Pickup Height Adjustment on CuNiFe FWRH Tele Custom

[johmica]

I've been working on trying to refine a tele build that I did several months ago. I've posted these before, but here's a photo or two:

It's an MJT build with a Musikraft neck, a FWRH RI in the neck, and a Don Mare Green Onions in the bridge.

I just got it back from getting Plek'ed (I'm very happy with the set-up on this guitar, and the Plek service would have been competitive with a normal fret-level/set-up fee, were it not for shipping costs).

While it was off getting auto-cad-ed, I found myself some reverse-taper 1 meg pots, and they're going in tomorrow. After that, it's just a matter of playing around with pick-up height for a bit, and it ought to be good to go. For the bridge, I'll start out with the standard recommendation of 2/64" for the first string and 3/64" on the sixth string, and then back off from there. I'm wondering if anyone has any informed recommendation on where a good starting point would be for the FWRH.

I guess I can always start with the standard Gibson recommendation for a neck humbucker (4/64" on both poles), but the FWRH is such a different animal, I was wondering if anyone knew Fender's standard spec, say for the AO 70's Tele.

Of course, once I get them in the rough vicinity of where they'll belong, I'll definitely flavor to taste. I just like to have a good idea of a reasonable starting point.

 

[moosie]

Check out @Telenator's post on the subject. He's the man when it comes to these pickups.

 

[Boreas]

The hard part will be matching output. I would start the bridge where suggested and set the neck quite a bit lower. Then raise the neck gradually until you get the balance you like. The WRHBs have significant output, to put it mildly.

 

[mimmo]

I sencond @moosie 's post.

Yesterday I did exactly what @Telenator says in his post and man, the new fender CuNiFe WRHB came to life!

If I'm not wrong, in another post Telenator said that the Telecaster Custom is a two trick pony: the sounds are essentially the neck and the middle position, the bridge is there just to create the 'magic' of the middle position. I may be wrong BTW.

 

[Telenator]

So glad it worked out for you!
In our experience with WRHBs we found the biggest problem people had was set-up. A WRHB sounds very average until you get it in the sweet spot.

And you are correct about the Two Trick Pony comment. But what a pony! LOL

We have a youtube video out there somewhere with a sound clip of a Kinman Bridge Blaster in the bridge position. Sounds great, and it makes the whole guitar noiseless.

Glad you got the sound you were looking for.

 

[beachbreak]

I really lowered and adjusted the pole pieces on my Fat Tele to not overpower the SD Broadcaster bridge PU when both neck and bridge PU's were "on".

I'd rather have a lower output, clear sounding neck HB, thinking of SD Jazz but not ready to change yet.

 

[moosie]

I sencond @moosie 's post.

Yesterday I did exactly what @Telenator says in his post and man, the new fender CuNiFe WRHB came to life!

If I'm not wrong, in another post Telenator said that the Telecaster Custom is a two trick pony: the sounds are essentially the neck and the middle position, the bridge is there just to create the 'magic' of the middle position. I may be wrong BTW.

Yep, and as I recall @Telenator also said that all this tone chasing with CuNiFe was geared to those who play clean, or mostly clean. I'm not sure if that meant the pickups weren't designed for medium to high gain, but I don't care, since I play with no overdrive at all most of the time.

 

[mimmo]

Yep, and as I recall @Telenator also said that all this tone chasing with CuNiFe was geared to those who play clean, or mostly clean. I'm not sure if that meant the pickups weren't designed for medium to high gain, but I don't care, since I play with no overdrive at all most of the time.

Indeed he said that. I was struggling with some overdrive, then I found his posts and I saw the light: when I play with medium gain my other guitars are at disposal, but for clean or very light overdrive the WRHB is just perfection.
I love that middle position!

 

[JustWoj]

I have a thin-skin Tele Deluxe reissue with CuNiFe wide range humbuckers in it, and they break up quite nicely with light to medium gain. Even high gain sounds decent, listen to Sonic Youth and Radiohead for some evidence of that.

These pickups break up differently than most humbuckers, and can get a really mushy/smeared/undefined sound. And the attack on lower notes is fairly soft.

Telenator listed a long complex method of setting up heights & tuning, which I tried & it sounded nice for clean tones. Less so w/distortion.

I then set them up with standard recommended humbucker heights, pole pieces all same flat across, and that was better for distortion. Less so for clean tones.

Third go around for tuning I split the difference for height & method of tuning, and raised the wound string polepieces to match distances to strings with a feeler gauge. Which works OK for both clean and dirty.

CuNiFe humbuckers are definitely sensitive to string height & you can get big changes with different sounds. Be patient and take notes as you are tuning for whatever sound you are trying to get.