Esquier pickup recommendations please!

dtr

I've got a Squier Vintage Modified Telecaster Special that I'm fond of but isn't getting played much.  The Squier Joe Trohman that I've been turning into a nightmarish mess of too many switching options (33 at last count) is getting all the love these days.

So in the spirit of lurching wildly between extremes I'm planning to esquire the VM Squier and keep it as simple as possible.  If it all works out, It'll hopefully become my go-to guitar for playing North Mississippi hill-country style droning, hypnotic, repetitive blues - think RL Burnside or Jr Kimbrough played badly by a middle aged, middle class white man.  A bit like Jon Spencer without the soul, technique or hair.

So, how to get simple?

No switches for a start.  Does anyone know a UK source for custom tele control plates?  I'm thinking of keeping the volume and tone knobs for now and a control plate without the switch cut would look sweet.

I'll keep the vintage style bridge, maybe use the top-loading holes if that helps the droning.  The tuners are good, so it's just a case of finding the right pickup...

It's a bright sounding guitar, and will be played mostly with fingers rather than pick, through a blackface-ish amp without pedals.  I want plenty of rich, dark dirt and snarl, and a firm lid kept on any shrillness.  A P90-ish wind might do the job, but I'm open to anything as long as it's single coil, will fit in a standard tele bridge route, and is UK made.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

koneguitarist

My next pickup would be the oil city tapped tele pickup. I love my old Voodoo 50's as it's brilliant, but I am hankering for similar with a tap available, and the quality looks excellent.

10thumbs

I got one recently from Axecaster and just drilled a couple of holes where I wanted them ... £6.25

http://www.axecaster.co.uk/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=9_20

Plate should look a bit like this one when finished

http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/44389/first-build-started-nice#latest

paulnb57

+1 on the Axecaster plate...proper job!

dtr

koneguitarist said:

My next pickup would be the oil city tapped tele pickup. I love my old Voodoo 50's as it's brilliant, but I am hankering for similar with a tap available, and the quality looks excellent.

Cheers, I'm liking the look of their Wapping Wharf tapped pickup.  Can't be doing with a coil tap for now, but as I'm after snarly and loud I could just wire in the full 15k and keep the versatility for another day.

Or... maybe their Alligator 90.  If I was going for more of a classic esquire It'd definitely be the tapped 50's style one, but I'm a sucker for a P90 sound.

10thumbs said:

I got one recently from Axecaster and just drilled a couple of holes where I wanted them ... £6.25

http://www.axecaster.co.uk/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=9_20

Plate should look a bit like this one when finished

http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/44389/first-build-started-nice#latest

Ah, that'd be ideal, thanks!  I'd better get 2 and use the one with the best aligned holes/least blood on it

And that's a lovely looking esquire!

10thumbs

LOL - I should have got two , one hole is slightly out , I`ll do another one when I get around to it.

JezWynd

I put an Ironstone Tele Bridge pickup in an Esquire partscaster I built a while back. They're nice pickups, sound is a bit more biting than your usual stock tele. Reasonable prices too.

http://ironstone-guitar-pickups.co.uk/category/products/telecaster-pickups/

normula1

The Creameru do a P90 in a Tele form. No idea how good it sounds though. I've a Duncan Vintage Tele stack in mine and I love it to bits

jd0272

BKP Piledriver in mine.

chrisj1602

There's a BK flat 50s in the classifieds now.

dtr

Cheers for all the recommendations folks.  I want all of 'em, but have decided to go with the Oil City Wapping Wharf.  They'll be more versatile in the long run as a decent 50's broadcaster style will always be good to have, will let me satisfy my short-term craving for madly overwound, and the mix of magnets eases my worry that if I get the warmth I want from the mids and highs the droning bass rhythm will end up a little soft.

Sorted, that's all the made-up justification I need to go spend money on guitar stuff.  Sadly not all the justification I need to explain to my wife why I need to spend money on guitar stuff, but that problem can wait until it gets delivered.  Don't suppose anyone can recommend an excuse? 

dtr

Big thanks to Koneguitarist and bigger thanks to Oil City pickups.  The Wapping Wharf arrived and I put it in yesterday.  What a great pickup!  Going to spend a few days getting a good feel for it so put a switch for the coil tap in an old control plate.  Will drill the new plate and put knobs on when I've made some decisions.  Using 250k pots and a .033 cap for now, and it's sounding fab.

Rhoadhouse_Music

I think the Wapping Wharf has to be the quintessential Esquire p'up...

Nice looking results there: I'm heading the diametrically opposite direction though, 5-way switch and pull/push so 10 settings!

Andyjr1515

That's looking really nice

dtr

Thanks folks.  I've finished the control plate, and am keeping the coil tap switch.  Here's it finished (for now at least), though you can't see the pickup.

OilCityPickups

That looks gorgeous!

Rhoadhouse_Music

That's really rather nice...

... and I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who fits Schaller strap studs to everything

koneguitarist

Great job, how's it sound?

dtr

koneguitarist said:

Great job, how's it sound?

Hey, thanks!   It's my first esquire, and I'd been thinking of it as a bit of a one trick pony, hoping for a pickup with a certain sound. 

What I've ended up with is something much more versatile and classy.  I'm used to thinking in terms of bright vs warm, but this has balance and depth.  I mostly play it with the tapped output, which has loads of clarity and space to the sound.  Playing Junior Kimbrough riffs it's effortless to get that haunting, open-but-claustrophobic tone, even when playing really clean.  Aside from the gorgeous blues tone, it's perfect for country and strangely lovely for fingerstyle jazz (but that might just be me falling for the whole esquire thing).  I neither know nor care if it djents.

As for the snarly, dirty sound I was originally after, a bit of gain and an open G tuning and it's perfect!

I don't feel I've really got to grips with the overwound output yet.  I've been playing around with it as a boost and as an alternative tonal option (particularly with slide).  If the tapped output wasn't so damn nice I'd have used it more!  I am interested in what other folks do with it, as I really want to experiment with it a lot more.