How To Swap Pickups In a Telecaster | Guitar Tech Tips | Ep. 61 | Thomann
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- Опубліковано 6 чер 2024
- Every guitar is slightly different and you need to be aware of a few things if you wanna change pickups in them. This time we’ll take a look at teles and I’ll walk you through the whole pickup swapping process.
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Interesting bits and pieces:
0:00 Introduction
0:36 Prepare the guitar and yourself
1:37 Heat up the iron and remove the old pickups
2:26 Install the new pickups
3:47 Soldering the new wires
4:42 What if you also have to swap pots?
5:59 Time for a test ride | PU Comparison
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Which guitar type do you want to see next? Enjoy the video and leave a comment. :) //Kris
All of them! Double Humbucker, HSH, 5 way and 3 way! There are so few good wiring tutorials and you guys do quality stuff!
@@atlas6053 thanks a lot, that's the right answer! haha! On it.
//Kris
I could really use some help how to swap pickups on a (semi) hollow. I have a Epiphone Casino and it unfortunately sounds quite dull. I wanted to switch the pickups for a longer time already, but did not, because switching the electronics and PUs without easy access sounded like a job a luthier should do. Would you recommend trying it on my own?
Fitting humbuckers to replace single coils. I have a Harley Benton DC kit which I'm very pleased with and fancy a Jaguar style next but with HBs instead of SCs
The new pickups seemed a lot brighter to me - almost seemed like the originals had the tone knob turned down a bit. Thanks for the overview Kris!
It’s those 500k pots. They brighten it way up.
Thanks. Followed this and had no trouble swapping pickups on a Squier 40th anniversary tele. Great cheap guitar sounds even better with new pickups.
I have a really nice Gotoh bridge on my tele, but it makes swapping pickups a pain in the butt. I have to remove 3 saddles to get to the bridge screws. It's my favorite tele bridge otherwise, but waiting to hear my new pickups until after I finish a full setup is just brutal. I tried some EMG T-52 in my tele and really really like them so far. My other to go set is DiMarzio pre b-1 and a true velvet t.
I learned something new today -> I need to go to the Guitar store and have someone do this for me.
You're awesome, thanks for the amazing content!
Cool! Very handy tips!
I would love to see you install a 52 SD Tele bridge and 55 Seth Lover SD Nickel plated humbucker into a Red Sparkle Tele Bullet. Very good video and easy to understand. I know there will have to be some routing for the neck pickup to fit but would love to see how you wire and what pots you use.
Nice job Kris. The Mojotone's have a nice clarity to them to me. I see Burgaw on the box... only about 15 miles from me so you have some good ole NC Mojo working for you!!! :)
Hey Steve, that's cool. :) I actually sniffed some fresh North Carolina air when I opened that pickup box. haha! I pretty much love everything Mojotone makes so it was a pleasure putting them in this tele. Ohh, and more Mojotone fun coming up soon. ;) //Kris
Fitting humbuckers to replace single coils. I have a Harley Benton DC kit which I'm very pleased with and fancy a Jaguar style next but with HBs instead of SCs
.. and if you have an import Tele and installing US pots, you may be caught by imperial vs. metric holes for the pots or your knobs may not be compatible - but don't worry, its all part of the joyfull ride of DIY
Indeed it is!
Good stuff, thanks. Maybe I missed, but setting the correct pickup height at the very end is another important movement.
So true! Thanks for the input! Cheers //Kris
Oh, reversed control plate. I see you are a man of culture :)
Haha, it's not my guitar, so the credit goes to the owner. :) I personally would go crazy with a reversed plate, I use the switch was too often for it. haha! Cheers //Kris
I got the same Telecaster. It’s a MEXICAN fsr ash tele and that reversed control plate is stock on them! By the way I‘m going to change the PUs and by the way I ordered the Fender deluxe drive set through Thoman.
I'm feeling those funky Mojo tones.
Surprisingly, I liked the old bridge pickup better but I liked the new neck pickup! I guess the Tele bridge maybe likes the 250k pots better. Another interesting Tele mod I love and would love to see you cover is having a 250k volume pot with a 1meg tone pot!
uhhh, 1 mega Ohm tone pot is great for those tone swells for sure! Sounds interesting, I'll note your suggestion. Thanks man! //Kris
@@JYZProductions
Why complicate the issue.
Chris, do have a recommendation for a Tele neck pickup that's less bassy than usual? I have Nocaster pup in the bridge position and an American 52 RI pup in the neck position. (They didn't sell the complete Nocaster set yet when I purchased it many years ago, so I used the 52) I hear this complaint a lot about the bassiness of neck Tele pups, so I know I'm not alone. Do you know of a pup that might work well with the Nocaster pup that puts out less bass?
