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.

[Mark P]

“Noiseless single coil” is just a marketing term. A noiseless single coil is a stacked humbucker, It can fit into a single coil hole because of the stacked design. It’s going to have humbucker tone although slightly different than a traditional side by side humbucker (or so some people say).

[GnLguy]

My G&L Comanche has pickups that Leo named “Noiseless Z Coils” that were humbuckers.

Great sounding pickups as we would expect from Leo Fender
That being said, they definitely don’t have sound and tone of a PAF

With the use of pedals and processors, it’s hard to tell one from the other…. however if a player is old school and plays plugged straight into an amp, there’s no disguising
I’m thinking of older Doobie Brothers albums – Tom Johnston would switch between a Strat and a Les Paul from song to song. Very easy to tell which is s which

[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

[Denise]

Thank you, especially Joe and Keith, for your suggestions. I know that Seymour Duncan have great humbuckers and I will also have a look at Planet Tone, too.
Soo many options!
Denise

More Blues!

[GnLguy]

Denise

Another one to consider is DiMarzio. Their 36th Anniversary PAF is a really good choice too. It was patterned after the pickups in Larry DiMarzio’s 1959 Les Paul

I do like the pickups from Planet Tone; I won a set of theirs and they were high gain metal type pickups. I thanked Jose, the owner and told him that I’d find an SG to stick them in. He could tell that they wasn’t really my thing and when I told him that I was a blues & jazz guy, he would a set of his 50’s pickups for me.
Really good guy and as mentioned, very accessible for conversation. AND, if you watch, he runs sales of 20%-25% off at times which is nice

But any of those mentioned will serve you well. Hope to hear your choice in action sometime

Keith
aka GnLguy

[Alan L]

The pickups in any American Fender is a tone that many players aspire to. Without honing in on exactly what you want, you might be entering a dangerous game of tone chasing…

“Fat warm and twang” don’t really go together (necessarily) in my mind.
Fat and warm- yea these two do. Could mean compression, slightly overdriven, bump in the bass or lo mid, and/or cut in the hi mid or treble.
Twang- to me means bridge pickup. And a boost in treble. But can be accessed with technique. (Eg plucking aggressively, or near the bridge.)

Have you exhausted string choices? Tried lowering or raising the pickups? Do you have an EQ pedal? Ideas that would be my first step, easier and (generally) cheaper. (Depending on the strings!)

I say go out and play some guitars and see if you can figure out what pickups are in them. And see what inspires you. Also listening to YouTube demos can help a little, but there’s so many pieces in the signal chain it’s never definitive.

To toss out a few brands: Seymour Duncan is a favorite of mine in the middle range (eg not budget but not boutique.) Lollar is solid if you wanna spend a little more.

Hope that helps (and doesn’t make matters worse!)

[Author]

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