[gregr]

This is my third topic on my Telecaster experience, apologies. I could have added this to either of the other discussions but I believe it warrants its own subject line.

This all started with me purchasing an Area Hot T for a friend which I had paired with a Vintage Minibucker Bridge in the neck of a $200 Squier. The Hot T sounded thin and the output was slightly low relative to the minibucker, but I could tell it was a great pickup. We ended up replacing the Area with a Chopper T and also replaced the die-cast saddles with steel ones. A set of 500k pots and we called it a day. He’s happy.

I was so impressed with the Area Hot T that I bought a Mexican Telecaster to put it in. It was initially paired with a Vintage Minibucker Neck but it didn’t cut enough. I exchanged the Minibucker for an EJ Custom Neck and am quite satisfied.

The volume control is 500k with a treble bleed. The tone is a dual 250k/500k concentric pot. The neck and middle position are using the 500k portion of the control while the bridge position is using the 250k portion.

With the tone rolled back a bit on the Area and after some minor height adjustments which include adjusting the fillisters on the EJ, the tonal balance and relative output between the two pickups are right on the money.

The EJ is indeed very lean and bright, but it still sounds best with 500k controls. With an additional capacitor and two resistors on the tone control I can warm it up nicely with it rolled back. With this modified control the EJ is very useable for jazz.

Between the treble bleed and the larger value volume control the Area Hot has more than enough Tele snap and spank. I opted for the dual control because the Area has so much bite that the EJ can’t keep up unless the tone on the Area is rolled back as I already mentioned. This would likely still be the case even if the Area were using 250k controls. I think this has more to do with pickup location than anything and is exacerbated by the fact that I have the Area up fairly high. I know I can load down the Area with a resistor, but with a separate tone control there’s no point; besides, it’s better to have too much than not enough.

[darkbluemurder]

Many thanks for the write up.

So you are saying that the EJ neck is brighter than the minibucker neck?

The Area Hot T is indeed very bright with a 500k volume pot. With a 250k pot it sounds like a fatter tele - more in broadcaster territory than tele territory.

Cheers Stephan

[gregr]

The EJ neck is quite a bit brighter, more open and not at all chewy like the Vintage Minibucker neck. It is brighter than the HFH as well and is a lot leaner in the low end. It is very clean like the HFH, cleaner still because it is weaker, but it has a  more focused top end and doesn’t have the acoustic/piano quality of the HFH. It has a similar frequency response to a  single coil but is louder and more full. I’m not familiar with Filtertrons so I can’t comment on that, but I will say that the EJ doesn’t really sound like a humbucker.

[darkbluemurder]

Thanks a lot for the comparison to the HFH - the too strong low end is what is bothering me with the HFH.

[gregr]

You mentioned the Full Shred before. I remember it being extremely tight but sounding more like a humbucker than either the HFH or EJ. Admittedly, it’s been almost 10 years since I used a stock FS. It would be interesting to throw the EJ Bridge into the mix since it should be closer in output to the HFH.

I don’t know what gauge strings you use but I moved away from a 46 as a low E because I never liked the way it sounded on a 25.5” scale guitar. 25.1” is better but I’m still happier with a 44. I tailored my string set to my liking: 10, 13, 16.5, 26, 34, 44.

[darkbluemurder]

Interesting thing on the string gauge - I play 10s but find the 46 to loose and use a 49 or 50 there. The scale does not matter to me for that purpose.

Cheers Stephan

[gregr]

I find the 46 tubby sounding and the 42 too loose. I try to adjust everything so that the notes on the 10th through 12th frets don’t collapse using the neck pickup while still having enough gain for the guitar to sing at club volume primarily using preamp gain and overdrives.

Ignoring single coils and rails I normally don’t stray beyond a vintage output humbucker in the neck. I do like the PAF Pro and LiquiFire though I don’t like anything hotter than a hot PAF in the bridge which doesn’t leave many candidates for those two pickups.

I don’t think I would ever use the EJ Custom Neck for anything other than this application simply because it’s too weak for a humbucker; though for this application it gets an enthusiastic endorsement. In addition to working well with the Hot T it should work well with the Chopper T, perhaps even more so.