Installing guitar pickups

Shown here is the checking of the bridge pickup. If the neck and bridge are backwards, you can reverse the wires on your selector switch to fix this. If it works right , put it back together Put in all the pickguard screws, and restring the guitar. After you have the strings on and can play it a bit, adjust the pickups heights to taste. Usually a nice balance between all three pickups volume wise is a good idea.

Some people like the bridge louder so they will raise that pickup higher than the others. Enjoy your new pickups Often times a great playing guitar can be upgraded with new pickups for a lot less than buying a new guitar. You now have completed a great tone overhaul of your instrument! Turn it up and rock out. If you have questions about pickups, please visit us online at www. Reply 10 years ago on Step By porter pickups Porter Pickups Follow. About: Handwound Pickup maker focused on providing excellent sounding pickups for the discerning guitarist.

More About porter pickups ». Click Learn More to enroll in your step-by-step guide to easily install pickups the right way. This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings. Carefully trace them back to the pickup. Our single pickup guitar has one cable that has two wires inside a screened cable.

Chop them off and remove the old pickup. Unbox your lovely new pickup. You may have new springs and screws in the pack — check the screws are suitable. Lay the new pickup in place and see how much cable you need.

Our pickup has another screened cable coming from it; however, the outer ground wire is exposed, and will be a problem if it touches other parts of the circuit. A shorter cable reduces capacitance anyway, so this will cap unnecessary treble attenuation.

Poke the woven ground wire and un-pick part of it away — this reveals the cloth centre with the hot wire inside. But I bet that's the problem. I'll fix it when I get my new strings in. If yours has a problem like that, check how it's connected. Switching to rubber tubing might help. It's a good pickup, the clean channel could be better but I'm not complaining. It sounds great with some dirt. Led Zeppelinish with some twang I guess.

In my opinion, of course. I need to fix the microphonic feedback problem, it's a big deal. And getting further away from the amp doesn't help much at all. I'd recommend it if you want a new sound out of your Tele. It was worth the work, in fact I think the work was half the fun. As usual. Assuming you've become more fmiliar with this process since making this guide, I'd like to know, is it a potential hazard to have two different kinds of pickups, like two different brands, because I am about to get two different humbuckers and put them in my new guitar I just wanna know if this would be unwise.

Reply 3 months ago. It is a wonderful thing to personalize your guitar. That said, just check to be sure that the pickups you wish to use are compatible with your guitar or that you have the proper plans and equipment needed to make any changes necessary. There is a plethora of diagrams available for a number of different pickup combinations, so just be conscientious and careful with this, and everything will be fine. Best of luck with this, John. Reply 5 years ago. Its ok to put diffrent brand pickups in, i have a guitar with an iron gear hammer head at the bridge for heavy riffing and a slash signiture at the neck for sweet blues solos.

I had it wired diffrent though, 1 master tone 2 volumes and a blend knob, with the 3 way switch in the middle i was getting too much hammer head due to its out put being higher, so the blend knob allows me to fine tune the mix of the pickups. Tele's don't have interchangable pickups. A Tele bridge pickup has a different plate than the neck pickup 3 adjustment screws instead of 2.

The neck pickup is a Strat-style in form pickup. Generally, bridge pickups are wound hotter than neck pickups to account for the usually further distance from the strings and slightly lessened string vibration at the bridge-end of the string. You'd mentioned that the bridge pickup is substantially louder on Telecasters than the neck. I have an American Standard so the relationship between the two might not be identical but I was able to make the volume levels comparable by raising my neck pickup substantially so that only about a half inch of space remained between the string and the pickup.

They're now about equal volume and if anything the front pickup sounds better and more defined as a result. Reply 6 years ago on Introduction. Some stock pickups, even on cheaper guitars, sound fine once the guitar's set up properly. Any chance on getting a diagram for wiring? At the moment all the mics are in use on every position of the switch.. Nice ible. I bought it because it got great reviews for having 2 Duncan designed, made in asia? P90's and the price was right for a 1st guitar.

S like that. So, even tho the pups are probably the last thing I would replace on it, it was cool to read a bit by someone else with a "less expensive" tele. Look up the Custom ii online, it has a great looking pickguard and the pup selector is up on the top horn like a les paul. Thanks for the tips!

Reply 9 years ago on Introduction. Reply 12 years ago on Introduction. It had a crappy tremolo, and its as heavy as concrete. Looks like a good guitar. I could be wrong I guess, but my ear doesn't really pick up enough of a difference to justify the money for a more expensive guitar. The quality of the guitar plays a big part for me. For instance, when I first got my guitar, the frets weren't smooth.

Bends sucked because the note had lost it's sound by the time it was bent all the way up. Finally through playing and polishing, they flattened. Now they play really nice. I'm sure that on a new Gibson, that wouldnt happen.

Oh well. About the Tele headstock that you didn't like, what don't you like about it? Do you like the gibson style 3 tuners to a side configuration? Klooa is right. I had the same problem with a S-D pickup, went back to rubber tubing cut from a length of fuel hose from a model plane , but no difference. I wax potted mine and the microphonics went straight away.

It's not the springs. Either return the pickup, or Pot it in wax Heat up some wax and dip it This will stop the internal wires from vibrating, and kill the microphonics. Hey man this is a really great instructable and i am in sort of the same situation that you were in.

I want to save up for a warlock or Eipiphone les paul or SG or something, but my income is very low and i am going to get a drum set instead. My parents could care less of music, but they are in it for me. Anyways, my strat has three single coils and what I really want to do is replace them all with EMG's. Would that be possible?

Maybe i should just wait until i get some more money after my drum set. Thanks and shoot me a PM or something. Introduction: Replacing the Pickups in Your Guitar. By John Smith Follow. About: college student now More About John Smith ».

I don't have time to upload any samples now, but I will this weekend. Did you make this project? Share it with us! I Made It! Remote Control Light Switch by alanmerritt in Arduino.

RyanA62 6 years ago. Reply Upvote. DennisC RyanA62 Reply 5 years ago. Gruthahagenn 6 years ago on Introduction.