Tele pickups S-H pots & balance?

scarry67 · August 2023

I want to put a PAF type humbucker in the neck of my embryonic partscaster with a single coil at the bridge. Six Strings Supplies do a nice S-H harness whose trickery would give 250k to the bridge and 500k to the neck but would a 60s type bridge pickup be a bit weak next to the humbucker?

ICBM · August 2023

I would just use a standard Tele 250K pot set, it will balance fine. A PAF is brighter in a Tele than in a Les Paul anyway, and a 500K pot will just make it louder and more strident.

scarry67 · August 2023

Thanks. That would save me a few quid too as I’ve got a normal harness here…

lovestrat74 · August 2023

You could also wire it so the paf is wide open and not connected to the the tone pot. I did this on one of my old partscasters.

JayGee · August 2023

I have a Graham Coxon Telecaster which came with pretty much that exact setup. Lots of people manage the difference in output between the neck humbucker and single coil Bridge quite happily (it is after all quite a popular option) but I sometimes found it just a little tricky when playing live. I (well actually my two children as a birthday present) ended up with a lightly overwound Broadcaster/Esquire style IIRC - it was a while ago…) bridge pickup from Ash at @OilCityPickups which works very nicely thank you on every level.

That guitar actually has a slightly trick (375K IIRC) pot set - I have no idea wether this makes any real difference at all, but it all seems to work together very well…

scarry67 · August 2023

I regret not buying a Coxon model when they came out and now they’re rarely seen on used market. So you found the weaker bridge pickup the “balance” issue. The gent at 6 String Supplies recommended 500k pots if I went with a Broadcaster type bridge pickup (currently watching one on eBay) and a PAF.

JayGee · August 2023

scarry67 said:

I regret not buying a Coxon model when they came out and now they’re rarely seen on used market. So you found the weaker bridge pickup the “balance” issue. The gent at 6 String Supplies recommended 500k pots if I went with a Broadcaster type bridge pickup (currently watching one on eBay) and a PAF.

It’s a terrific guitar and for a long time supplanted a couple of much more expensive and exalted instruments as the thing most likely to be picked up either at home or on stage. Not that there’s anything wildly exciting about it, with the exception of the 375K pot thing (and I’m not even sure if that is a thing or just a bit of misinformation that’s become common currency…) it’s just a set of specs which seem to suit me really, really well, nicely put together, and (for its price point) nicely finished in terms of things like fingerboard edges and frets. It just “clicked” with me in a way that very few other guitars have…

The thing with the pickup balance mostly came up when playing live with clean/clean-ish tones where there’s not much compression going on to even out volume changes - it wasn’t a huge big deal and I used the guitar in stock form for quite while but Ash’s handiwork lifted the output of the bridge pickup just enough to make the volume change a little easier to work with and I kind of liked the extra little bit of heft in the bridge pickup anyway… :-)

ICBM · August 2023

scarry67 said:

The gent at 6 String Supplies recommended 500k pots if I went with a Broadcaster type bridge pickup (currently watching one on eBay) and a PAF.

If you use 500K pots you can also simulate a 250K load for the bridge pickup simply by adding a resistor to it, without any complicated switching - although that will (very) slightly reduce the output as well as softening the tone.

scarry67 · August 2023

Well, I’ve ordered various parts and will post pics once everything’s up & running.

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Tele pickups S-H pots & balance?

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