What's your favourite Tele Pickups?

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pipthepilot

Tele-Meister
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Hello Everyone,

Very interested to hear what people's favourite pickups are in a Tele?
Preferably single coils, the way god intended them :)

I'll go first.
My favourites are a set of Custom Shop Twisted Tele Pickups (fender.com) in my Partscaster, they sound incredible. The bridge is unmistakeable (twangy) tele but they also have a bit of a Strat vide on the Neck PU. There're wind quite hot, which I really like. I've wired them with a 4-way switch where the 2 position is Neck/Bridge in parallel and position 3 is Neck/Bridge is series. Having both pickups in series sound really Humbuckerish.
 

Dukex

Friend of Leo's
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I love the AlNiCo 3 '62 Custom Tele pickups in my only Tele. Sounds terrific through a Lil Dawg 5e3, VSA Vintage 15, and Vox AC4HW1. I have no desire to experiment with other pickups and will happily wallow in my own, self-indulgent ignorance re what I might be missing.
 

drmordo

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Do you know if the JP Mirror and Dragon telecasters used the same pickup? I believe Jimmy had custom wound 58s in his Tele, I wonder if the Fender Vintage 58s would be similar?

I don't know the answers to your questions. My set came out of a Dragon. I would think both guitars would have the same PUs but I'm not certain.
 

Sax-son

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I must admit, I have my eye on these.
I built a partscaster for a friend of mine using this set around 15 years ago. He later took this guitar into a famous guitar shop in San Francisco to have something done to it and they told him that that guitar was one of the best sounding and playing guitars they had seen in a long time. Although it had been built from top quality components (not of my making), there was nothing that wasn't available to the general public at that time, so I took it as quite a compliment. True story!
 

Chicago Matt

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Aug 23, 2014
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I've tried 7 or so bridge pickups in my Tele. My favorite is the Cavalier Holy Grail Nocaster. It has good output, fatness, and warmth, but still twangs like a good Tele should. Just beautiful.

I must have strange taste, but for a standard format Tele neck pickup, I love the cheap Tex Mex that came in my 2016 Road Worn Tele. I've tried 5 or 6 other "boo teek" ones, but always come back to that cheap Tex Mex. I have a partscaster with a low-wound P90 in the neck, and a hotter Cavalier Fat Lion in the bridge and I love that one too.
 
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