Vintage vibe tele pickups...

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susbemolsusbemol Frets: 395
edited May 2019 in Guitar
I've got an American Special Tele with Texas Special pickups which is a lovely guitar. The neck pickup actually sounds ace but the one in the bridge has a lot of midrange and a sort of chocked top end which works well for a number of things but isn't what I am always looking for so I've been thinking about swapping them for something a little more "vintage sounding". So far, I seem to like best the Seymour Duncan Antiquity set (AlNiCo 2 and it costs a lot!) but I was wondering what else is out there that I perhaps should be looking at?

I realise I'll probably get lots of different opinions on this but if anyone is familiar with options might fit the bill, please let me know? Cheers.
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Comments

  • Jimbro66Jimbro66 Frets: 2419
    Oil City Honky Tonk Angels, or a Wapping Wharf at the bridge for some output variation.

    The Mojo Tele/Broadcaster sets also sound terrific in the traditional vein.
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  • PonchoGregPonchoGreg Frets: 764
    I can recommend the cirrostratus set by @Alegree . Sounds great, and price is very good to boot.

    @McToot has just spent some time with them and I think he liked them too :)

    Click here to see me butchering some classic solos!
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  • FunkfingersFunkfingers Frets: 14323
    Duncan Antiquity II “F” style pickups are Alnico 5. It is the Ant1s that get Alnico 2.

    On Antiquity 1 and II replacement pickups for Stratocaster, there is also a magnetic polarity difference to allow for.
    Be seeing you.
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  • McTootMcToot Frets: 2041
    I can recommend the cirrostratus set by @Alegree . Sounds great, and price is very good to boot.

    @McToot has just spent some time with them and I think he liked them too :)

    Yep - they are a revelation. I'm not an expert on Tele pickups but the Alegree set in Greg's Roadworn Tele sound the absolute nuts. Plenty of snap in the bridge and a nice mellow, yet still unmistakeably Tele-ish in the neck. 

    The only other set I've really liked before were the BKP Brown Sugars, but they were a bit more beefy... 

    Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder


    My trading feedback  - I'm a good egg  ;) 

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  • guitars4youguitars4you Frets: 14036
    tFB Trader
    Jimbro66 said:
    Oil City Honky Tonk Angels, 
    Totally agree - Fitted them on a 75 Tele recently, as part of a project - They totally destroyed the tone on a 76 Tele currently in stock that is all original - So full marks from me for that combination
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  • meltedbuzzboxmeltedbuzzbox Frets: 10337
    Jimbro66 said:
    Oil City Honky Tonk Angels, or a Wapping Wharf at the bridge for some output variation.

    The Mojo Tele/Broadcaster sets also sound terrific in the traditional vein.
    Having played and owned those above I would say

    Mojo broadcaster set > the rest

    By some distance to
    The Bigsby was the first successful design of what is now called a whammy bar or tremolo arm, although vibrato is the technically correct term for the musical effect it produces. In standard usage, tremolo is a rapid fluctuation of the volume of a note, while vibrato is a fluctuation in pitch. The origin of this nonstandard usage of the term by electric guitarists is attributed to Leo Fender, who also used the term “vibrato” to refer to what is really a tremolo effect.
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  • susbemolsusbemol Frets: 395
    edited May 2019
    Thanks for all the replies, it's appreciated.

    It seems a shame that it's quite hard to find decent demos of the Mojo stuff. Seems weird to me that they don't at least provide some themselves. 
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  • gordijigordiji Frets: 782
    The Fender nocaster set are great & reasonably priced which means a similarly speced pup will also be great. They're alnico 3 IIRC. I've had an A3 mojo strat set which were also top, so maybe i just like the rounded sound of A3. The A5 tele & strat sets i've had have always been too harsh for soloing although that bite makes the bass strings nice and twangy, it's a trade off IMO. 
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  • susbemolsusbemol Frets: 395
    Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I was also thinking that with a set like the Fender, it's potentially an easy flip if it doesn't work out. 
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  • Jimbro66Jimbro66 Frets: 2419
    gordiji said:
    The A5 tele & strat sets i've had have always been too harsh for soloing although that bite makes the bass strings nice and twangy, it's a trade off IMO. 
    This is the issue that the Wapping Wharf pickup addresses in having A5 magnets for the lower three strings, E A D, and A2 for the upper three, G B E. It works well for me.
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  • JohnnysevenJohnnyseven Frets: 905

    Mojo broadcaster set > the rest

    By some distance to
    This, although I like the Mojo Esquire bridge pickup even more!
    My trading feedback can be seen here - http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/58242/
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  • OilCityPickupsOilCityPickups Frets: 9986
    edited May 2019 tFB Trader
    susbemol said:
    Thanks for all the replies, it's appreciated.

    It seems a shame that it's quite hard to find decent demos of the Mojo stuff. Seems weird to me that they don't at least provide some themselves. 
    Probably the same reason as I don't:  You may spend hours carefully recording demos ... then to get them to an audience you have to lower their quality by compressing them ... then they probably play em back on a crappy computer 'sound system' or an iPhone ... at which point the differences in pickups are lost in the crap compression and reproduction methods.  
    Professional pickup winder, horse-testpilot and recovering Chocolate Hobnob addict.
    Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups  ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message  

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  • guitars4youguitars4you Frets: 14036
    tFB Trader
    susbemol said:
    Thanks for all the replies, it's appreciated.

    It seems a shame that it's quite hard to find decent demos of the Mojo stuff. Seems weird to me that they don't at least provide some themselves. 
    Probably the same reason as I don't:  You may spend hours carefully recording demos ... then to get them to an audience you have to lower their quality by compressing them ... then they probably play em back on a crappy computer 'sound system' or an iPhone ... at which point the differences in pickups are lost in the crap compression and reproduction methods.  
    I recall a demo, some months ago, from BKP - They sent a demo out of 2 different pick-ups - Played through my PC monitor I could not tell any difference one iota
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  • FunkfingersFunkfingers Frets: 14323
    Even with perfect replay audio quality, unless the demonstrator and the potential purchaser have similar playing dynamics, the pickup(s) will yield different results for each person.
    Be seeing you.
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  • susbemolsusbemol Frets: 395
    edited May 2019
    Yeah, I totally understand all the variables but I still think that a decent demo wouldn't do any harm - especially for those of us who have access to and are sensible enough to use a decent system to listen to it through. 
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  • GoldenEraGuitarsGoldenEraGuitars Frets: 8820
    tFB Trader
    Let’s not forget the biggest variable of all... the player. 
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