r/telecaster • u/Urgently_Patient • 5d ago
Played humbuckers last 15 years and didn't realize it....
Posting this as I suspect someone might at least find it funny....or sad....
I've been playing for ~35 years now off and on. Mostly Fenders - strats and then eventually a 1983 MIA Tele that weighed a ton, and then I settled on a '95 MIM Tele that has been my main ever since. I've always purchased used. The 83 Tele had active EMG pickups in it. Never liked anything about that guitar except for the believing it must be great because it was the made in USA version...
When I bought the 95 Tele used, the guy who I bought it from told me it had GFS pickups. This was around 2010. He had a massive guitar collection and also did setups, worked professionally as a sound technician of some sort of a big event company, etc. Love the guitar and it's been my primary, but it never quite had the tele sound that I'd hear on youtube videos, etc. Recently I decided to try some new pickups for the first time ever. I have some electronics experience from when I was younger. I cheaped out and ordered "Waah!" (yes, that's their brand name) '51 vintage alnico pickups off ebay for about $50. They arrived from China a couple of weeks or so later.
When I pulled the old pickups out I noticed the wiring in the cavity was definitely not typical. Turns out, the pickups that were in it are in fact from GFS, but what the prior seller failed to tell me is that they are actually humbuckers! After measuring the resistance of each and comparing pictures, it turns out they are GFS Neovim pickups - they look just like your typical single coils (no rails) but they have multiple wires to allow for wiring for splitting coils, etc.
I had no idea!
I wound up putting in the Waah '51 alnico pickups, following the Fender "Modern" schematic for wiring pickups. They sound great - so much more responsive and more breath/nuance to them - it's hard to describe. I suspect the main reason is they are true single coils and not humbuckers.
I just wish I would have done it many years sooner.
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u/Snap_Ride_Strum 5d ago
You are being far too hard on yourself here. You identified, diagnosed and resolved the problem by yourself, without paying anyone else.
You did well and should - reasonably - be asking for thumbs-ups.
Here's mine:
👍
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u/audiax-1331 5d ago
Oh man! Welcome to the world of SC spank and sparkle!!!!
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u/MasterofLockers 5d ago
I have guitars with HBs, SCs, and P90s. I usually gravitate to HBs but I get kind of sick of them after a while and reach for a Tele and I'm always, without fail, blown away the first note or chord I play. It's so fresh and airy it feels like the music is just floating away! Then after a while I'm missing the HBs again but go P90 which is a lovely middle ground.
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u/Just_A_Blues_Guy 5d ago
I love my single coils. I’ve never liked HBs as much. They seem darker and muddier to me.
I can always add gain later as well. It’s much harder to remove gain.
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u/CurrentHair6381 5d ago
They seem darker and muddier to me.
Thats cause they are, its just a fact. Not really a subjective thing. Single coils and tubes, this is the way
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u/gerardguey 5d ago
I love my SCs for my own music, but whenever i want to play some harder stuff or play covers i go with HBs.
While I prefer SCs for the reasons you stated, HBs react in such a different way (esp in high gain) that when i want that sound, theres no substituting it.
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u/Urgently_Patient 5d ago
This is exactly the difference - the HBs were muddy - not as much articulation. I do also own an Epiphone ES-175 that I bought about 10 years ago used. With high gain I think the HB sound is great, though I bought the ES-175 primarily for jazz. But man, the articulation and clarity even when overdriven from the single coils is just much better to my ears.
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u/Mountain7559 5d ago
i love this post, this is exactly why one should own several guitars of different types, including same kinds of pickups
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u/NotoriousREV 5d ago
Chinese eBay pickups when Bootstrap pickups exist? Maaaan…
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u/Urgently_Patient 4d ago
I'm new to the pickup scene obviously. I will google "Bootstrap pickups" : ) I just didn't want to spend $200 on pickups as I didn't know how much of a difference they would make. But now I regret not doing it.
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u/Radiant-Security-347 5d ago
any 60 cycle hum?
