Hum cancelling Tele neck pickups ... What do you all like best?

**Jim Soloway** · 06-11-2021, 05:20 PM

I've just sent an e-mail to Becky Lawrence at Wilde with some basic questions about shipping and installation. It seems like a good approach at a great price. I've been playing the Vola a lot this week and it's a real joy to play. I don't need more output or a full humbucker. If I could keep it sounding close to what it gives me now but without single coil hum it could be a guitar I play every day.

**MikeTT** · 06-11-2021, 09:18 PM

I once played a Tele with a Fralin P92 at the neck and it was very very nice (although humbucker shaped). Fralin also has a noiseless P90 and a wide range Humbucker that could work well in a Tele. I had his noiseless P90 on a Godin archtop and it worked great.

**Bach5G** · 06-11-2021, 09:21 PM

I was pretty knocked out by a Joe Barden (not Biden, Trump types don’t trash me!).

**lammie200** · 06-11-2021, 10:16 PM

Originally Posted by MikeTT

I once played a Tele with a Fralin P92 at the neck and it was very very nice (although humbucker shaped).

Yeah, I think that the OP wants a single coil size. I have P92 in my lightweight ash Tele partscaster. Very happy with it. Very well balanced tone IMHO. Also has adjustable pole pieces for fine tuning. Lindy Fralin knows what he is doing.

**Cunamara** · 06-12-2021, 12:42 AM

Originally Posted by Jim Soloway

I've just sent an e-mail to Becky Lawrence at Wilde with some basic questions about shipping and installation. It seems like a good approach at a great price. I've been playing the Vola a lot this week and it's a real joy to play. I don't need more output or a full humbucker. If I could keep it sounding close to what it gives me now but without single coil hum it could be a guitar I play every day.

My experience is that they are not always great with email response. Shipping to Canada, specifically, is a great question.

There are wiring diagrams on their website, many of which seem to have been hand-drawn by Bill and scanned in. You have probably seen those already. Other than the specific color codes it is pretty straightforward.

I find their prices to be more than competitive compared to Dimarzio or Seymour Duncan, etc. It's a two person shop so that might help keep costs down.

**Cunamara** · 06-12-2021, 12:49 AM

Originally Posted by 0zoro

I was annoyed with the single coil haze which I finally rectified with 1. copper foil carefully but not beautify applied to the innards of the the cavities, 2. DiMarzio Area T. I now have a guitar that is absolutely dead quiet and sounds great.

It is kind of amusing when your quietest, least hummy guitar is a Telecaster!

**0zoro** · 06-12-2021, 06:05 AM

Originally Posted by Jim Soloway

I've just sent an e-mail to Becky Lawrence at Wilde with some basic questions about shipping and installation. It seems like a good approach at a great price. I've been playing the Vola a lot this week and it's a real joy to play. I don't need more output or a full humbucker. If I could keep it sounding close to what it gives me now but without single coil hum it could be a guitar I play every day.

Hej Jim, I have followed you over several years of feedback on equipment and the fact that some stuff passed through, and probably some of it stays, though that is not written about so much. In a post I read a while ago you mentioned the fact that you are constantly returning to a favorite Soloway guitar, which name I have temporarily forgotten. My wondering is whether or not you have the same feelings for a compo or head cab/speaker combination. Is there something that you find yourself coming back to, a keeper so to speak. This is a question that I wonder about in general, but I am at least familiar with your playing and sound as well, so I feel I have a tone scale reference for an eventual reply. Be in good health!

**Jim Soloway** · 06-12-2021, 08:54 AM

Originally Posted by 0zoro

Hej Jim, I have followed you over several years of feedback on equipment and the fact that some stuff passed through, and probably some of it stays, though that is not written about so much. In a post I read a while ago you mentioned the fact that you are constantly returning to a favorite Soloway guitar, which name I have temporarily forgotten. My wondering is whether or not you have the same feelings for a compo or head cab/speaker combination. Is there something that you find yourself coming back to, a keeper so to speak. This is a question that I wonder about in general, but I am at least familiar with your playing and sound as well, so I feel I have a tone scale reference for an eventual reply. Be in good health!

I wish the answer was yes but the reality is that my life has featured a parade of amps for the last 30+ years. Probably the closest I came was not with an amp but rather my Pod HD. That hung in for a long time and I often wish that I still had it, but even with that I was always struggling a bit with the output side of the equation. No conventional amp is perfect for every guitar but a modeling rig can adapt to anything. The problem is that it takes a very real investment in learning and that would often leave me yearning for something I could just plug into and play.

