Members twotimingpete Posted August 23, 2013 Members Share Posted August 23, 2013 One thing I'm learning about myself lately is I think I generally prefer a bit flatter, Gibson style fretboard radius. the 9.5 and under you see on most Fenders -- The roundness of it just doesn't feel as nice to me. I was looking around for exceptions to this in Fender's production lineup. One of the only ones is the classic series 72 deluxe tele with wide range pickups. It has a 12 inch radius. I'm intrigued, since I love teles. I'm a little concerned about the pickups, though, mainly because there are so few options to replace these due to the unique footprint. 1) are these stock pickups GOOD? 2) are there any good options for replacing them out there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Minnie The Moocher Posted August 23, 2013 Members Share Posted August 23, 2013 - stock pickups are bad (especially in neck position): dark, muddy- but there's many ways to improve them: replacing the 250K volume pots with 500 or 1000K, replacing the tone pot with a no load pot and removing the six hidden pickup poles On mine (custom '72), I use a no load tone pot and I removed the three bass hidden poles, and let the three hidden treble poles in, but lowered down. Works fine, my neck pickup is now clear and tight, and it doesn't cost much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GAS Man Posted August 23, 2013 Members Share Posted August 23, 2013 I wouldn't go quite a far as Minnie stated, but no doubt Minnie is a very good reference to listen to. He can coax good tone out of just about anything he picks up. The pickups do tend to be a bit bland and muddy sounding. Lighter gauge strings with less nickel (i.e. plate not wound round) help add a bit more presence.Changing out the pots, etc. as Minnie described above is the mod reference most often cited for these pickups.My one caveat is that the stock pickup in the bridge position can actually create an awesome classic rock tone when playing with a classic amount of overdrive. These same pickups sound more lively when they are mounted in the '72 Thinline (semi-hollow/chambered, with ash body). That build adds a bit more presence to their tone. Overall, I tend to agree with Minnies comments, but the stock pups are worthwhile giving them a trial. I haven't yet done the pot mods myself since I'm lazy when it comes to attempting my own electronic mods. But the last time I bought a '72 Deluxe, I was planning on replacing them with Lollars. However, when that guitar arrived it sounded a bit better out of the box than the first one I had so I haven't gotten around to changing it out yet, but OTOH, it's also mostly in storage (I have a large git collection). The first '72 Deluxe I had I bought used. The first owner had it set up for fairly thick (11s) DR Pure Blues strings and it had graphtec saddles. I sold it off but missed it and bought another. The new one I got just sounded better out of the box with the '9s and stock saddles. But I do think that changing out the pots or buying the Lollar Regal pickup may be advised in your plans, especially for the neck pickup. http://www.lollarguitars.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=humbucker-pickups The Reissue WR p'ups sound a bit more like a regular PAF (epiphone version) pickup whereas the originals had more of a Fenderish or maybe Gretschy-tron jangly tone. So you also have to decide which tone is more fitting for style of music you want to play. If you like to play with higher gain, then the stock WR do bring the phat to the table. This guy usually has good demos that get the most out of a guitars potential on the clean tone demos I also own the '72 Thinline and the '72 Telecaster Custom so I have 3 guitars with those pups in them. But yeah, bottom line, I do think Fender missed the mark, but they can be made to work as is. I saw Dick Dale a few years ago, and his opening act was rocking a stock RI '72 Thinline. There was nothing dark or muddy about that guys tone, but OTOH my ears were bleeding at the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members VagueSubscription Posted August 23, 2013 Members Share Posted August 23, 2013 twotimingpete wrote: One thing I'm learning about myself lately is I think I generally prefer a bit flatter, Gibson style fretboard radius. the 9.5 and under you see on most Fenders -- The roundness of it just doesn't feel as nice to me. I was looking around for exceptions to this in Fender's production lineup. One of the only ones is the classic series 72 deluxe tele with wide range pickups. It has a 12 inch radius. I'm intrigued, since I love teles. I'm a little concerned about the pickups, though, mainly because there are so few options to replace these due to the unique footprint. 1) are these stock pickups GOOD? 2) are there any good options for replacing them out there? Well, Robben Ford swapped out the pickups of the Fender Robben Ford model, if that tells you anything. I think you'd have to play the guitar for a while. That in mind, there are boutique pickup guys that either rewind the stock Fenders, or give you something that fits and sounds great, from scratch. By the way, "Manlius Guitar Pickups" just so happens to have a model that looks exactly like these Fender pickups, seems to be a brand new model. Manlius Pickups I can attest, this guy makes great pickups. I've got a pair of his HotRod '59s in my Les Paul. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members newbuilder Posted August 24, 2013 Members Share Posted August 24, 2013 I had one and wanted to like it. I would get new or rewound pups...otherwise damn decent guitars. I ended up trading mine away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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