard off.

If you do need to cut wood (unlikely I think) then as you’ve got a pickguard I’d use a chisel personally. Routers are better but by the time you buy one you might as well pay a luthier. The first attempt at cutting a pickup hole is going to be ugly unless you have considerable wood skills already. Don’t discount the value of practice on scrap wood although with a pickguard to hide and mess it’s not the end of the world.

Agree that pickup choices are personal but if you’re looking for Keef then it’s 50’s PAF types that should probably be your starting point.

Agree also about pot values - except there’s a fix.

 

[TokyoPortrait]

Hi.

Agree also about pot values - except there’s a fix.

Oh, that’s a nice, clear diagram.

Exactly what I was referring to in the seventh (!) paragraph in my post immediately above, and seen when trialing various resistor values in my last photo. Easy, seems to work well, and in fact, arguably necessary.

Pax/
Dean

 

[Twang Deluxe]

I would take a singlecoilsized humbucker

 

[Midgetje94]

My 2016 FSR deluxe ash MIM. Already routed for a humbucker. I went with the Seth Lover. With a Duncan Jerry Donahue in the bridge. Mine was already routed for a humbucker in the neck (stock ss pickups) so I paid what $40? For a matte black humbucker guard. Then rewire. So you’re just looking at cost of humbucker and new Pickguard. Unless you can’t solder. Then whatever a shop charges to do it.

But as you can tell mine is very Micawber-like. A hat tip to the Keef, as he’s the reason I play. I do have a open G guitar. But this is my go to in standard. Ironically my Open G telecaster has a Strat pickup in the neck. But it also has the series/parallel mod. And I like having that series option. Thickens it up more in a way I favor for open G. But still wanted a tribute (not copy) to Micawber.