Members Saturn Posted January 11, 2009 Members Share Posted January 11, 2009 So a while ago I picked up a used Squier VM Thinline Tele with the idea of modding it. The neck on the Squier is very good. Thick and comfertable. The body is good. A couple finish blems that I would not expect from a higher end guitar but not bad. From GFS I got a set up 'Lil Punchers Modern Vintage pups. When I pulled it apart I found 500k pots which I found a little odd. The pots and tone cap may be the reason the Duncan designed bridge pickup sound kind of off. I picked up a pair of 250k push/pull pots to wire the 'Lil Punchers for coil splits. First thing when the pups arrived I noticed the neck pickup is sligtly wider than the standard Tele neck pup so I widened the pickguard route to accomondate. Got it all wired up on Monday but I kind of rushed through it because I had to go to work early Tuesday morning. When I got it all put together I had a gounding issue. So because of time I left it until Saturday. Picked up some desoldering braid and located my bad ground. Re-wired and put it back together. So I got it strung up and spent a little time playing (about 5 hours). First the neck pup. In humbucking mode sounds good. Nice and full but not what you would expect from a regular humbucker. More of a vintage Tele sound without the buzz. More of a classic Joe Barden's sound but a little hotter. The bridge has that Tele twang you would expect again a good sound. In regular humbucking mode both pups sound real nice. Now the thing that I like is when you add over drive. This is when these pups really come to life. Wow these things have a whole different tone when pushed with OD. They really crunch. The 'Lil Punchers go from the classic clean Tele sounds to kick you in the face crunch with just a click of the pedel or twist of the gain. Now the bad........The bridge pup when coil split is OK. Good sounding as a sigle coil but not really that much different than when using both coils. It cuts more and is spot on Tele single coil but if I need that tone I would probably pickup my standard Tele. I could see the appeal of splitting the bridge to add versitility but honestly I don't think I would use the split much. Now to the neck pup. This one is kind of a odd character. With both coils on you have to really lower the pup. Almost flat to the pick guard otherwise it is very boomy. When you split the coils it becomes very weak and not at all pleasing. IMO splitting is usless on the neck pup. Today I'm going to pull out the push/pull pots and replace with regular 250k pots. I'm also going to replace the ceramic tone cap with a Orange Drop that I found in my tool box and add a 100pf cap to help with the loss of high tones. So my bottom line........The 'Lil Punchers wired as humbuckers with standard Tele wiring are really good. Again kind of a classic Joe Barden's but a little hotter. Sound great with OD and very classic Tele tones when played clean. For me coil splits are in the neck position unusable in the bridge position good but probably not needed for me. Overall a BIG improvement from the Duncan designed that came stock in the VM. I would reccomend these but say keep it simple. Just wire them up in the standard wiring. If you visit Joe Barden's web site there are some different wiring configurations that may be interesting. I may try the series/parallel wiring. Could be cool but the coil split for me.......No. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GarysBlues Posted January 11, 2009 Members Share Posted January 11, 2009 Good Review. I had a Hot set in a Thinline that were nice. I have a Hot Lil Killer set in a Strat now that simply LOVE! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Raxus Prime Posted January 11, 2009 Members Share Posted January 11, 2009 Saturn, thanks for the honest and objective review. I have been considering these pups for one of my Squire Tele's and you hit on the points I was most curious about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Into Nation Posted January 11, 2009 Members Share Posted January 11, 2009 Nice review. I wonder how that boomy neck would be with 500k pots? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rocknhard Posted January 11, 2009 Members Share Posted January 11, 2009 Lil 59's wiring, is there a chart? thanks... Excellent review. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Saturn Posted January 11, 2009 Author Members Share Posted January 11, 2009 Lil 59's wiring, is there a chart? thanks...Excellent review. I have several wiring diagrams I use. There are some good diagrams on the Seymor Duncan site and the Joe Barden's site. I kind of play it by ear so to say when wiring. http://www.joebarden.com/main.php?section=Products&pageID=Danny%20Gatton%20T-Style Here is the link to the diagram I used this time around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Saturn Posted January 11, 2009 Author Members Share Posted January 11, 2009 Nice review. I wonder how that boomy neck would be with 500k pots? I don't know. I have some 500k pots here I could try but I think adding the 100 or 120pf cap will help that out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rocknhard Posted January 11, 2009 Members Share Posted January 11, 2009 I have several wiring diagrams I use. There are some good diagrams on the Seymor Duncan site and the Joe Barden's site. I kind of play it by ear so to say when wiring. http://www.joebarden.com/main.php?section=Products&pageID=Danny%20Gatton%20T-Style Here is the link to the diagram I used this time around. Thank you very much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members newmaxnew Posted January 11, 2009 Members Share Posted January 11, 2009 In general single coil humbuckers don't split well. I think the coils are just too close together to really sound any different. Max Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Saturn Posted January 11, 2009 Author Members Share Posted January 11, 2009 In general single coil humbuckers don't split well. I think the coils are just too close together to really sound any different. Max I would have to agree with you. The in phase out of phase may be cool but they just don't sound that great split. I'm heading out to get some pots and a cap so I'll have this re-wired this afternoon. Should sound great when I'm done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sleepeatplay Posted January 11, 2009 Members Share Posted January 11, 2009 Good review. My VM teke has Rio Grande pup's. I really like those pickups in the tele. Isn't it amazing how edgy a telecaster can sound with some overdrive? Great Blues guitars IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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