Advice about humbucker neck pickup on a Tele

[Denise]

Hi

I am thinking of changing the humbucker pickup on my Tele Performer (HH-S).
The neck humbucker tone has for my taste too less warmth and not a “distinguished” tone especially when playing lead.

I am looking for a humbucker with more warmth, fat tone and twang.

Has anyone suggestions about great sounding neck humbucker pickups for Teles?
I am not much familiar with any pickup brands.

Thanks for any advice.
Denise

More Blues!

[JoeD1]

I have a Seymour Duncan ’59 SH-1N on my Special Edition Custom Telecaster FMT HH and love the tones it gives.

Joe

The sight of a touch, or the scent of a sound,
Or the strength of an Oak with roots deep in the ground.
--Graeme Edge

[Dave O]

Most HB pickups in neck position can be a little dull and muffled. Even in LP guitars. It takes the right combo of pickup/guitar for the neck pickup to sound great, imho. For a Tele, single coils is the long time proven recipe. However, Andy Wood plays a tele with humbuckers and I can’t argue that he sounds great., but his playing style is probably a big part of the equation. He uses the Suhr Woodshed pickups. – https://www.suhr.com/pickups/single-coil/suhr-woodshed-andy-wood-pickups/

One thing to consider is the type of magnets and windings pickup you choose. I tend to like hotter single coil pickups (ex. ~8K alnico 5). But some would argue that undewound pickups with the amp pushing harder is the best tone. I have also head some really cool alnico 3 results coming out of Rightoues Sound Pickups – not sure if those are commercially available yet. https://www.righteoussoundpickups.com

Lollar, Throbak and Ron Ellis pickups are considered high end. I like Throbak and Ron Ellis the best, but the latter are pricey. I think Righteous Sound is being the most innovative.

Good luck on your tone adventures. I bet it will be fun!

[sunjamr]

I’m not sure why we even need humbucker pickups in 2025. Humbuckers were designed to “buck the hum” that early single coil pickups produced. To me, the noiseless single coil pickups made today have solved that problem, so why not just use the superior pickup – a noiseless single coil?

Sunjamr Steve

[GnLguy]

That’s very easy to answer – it all comes down to preference…..

For me, I like the sound and tone of humbuckers much better…….

As far as single coils are concerned the P90 with all of the hum that they can gather from their environment & push into an amp would be my preference over other single coils…..

Granted, the Strat & Tele has been used by countless great players and they sound great but I’ll take a good PAF any day….

Keith
aka GnLguy

[Dave O]

sunjamr wrote:

I’m not sure why we even need humbucker pickups in 2025. Humbuckers were designed to “buck the hum” that early single coil pickups produced. To me, the noiseless single coil pickups made today have solved that problem, so why not just use the superior pickup – a noiseless single coil?

To me, the noiseless single coils do not sound as good as the traditional ones. Maybe I have not tried the right ones. But, I agree that single coil pickups sound more open than humbuckers.

[GnLguy]

Hey Denise

I would suggest that you look at pickups by Planet Tone, which is a company in Colorado.
Exceptional build quality and tone at very reasonable prices. Its a small company that builds everything to order; the owner is very accessible to answer your questions and give solid advice on the sound that you’re looking for

https://planettone.com/

Keith
aka GnLguy

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