Aluminium is said to give the bright ‘acoustic’ quality of steel without sacrificing the thickness and body of brass. Brass is regarded as having a smoother, richer tone, but steel has a brighter, snappier attack with more growl. Change your saddles to sound betterįender experimented with the materials of Tele saddles almost from the start and the different metals will give different tonal outcomes. Remember, you’ll need new screws that will bite into the pickup’s bottom-flat, but you should be able to reuse the spring or tube spacers. With a sharp pencil or pen, you can mark the position of the pickup’s screw holes onto the masking tape and drill through with an appropriate-sized bit. Fix pieces of masking tape at each end of the pickup hole, flip the pickup over and drop it through the hole in the pickguard. To make adjustment less hassle, you can mount it to the pickguard like a Strat. Traditionally, you have to remove the pickguard to adjust a Tele neck pickup as it’s mounted to the body. The cup will never get loose, but you can take it in and out at will. It pushes straight into the hole, two small screws go in on the diagonal to hold it in position and that’s about it. Much more straightforward is a screw-in cup, such as those made by Electrosocket. Traditional Tele jack sockets are held in place by a retainer clip that is notoriously fiddly to tighten up properly. If you want to try it yourself, either buy a top-loading bridge, or simply drill six holes in your existing unit. Top-loading is also said to provide a more slinky feel – much like dropping down half a string gauge. Detractors claim that top-loading reduces sustain, but fans point to enhanced twang, more bite and a ringing chime. Many players feel that Teles with these ‘toploader’ bridges have a different sound. Try top-loadingįor a brief period in the late 1950s, Fender ceased through-body stringing on Telecasters and installed bridges with six holes drilled through the back lip. Alternatively, try a nickel-silver cover for less high-end attenuation than brass. The downside is that you’ll experience a bit of noise if you touch the cover, but that’s easy to avoid and the extra brightness and transparency might persuade you to reconsider that pickup upgrade.

To unleash the full frequency potential of Tele neck pickups, just snip the cover’s grounding connection. Just like a traditional humbucker, the metal cover on a Telecaster neck pickup can suck a little treble from your tone.

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