I've got a Squier Telecaster that I'm tinkering around with, it already has a scalloped neck, reverse bridge, reverse control plate with slanted pickup selector, new string tree etc. Apologies in advance if it's a daft question - I have a spare Seymour Duncan SSL-6 pickup and would like to try it out in the bridge position on the Squier Telecaster mod project. Is it possible to modify a regular single coil by adding a Telecaster bridge pickup base plate, so it then has the three screws, instead of the screw on either ear? I was just wondering if it was at all possible and whether or not to try it out and see if I liked it more than the stock Squier bridge pickup. Many thanks. Carlo 👍🏼🎸
Clarity... love the clarity.
Aren't the screws for the bridge pickup going to ground the bridge plate since that pickup has a metal backing? Seems best to only ground once to prevent loops?
I have a "rare" Aria Pro ii 1-(615) Tele i bought in '95?'96. i wanna put those mini humbuckers in, JB Jrs. should All new pots(volume/tone)& selector switch be used? for better results? Your opinion.👍🏼
Hi Kris,, what series model Mojo Tones Pickups are you using?
Nice!
Hi Thomann . I've just changed the pickups with my first build Telecaster. But the problem is my bridge and middle sounds exactly the same. What seems to be the problem. This is really struggling me.
Great video. My wiring diagram for the Fender ultra noiseless pickups calls for a 0.22uF tone capacitor. I have a pre-wired pot kit with 0.47uF capacitor. what do you suggest here?--leave the 0.047uF or swap out the capacitor?
so I upgraded the pickups and controls in my Squier telecaster using the Fender ultra noiseless pickups and Emerson pre-wired control kit with pots, output jack, and selector. Overall, it was more of a hassle than I expected--both openings in the control plate and the opening in the output jack cup had to be drilled out because the newer parts were all a tad larger and would not fit through the openings. Also, the Squier pickups were mounted with wood screws into the body. In contrast, the new pickups came with smaller machine screws, presumably for a threaded socket in the control cavity. As a result, I removed the mounting bushings from the sides of the neck pickup in order to mount the neck pickup using the wood screws from the old ones.
In the end, sound is awesome, but I would have liked to know about these issues ahead of time.
Stronk Marty. Bist ein Held
I will generally first finish all electronic work soldering then test for proper connection and only then screw everything back on. So in case something goes wrong I will notice instantly after the soldering.
Great tip! Thanks for the comment, people, listen to Count Blue! Cheers //Kris
@@ThomannsGuitarsBasses I do a simple test by knocking on the pickps with some small screwdriver. One should hear a "knocking" sound coming from the speakers (put the amp on a low volume!!)
To test for proper toneblending you have to use sometime heaphones so you can hear the difference between the open and close toneblend. You could also use a multimeter, but of course you do know that anyways. ;-)
Mojotone 52 Quiet or Broadcaster Quiet, please ?
Ich liebe exakte informationen 👍❤🙂
🐈
Do we need to change guitar strings as well?
Great video, as usual. But what is the purpose of double ground wires? As far as I know you shouldn't route ground in triangles or it should not have inner circuits. So it's not the best idea to route like one wire to the pots and other one to the bridge pickup for example. How are we supposed to use the second wire?
Thanks a lot! You'll mainly see double ground wires on tele neck pickups because of the metal cover. The cover needs to be grounded too. Some brands will sum the two ground wires for you and leave 2 wires (1 hot - 1 ground) and some will give you all 3 wires, in case you want to/need to reverse the phase of the pickup.
On teles the bridge pickup's ground wire mostly get soldered on the bridge and then that goes together to the backside of the volume pot. So at the end all ground wires meet on the bottom of the pot. :) Does that explain everything? Cheers //Kris
@@ThomannsGuitarsBasses yep, thanks a lot, Kris!
Is this the player series? Did you swap the bridge for a vintage one?
Hey, no this is an older Mexico Tele. As far as I can tell it's a Classic 50s model (now the Vintera series) and that's the original bridge. Cheers //Kris
damn i hoped the metal on the neck pickup is able to be taken off as i have the squier 40th aniv and i like the aged look but it sound horrible.
Im still confused about the neck pickup. My old one was 3 wires, black/yellow/white. The new one is only 2 wires, black and yellow. So, is the yellow new one the hot wire? Does it go where the former yellow wire went or to where the former white wire went?
White is the still the hot wire. Yellow is a ground for the metal pickup cover. Black is ground for the pickup itself.
My neck pickup stopped working. Got a new one and will follow this vid. But, how can I test it? No strings. What if it's the switch that's bad?
Hey Paul, here's a trick: swap the pickup connections on the switch. If the bridge pickup worked until now, the switch should be fine on that connector pin. Now the neck pickup is connected there and if it still doesn't work you know it's the pickup's fault, not the switch. Another tip: you can test if pickups work by carefully tapping them with something metal, like an allen key. You don't need to have strings on the guitar. Cheers //Kris
I'll be back whenever I'll be switching pickups in Tele ❤️
Cheers Artur! Thanks for watching and let us know when you're doing it and how it all went. :) //Kris
Kris, do all Harley Benton teles come with a HB space in the neck? Makes it so much easier to mod.