I have a lovely little rig now: a Milkman "The Amp 50" with a tiny little custom 1x10 cab. It sound glorious with the Vola but I sometimes feel like it struggles to keep up with the hotter pickups in my humbucker guitars so there's probably a second amp in my life in the not too distant future. Or maybe I will just surrender and return to modeling. Right now I'm waiting to see what the end of the pandemic holds in store. Am I going to remain in relative musical isolation playing for my own pleasure at home or am I ever going to go back to playing out from time to time. In the mean time I'm putting my gear energy into figuring out how to get myself back down to three guitars from the five I currently own but I think the decisions on that are getting pretty close.

**DRS** · 06-12-2021, 12:28 PM

Jim

I know you want a single coil but the best tele neck pup I've tried is also hum-cancelling is a SD Vintage Minibucker. All the tone of a Tele single just bigger. Not muddy. Very articulate and clear. But that' would require a bit of routing.

**azureglo** · 12-14-2021, 06:17 AM

A newbie who loves his Tele Thin lines here: Any folk tried this SD which seems widely available.

Seymour Duncan STK-T1N Vintage Stack Telecaster Neck Pickup - Andertons Music Co.

I'm loathe to route out my Tele Thinline and apart from the hum, Messrs. Greene and Bickert pretty much sold me on what a Tele neck PU can do decades ago.

That said I know this is a journey of trial and error and I have a SD Jazz HB and a Bareknuckle Manhattan (HB sized P90) in the spares box should the router rear its ugly snout but with Thinlines then there is the joy of sourcing your custom scratchplate...

Somehow the simple elegance of dropping in a PU calls to me.

BTW any thoughts on the pots and caps, I linger in the Kenny Burrell territory most days with some Cornell Dupree moments ( an awesome if "greasy" Tele player). I was thinking 500k and 0.33UF?. I wont be using a bridge pickup its strictly ballast until my no pickup bridge arrives

Glendale Guitar Parts | Arlington, TX

**Roberoo** · 12-14-2021, 11:41 AM

I did not like the SD stacked tele pickup. Sold it right away. It was too aggressive sounding and mid-range dense. I love teles because the string separation is so good on them and you can hear chord voice movement very well with them. The SD lacked that separation.

**73Fender** · 12-18-2021, 12:27 PM

One other possible way to achieve noise cancelling on a Tele is replacing the bridge pickup.

Years ago I installed a CS Texas Special bridge pickup in an American Standard Tele. It was reverse wound so I wound up with noise cancellation with both pickups engaged. And it blended well with the stock neck pickup.

**jzucker** · 12-18-2021, 04:46 PM

The mojotone hum canceling tele pickup is actually great. But I put a set of bardens in my tele and strat and love them. The tele has a gatton neck and modern T bridge and they sound beautiful for jazz or tele twang or fusion or anything else I've thrown at them. I used the strat gigs and nobody had any clue they weren't stock strat pickups. The strat pickups get a great SRV tone but also a great jazz tone which was never a strong suit with the real singles. I tried the fralin split rails but IMO, the bardens blow them away. Just be careful about the gatton tele lead pickup. It'll knock paint off your walls...

A while back they were struggling financially and were shopping their brand around to other companies like Fralin (who turned them down) and they were not making pickups anymore but it seems that according to their site they are back in business...

**medblues** · 12-19-2021, 10:25 AM

I have a 3-pickup tele with Joe Barden on the neck and Wilde Microcoils in the middle and bridge. Best of all worlds !

Hum cancelling Tele neck pickups ... What do you all like best?-teles-jpg

Hum cancelling Tele neck pickups ... What do you all like best?-teles-jpg

**yebdox** · 12-19-2021, 11:48 PM

Only limited experience, but I've had the Kinman Broadcaster set in my 52 RI for 15 years or so, sound absolutely great on everything... rock, blues, straight ahead, solo jazz guitar. I have a strat with all Dimarzio Areas and have to say, I'm non-plussed, in spite of people raving about their strat pickups.... I have not played their tele pickups, but would be disinclined to try them, based on the ones in that strat (will switch it out to Lollar Imperials at some point, ala Landau). I'm perfectly happy with the Kinmans.

**entresz** · 12-20-2021, 12:24 AM

I use Bill Lawrence (Bill & Becky) micro-coils in my Telecaster
They're not hum cancelling strictly speaking but the design of the pickup means they are extremely quiet for a true single coil.

I'm yet to encounter a situation where there's been any noticeable hum. My Telecaster still sounds very much like a good Telecaster should, just minus the hum.

**D.G.** · 12-20-2021, 02:00 AM

The Ilitch system is worth a look for those who want real single coils but can’t handle the noise.

PGNCS Tele – ILITCH ELECTRONICS

**mrventures** · 03-07-2022, 02:46 AM

Hi Jim - what did you end up going with?

**Jim Soloway** · 03-07-2022, 02:30 PM

Originally Posted by mrventures

Hi Jim - what did you end up going with?

The Wilde (the old Bill Lawrence company). Nice pickup and I put it in two guitars and then sold both of the guitars. My gear journey is nothing if not convoluted and needlessly difficult.