If you’ve got a Telecaster that you love the feel of but you’re not totally happy with the lead pickup sound, there are lots of options. In this article I’ll take you through some of them, and let you hear what a few of them would sound like too. I’m going to assume that your Tele is a “normal” one – as in, it has the big metal bridge plate with a single coil pickup in it. Where can we go from there?

Vintage-Style Pickups

Perhaps the stock pickup that came in your guitar isn’t twangy enough, or it’s a bit fizzy. If your guitar was a cheap copy then that’s particularly likely. If you’re just after a “true” Telecaster tone then you should be looking at a vintage-output pickup. Seymour Duncan do several of these, all aimed at getting that classic Tele tone but with minor but important differences. My personal favourite of these is the Broadcaster bridge pickup. It’s twangy when you need it but has a sweetness to the sound too. Here’s a video that demonstrates its tone nicely:

Here’s the Vintage For Tele:

And the 1955 Antiquity Telecaster Bridge:

And the smooth and twangy tones of the Alnico II Pro:

Hot Single Coil Pickups

If you’re looking for something a bit more edgy while still sounding like a Telecaster at the core, then you might want to go to a hotter single coil pickup. The first one that springs to mind is the Hot For Tele pickup. This looks just like a regular single coil pickup but packs a little more punch. The really nice thing is that a tapped version is available – allowing you to wire a switch on the guitar to drop the output back down to vintage levels. There’s also a matching neck pickup to ensure volume balance in the guitar.  Taking this concept up a little and going noiseless brings you to the Hot Lead Stack.

Hot For Tele:

The Quarter Pound for Tele

Another step up takes you to the Quarter Pound for Tele. This is a seriously high output single coil – getting close to the level of output of a P-90. It gives a dark, punchy sound that most listeners probably won’t guess is coming from a Tele. Again, a matched neck pickup is available – and both can be tapped when you want to get that Tele character back again. Great for hot country, blues, rock, hard rock and even metal.

The Zephyr Tele pickups use silver wire and produce a bright, snappy tone full of bursting harmonics and fast attack.

Single Coil-Sized Humbuckers

Now we’re really getting away from the traditional style of Telecaster pickup and getting towards some more serious output. By going for a single-coil-sized humbucker you get humbucker levels of output and that growling midrange – but the size of the pickup means that more of your treble remains intact. So while you’re still pushing the amp really hard, there’s still an aspect of single-coil character in there somewhere – although turning the gain up with these pickups is irresistible, and that’s when the humbucker half of the pickup’s personality starts to take over.

I’ve already covered the Little 59 in another article (Two Kinds of Little 59). I suggest you head on over there for a description and some tone demos.

Another option here, though, is the devastatingly powerful Hot Rails for Tele. This takes your guitar well into rock and metal territory. Here’s a great demo that shows how far this pickup can go:

Full-Sized Humbuckers
To put a full-sized humbucker at the bridge of a regular Tele, two things are needed. Firstly, you need a new bridge plate, like these. And secondly, you may well need to remove some wood from the guitar to allow the humbucker to fit in. So this modification is not for the faint of heart.

However, adding a full-sized humbucker to the bridge of a Tele radically changes the tone of the guitar. The result is somewhere between a Fat Strat and a Les Paul. Of course, there are hundreds of humbuckers you could choose from here – you might like the vintage output of a 59 Model, the swaggering, hot-rodded JB, or the growling PAF-plus-balls of the Screamin’ Demon.

Of course, one famous player of a Tele with a humbucker in it is Seymour himself! Here’s a great tour of the Seymour Duncan 35 guitar, featuring a JB at the bridge and a Jazz at the neck. Of course, this guitar uses the Tune-o-matic/tailpiece bridge sytem, but there’s nothing stopping you putting a JB in a Tele with a normal bridge:

And of course, if you have a humbucker-sized hole to fill in your Tele, then you now have the option of a Phat Cat for P-90 sounds, or even a P-Rails, which gives you three options: a full-on humbucker, a P-90, or a single-coil tone.

Here’s a nice video of a Telecaster with a couple of P-Rails in it – you get to see all the different switching options.

Another option is getting a custom made pickup from the Custom Shop. There are several current models, or you can build your own here. A particularly great sounding option is the ’53 Tapped Tele Set which is noiseless and gives you multiple output levels.

Have you got anything unusual in the bridge of your Tele, or do you prefer to stick with the classic single-coil style?