Swimming pool routes?

[thop]

Since I'm about finishing up my 4 or 5 smaller projects, I'm gearing up to rebuild my tele with a mahogany/maple topped body I got. It's routed for regular tele pickups but I think I want mini-hums or humbuckers in it.

I can't decide. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna put 3 pickups in. Am I best off choosing the pickups first and then routing each cavity individually? Are there downsides to a big 'ol hole in the middle of my body that I can just slap everything into? I'd probably custom cut a pickguard like a thinline's that covers most of the face.

[WRGKMC]

A big old hole is allot of work and in my opinion looses pickup tone

with pickups suspended on a piece of plastic vs pickuping soem wood tone from

the cavitu surrounding the pickup. I'd wait till you get the pickups then just route

what you have to and no more. The strats I have with single cuts have better tone to me.

The ones with boat routes sound genericly bland in comparison.

 

If you havent tried minis, i suggest trying them. They have a killer sound

especially on a Tele. Full sides HB's are too fat sounding. If you want a variety

of tone try a P90 and a Mini and keep the bridge a standard tele but a pair

of minis would be my choice.

 

You can EBay the Artec minis for about $12 apiece.

The Firebird type are a bit more twangy and driven. I had them in my Tele build before

switching to the ones with the pole pieces. Those have just the right drive so when you

turn down from 10~7 they clean up and sound like a P90. Also watch the impediance

of the pickup when buying.

 

Try and get the oribinal 6~7K ohm winds and not something overwound.

They loose their chime and sound like megaphones if you get them hot wound.

[thop]

Great thanks for the advice. I was looking at the artecs, I think that settles it for me. I really want to put 2 coil split minis at the neck and middle and a gretsch single coil lap steel pickup at the bridge. Only prob is that would require a lot of controls and a big route again. Unless I wire a single tone control, which i dont like, or

I could just get a bunch of tiny knobs and line em up in a row like an Airline guitar. That might actually be fun...

[WRGKMC]

Those Artec minis have 5 conductors so you should be good for different configs. I'd use series parallel over coil; taps.

Anything below 10K usually sucks for gain in tapped configs. Maybe think about a 5 or 6 way rotary switch for it.

[thop]

I keep hearing that. Maybe I will try the series parallel this time around, I can always switch it around if I'm not happy.

Actually I have artec mini filtertrons in my semi hollow. I've got some half-melted 3'way mini toggles in my drawer too, maybe I can salvage one or two long enough to experiment with how they sound split or series/parallel.

 

Rotary switches are pretty cool, you can set each setting to any combo you want right? Like bridge, bridge/mid, bridge/neck, mid/neck, etc?

 

I might go with individual on/off switches. I just put some in an LP copy (the melted toggles came from my first failed attempt) and I may be a lifelong convert for this mod on 3 pickup guitars after hearing the results.

[WRGKMC]

I have some of those artec filtron minis that fit a full sized route in my Epi Dot.

they are close to what i want for that guitar but they lack high frequency due to overwinding.

 

I dont get the whole overwinding on pickups with magnets that dont need it. If you're going to over wind you also have to adjust magnet strength

to match and many pickup makers destroy the pickups dynamics and frequency responce in the process. Why, because jackasses think more is better.

If you've ever used some classic pups with lower impedance plugged into a good tube amp with good gain staging it blows the doors off any overwound

pickup for tone I've ever used. I must have 20 sets of overwound pickups in my parts cabinet collecting dust.

 

I do have 6 amps, No, actually 9 guitar amps in the studio, with a total of 600w if I cranked them all up. Extra winds to get maybe one miliwatt

extra gain does nothing for me. If I only had a 10 watt practice amp then sure, it might give a little more edge, but on real amps about all they are good for

is straight metal with a boaring drive with zero dynamics.

 

Anyway, you can find those filteron copies in two types on EBay, stay away from the hot wound ones if you can, same for the minis and you'll find the lower

impediance have a much better tone.

 

You can throw in a reverse phase on one of the coils too. It can make for a quackey stratish sound if needed. Just dont reverse the coils on the same pickup.

You need distance between the pickups to avoid complete phase cancellation. If you add a reverse for the neck and middel, you should be able to get any combination you need.