It depends. You really never know what you're going to find. The Bullet teles that I've seen all have the HB space routed in the neck, but other tele models will have only a single-coil space routed there. You have to seek info on the model you intend to work on, or take it apart before ordering pickups.
@@sundaynightdrunk I meant Harley Benton teles. Sorry for any mix up.
@@Chip_57 Oh shit, my bad. You had put "HB" and I assumed "humbucker."
Please change strings on a kahler please
It would have been interesting to hear the original pickups with 500k pots and 375k pots... As well as the new pickups with 250k and 350k.
Outside of the scope of this video, but since we're doing siund comparisons here! 😂
Kris l suppose it is different for a change in a diy Thomann kit? Since the pu are in the pickgard? And euh in the bridgeplate, if l am not wrong 😊
You'll be doing pretty much the same thing as Kris did in the video, as long as you're talking about the Tele DIY Kit.
Harley Benton Kits have pre-wired electronics, so you have to buy all electronic parts:
Tele Output Jack,
wiring cable,
2 pots (1 linear, 1 logarithmic)(if you're planning to put in single coils, use 250k pots, if you want humbuckers in a single coil size, get 500k pots instead),
capacitors etc. (which ones to get depends on what type of pots you'll be using, so make sure read up on that. Like Kris said in the video, look up wiring diagrams online. Theres a ton of great info out there)
3 way Tele selector switch,
And finally, your new pickups.
You can find everything you need on thomanns website, i've bought all my guitar tech stuff there for a good price. Good luck!
@@Maciekovic yes it is the tele diy kit, i made mine some 2 years ago...since than l have spent most of my time building skateboards. Invested in materials for that. But wanted to upgrade the tele since the beginning, :) thank you so much for the info! Will look into it.
Thanks a lot Macie!!! That's some great info right there. The only thing to add, is that you can stick to the original pots and just remove the wire that's soldered on it's log (the one with the plug for the pickup wire). Then solder the new pickup's wire on the log and you're done. I have to say though that I agree with Macie, it makes sense to swap the other electronic parts in the kit (pots, switch, etc), since those are relatively basic. Cheers //Kris
@@ThomannsGuitarsBasses thanks to both of you! Will look into it as soon as l got some more time, since my building skateboards workshops have started again... cheers!
Slap like now!
Can i have the old pickups, they sounded good. I like o.g. Better.
What’s a good soldering iron to get??? Thanks
Weller is a great brand. I'm not sure if it's available in your country but it's worth giving it a go. Cheers //Kris
Thank you!
"If you have a four-way switch, this really isn't my problem"
Haha, ouch. 😅 You're right, I could've / should've slammed a screenshot of that wiring in the video. Luckily it's literally just googling "tele 4 way switch wiring" and you have it. :) Cheers //Kris
@@ThomannsGuitarsBasses Oh, I wasn't criticising. Just struck me as funny with the in-depth information then the sudden "GOOGLE IT M8" :D
😂ha ha
I liked the sound of the original pups better. Good work though
Before pu warm & tick, after pu more bright.
GREAT...!
Kris deine Tele wird schon wieder neu bestückt xD Die gute hat nie Ruhe xD
nö nö nö, in meiner Tele bleibt alles unberührt. :) Das ist eine Mexico Standard Tele und die Originaltonabnehmer wurden gegen die Mojotone PUs ausgetauscht. Ciao //Kris
Hmmm... Why change pickups in a Tele?
I prefer the original one
How do I get my SD invaders crammed into that ashtray… oh hello angle grinder 🤭
Haha! Let's put TWO Invaders in there. Stacked or something. 4 coils in series. BAM!! Take that, you tele! lol //Kris
Deep cuts
Can I just have someone else do this?
Is this ASMR ?
It pretty much is, for me at least. :D Others would call it a pickup swap guide. You can call it whatever you like, as long as it helps you in any way. haha! cheers //Kris
merken
what? a fender (probably mexican) has such terrible original pickups (as bad as squire) and the control panel is mounted backwards too.
Hey, the reversed control plate is a modification many tele players love doing. It's not a factory spec on this guitar, the owner made that.
As told in the video, it's a Mexican tele (a few years old Classic 50s model). The original pickups are not bad at all, but if you compare them to hand wired custom pickups (such as the Mojotone Quiet Coils) they might sound a little flat. That's not a surprise to me, it's a mid-priced Fender guitar with mid-priced original pickups whilst Mojotone is one of the best guitar parts brands. Cheers //Kris
DoNt Be SuRpRiSEd