Telecaster neck pickup height

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Jaugarlytele

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Hello everyone,
I just joined this interesting forum, and I have a perhaps stupid question, I bought a mim 60s reissue fender body and when I bought some player pickups, we had to route into the body to add depth for the neck pickup, I was quite surprised as I thought they are all standard size. The reason I ask is that every time I check Google all I get is pick up height, you know the distance to the strings.

Can anyone tell me is there a standard height for telecaster neck pickups? Are the more vintage pickups less tall? I was thinking about some pure vintage 64’s, or bare knuckle old guard.
Thanks in advance
 

misterdontmove

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Hello everyone,
I just joined this interesting forum, and I have a perhaps stupid question, I bought a mim 60s reissue fender body and when I bought some player pickups, we had to route into the body to add depth for the neck pickup, I was quite surprised as I thought they are all standard size. The reason I ask is that every time I check Google all I get is pick up height, you know the distance to the strings.

Can anyone tell me is there a standard height for telecaster neck pickups? Are the more vintage pickups less tall? I was thinking about some pure vintage 64’s, or bare knuckle old guard.
Thanks in advance
I always raise the neck pickup until the magnetic pull effects string vibration. The string will audibly oscillate (you'll hear the tone warble) when playing above the 12th fret. Then I adjust downward in increments until the "warble" stops. Then I measure the distance between the pickup cover and the high and low E strings (fretted at the highest fret). We don't know, for sure, how close the pole pieces are to the cover, but now you know that anything below that measurement is fair game.
 

LOSTVENTURE

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I don't know if thee is a standard. And if there is, I've never conformed to it.
I set the neck pickup elevation, and slant, based on the tone I'm listening for on each specific guitar.
When I'm happy with that, I set the bridge pickup to give a full bodied tone when using both pickups combined.
 

AAT65

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There are drawings on the Seymour Duncan site if you dig around in the details of the pick-up specs.
- Vintage Broadcaster:
1740090824948.png


- Little ‘59 (a bit taller because it’s a stacked noiseless pickup):
1740091031892.png


So it’s not definitive, but leads me to expect most neck pickups will be between 0.68” and 0.77” tall (or deep or whatever you want to call it😀).
 

Alaska Mike

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It's an interesting question, and one I really need to look into.

A lot of modern Telecaster bodies have a humbucker route in the neck position, and they seem deeper just eyeballing it, but I have never put a ruler on my various bodies. In some cases, installing a vintage pickup like a AVRI '62 had me installing longer rubber bushings on the screws (if I was doing body mount).

I am going to be installing a set of G&L pickups in a Classic Vibe baritone body for a Telecaster XII project, and the neck pickup is most definitely taller. Hope it fits.
 

red57strat

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Fralin shows their Vintage Hot Tele neck pickup as being 0.73" [18.5mm] tall. I imagine a regular Fender Tele neck pickup is about that.

Telecaster-Dimensions-1339x1536.jpg
 

Boreas

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I doubt there could be a standard Fender pickup height as there is really no such thing as a standard neck pickup. Different winds and materials/bobbins/magnets can result in varying height specs. A particular body may be routed to accept ALL OEM pickups, or could be routed specifically for a particular pickup for that model. Bottom line is, ya gotta measure your cavity and get the specs for the pickup you wish to install. You may well need to rout/adjust the cavity for a good fit that allows proper adjustment range. Get the installation specs for the PV64 pickup set and figure out if your cavities are adequate as-is.

They are great pickups BTW.
 

Matthias

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It's an interesting question, and one I really need to look into.

A lot of modern Telecaster bodies have a humbucker route in the neck position, and they seem deeper just eyeballing it, but I have never put a ruler on my various bodies. In some cases, installing a vintage pickup like a AVRI '62 had me installing longer rubber bushings on the screws (if I was doing body mount).

I am going to be installing a set of G&L pickups in a Classic Vibe baritone body for a Telecaster XII project, and the neck pickup is most definitely taller. Hope it fits.

And annoyingly, those humbucker routes only fit short screws and not the ones that come with most humbuckers!
 

Wallaby

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Just a thought, searching for "dimensions" rather than "height" might work.

It's an interesting thing - "height" has become the word that describes what is actually the "distance" to the strings, it doesn't exactly make sense.

Just random thoughts, carry on :D
 

Antoon

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In most Tele's the neck pickup route has the same dept as the neck pocket route. In the the neck pickup route there is usually a 1" neck heel. So the distance from bottom of the neck pickup route to the strings when fretted at the last fret is about 1" (little more in the middle, little less at the edges). The neck pickup, plus the distance between the strings and the cover should fit in that 1" space. If it does not I would consider the neck pickup too tall.
 

PCollen

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The OP isn't asking about pickup height, as in the distance between the pickup and the strings.

He wants to know how tall are standard or typical Tele neck pickups.

I don' know the answer to that, but there probably are variances...
Glad that SOMEBODY understood the OPs question....
 

Humbuckers

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The neck pickups of the Player series, Performer, and American Professional Teles have non-standard extra-tall bobbins. The pole pieces on these pickups are .78-.8” (rather than the standard.63-.67”) in order to tighten up the low end. This is probably why you had to route the body.
 

monkeybanana

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Standard magnet height is .671" plus a little for the cover and make sure the wires don't get sandwiched vertically between the bottom bobbin and the body that will prevent it from going down all the way if you need to.
 

GuitarsBuicks

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This is interesting because I have a set of ‘51 NoCasters in an American Standard with the traditional Routing u their the pick guard, not a swimming pool or humbucker, and every time I attempt to adjust the neck pickup it falls off the screws because it’s so much longer than the stock pickup that was in the guitar. I wonder if longer screws would help, as I tire of getting the pick guard off to fix things. Although, I think I got it right finally so maybe it won’t need adjusting again.
 
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