I‘m officially a Fishman Fluence guy these days in a custom Tele - The Greg Koch signature line. they are incredible through my 64 Deluxe
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u/Urgently_Patient 5d ago
I do get some noise (not hum). Playing through a Princeton Reverb Reissue. The noise goes away completely by backing off just a little from the tone knob or the volume known.
As of right now, I would not recommend the "Waah!" pickups vs spending more on a brand name set, mainly because these sound overly bright but not twangy/quacky at the bridge pickup as I think they should. I may try rewiring using the vintage/50s style wiring vs the "modern" wiring schematic I followed, but I need some more time adjusting the pickup heights. Also, as part of this whole project, I cleaned the fretboard, polished the frets, and switched from some VERY old DR Blues strings to a new pair of Ernie Ball Slinky 10s. I recall I never liked the EBs because they had a hollow sound to them and I'm hearing that with these, but will give them another few days to see if they settle in for me.
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u/Minute-Branch2208 5d ago
Second time gfs pickups have come up lately
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u/Urgently_Patient 5d ago
To be clear - I'm not disparaging GFS pickups. They may very well be great - I have no idea. I just know I don't want humbuckers that look like single coils in a tele, which is what my dumb ass was playing for the past 15 years without realizing it lol
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u/9fingerjeff 5d ago
I really like them but I’ve only used their humbuckers. I think their single coils get more love around the internet though.
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u/mattbuilthomes 5d ago
I just put a GFS Fatbody in my Tele, and I really like it. Very beefy, but still has some nice snap. Sounds real good though my AC15.
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u/Monkeywrench08 5d ago
I'm mostly a humbucker guy then fell in love with the single coil from Tele but couldn't get used to the noise so I just say fuck it and putting in a Dimarzio Chopper T which is a humbucker. Ended up with the best of both worlds, it's hum cancelling but still sounds like a fatter tele.
On a hindsight, the Fast Track T might have been the better balance but I'm really happy with Chopper T.
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u/dcamnc4143 5d ago
I know this is a predominantly single coil sub, but I’ve gone the opposite way. I played sc strats and teles for almost 30 years, but I’ve pretty much entirely switched over the humbuckers now. I still pick up my sc strats and teles occasionally though.
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u/yeth_pleeth 5d ago
I love those WAAAH pickups! Their P-90s are fantastic, and the Strat and Tele ones sound great too. I put my kit tele up against a mate's $3K Fender Tele and it really held its own
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u/Urgently_Patient 4d ago
Did you get the '51 alnicos? I need to adjust the pickup heights some more but so far I don't get the quack/bite with the bridge pickup that I expected.
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u/yeth_pleeth 4d ago
Got the pure vintage '65 as my last set. Did the tone mod so the bridge pickup has tone control and I think it quacks nicely!
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u/slapbasskev 4d ago
I have a set of Waaah alnico 60s pickups in my strat. They are seriously high quality, and the construction and build quality is on point for a vintage reissue. If they had brought these out in the days before easy access to Chinese wholesalers and used a western sounding brand name they could have been priced up there with Fralins, Fender CS etc.
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u/bb9977 4d ago
The interesting thing here IMO is humbuckers actually have a pretty big range of sounds but most of us only ever hear relatively woofy high output humbuckers. There aren't that many guitars with HBs that don't go for that sound.
But say Gretsch humbuckers, a lot of the Fender Humbuckers, some of the Rickenbacker HBs, etc.. are a lot brighter sounding than the Gibson style sound that is so dominant. This is both different magnet/wind combinations and the pickups just being in different places along the length of the strings.
Some of these other styles are really worth checking out, not to mention P-90s.
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u/criticjf 4d ago
Congrats on your realization. You can sell those GFS pickups, they are worth something to someone.
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u/masonic-youth 4d ago edited 4d ago
Not quite the same but I played a les paul with humbuckers for 15 years and loved it dearly until a got a tele.
Now I'm a single coil convert forever!
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u/butterfield66 4d ago
I'm of the militant conviction that humbuckers were a mistake and should not exist.
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u/jzgtrguy 5d ago
Jimmy Page's telecaster has sold more Les Pauls than any other guitar