More New Pickups, a Buyer Guide to Chasing Tone

Firstly I have to say that I’m a total believer in tone wood. I had a tele back in the day that sounded muddy and I always thought this isn’t right why is this so dark. So on day I went about trying to find a set of pickups that would make it sound bright enough for me. E.g as bright as my favourite green G&L Asat. I change the pickups at least 4 times every time it turned out to be a different shade of mud. I just couldn’t get the guitar to ping.

Now it’s probably ten years later and I’m still comparing all my Telecasters to the green beast. This time though I have the same brand of guitar and a little more experience in choosing pickups and the results seem to have been better but not 100 % what I was looking for.

After last time, I had been talking to some of my more knowledgeable friends and they mentioned I should have tried replacing the pots. So on this guitar, I change the volume pot to a dual concentric pot 250/500k so the single coil still gets 250k but the humbucker gets a 500k. I also got rid of the humbucker in favour of a HP90 (humbucker spaced P90) The new pickup was made by bareknuckle and is called a Nantucket. It had all the things I normally like alnico 5 magnets and it was hand-wound 42AWG plain enamel wire.

The pickup is sadly only part of the equation of a guitar and I’m not 100% sold on this one. It seems to compress a little too much and doesn’t seem as bright as I had hoped it to be. Over all it’s an average pickup and in the right guitar it might be special but it’s not what I had hoped for and will probably find itself getting replaced at some stage.

Best pickup I have tried

PRS 58/15, Heritage hand-wound PAF, Raidoshop, ID Chris Buck, G&L Hand-wound MFD

Good Pickups

Seymour Duncan 59, Custom 5 and Jazz, little 59. Dimarzio Air Norton, Tone Zone. Bareknuckle old guard single coils and humbucker

Average pickups/ Good in the right Guitar

Bareknuckle Nantucket, Seymour Duncan Duck Bucker, 1/4 pounder, JB Alnico 2 Slash, Fender Fat 50’s, Dimarzio cruiser and fast track.