My Name Is Mud

try the fender humbuckers used on tele deluxes

3 adjustable pole pieces per pick up coil to round out the range and more of a single coil sound

 

I set the height for my humbucker guitars pretty low. I put less bass on the amp and fiddle with mids and treble. You'll never get the same kind of clarity with humbuggies as singles. If you do, give me the recipe.

The JB/Jazz set is pretty good. My other humbucker guitars have stock Gibbo pups. I would imagine any vintage output "PAF" voiced humbucker would sound pretty good.

I've used a set of Porter Classics and they are worth a look/listen. I am not affiliate with Porter in any way.

https://www.porterpickups.com/products/pickups/humbucker-pickups/

 

Nice looking Tele.

 

Nice
I thought humbuckers use 500k pots?

 

500k pots, and either smooth A2 based PAFs or hb sized filtertrons.
It wouldn't be too crazy of you to just pop in some p94s, or whatever HB sized p90s look cool.
Pots will help get the blanket off the sound.

 

m-m-m-mud

 

Mug/Mud, what you could do is pull the pickguard off and fashion/solder a direct from pickup to jack connection that bypasses everything. Get a sense of what the voice of this pickup is, when wide, wide open.

If it just isn't clear enough, replace the pickups but if it sounds enough better, then you can next test the pots you have and find out what values show in the real world. Replace pots as needed, or you could even leave one or more tone pots out of the circuit.

I'm just assuming you have exhausted the possibilities, as to pickup height, and tried new strings and strings with a brighter inherent voice. If you haven't, do those first.

 

Les Claypool!!!

 

What is with that switch?

Dan

 

I would try Boris' suggestion before just replacing the HBs. I've never heard an HB that didn't sound muddy with250k pots.

My Tele has a humbucker in the neck position, and I ended up bypassing the tone control all together for that pickup. You may not want to do that in yours since you have a 4 knob setup, but I see no harm in putting a 1 meg or no load tone pot in. If it's too bright, roll back the tone knob.

 

Third vote for @boris bubbanov 's suggestion. If you find it cleans up nicely, go with a 500K volume pot and a no-load tone pot.

 

Looks like deer antler prong.

 

Easy, change to alnico 5 magnets.

One a side note, did Larry Lalonde ever play a Tele?

 

Spritz some DeOxit in the pots, and turn the knobs.

You will be surprised at the results.