Tele wiring opinions requested, before I go opening up a can of whoop a ss

[wooders]

So I have a plate from the Roadhouse as a more is more guy I got the 5,way plate with the HOoP circuit supposed to be more stratty. Originally I had it in a cheap partscaster putting it all together was ok and I needed a few question answering but they were great in getting back to me . The 1st one did not work so he sent me out another with a possible solution on condition I returned it if the solution worked .
I decided I wanted noiseless option and got a set of fender Gen 4 because I really like them in my strat elite . Again sought advice as the Gen. 4 have an extra wire . Again very prompt . I had recently bought a Shijie TLV Pro and put it into there with the different but still very good Shijie pups going in the parts caster. . Struggled to get 3 wires into the solderless connection and even now 2 months later I’m worried in case one of the wires pulls out. Sound wise it’s important to know what to expect positions 1 -3 work like a normal tele position 4is the hoop it’s not stratty but a little more wiry and light weight . Position 5 I can’t really tell from poison 1. I think it’s meant to be boosted in some way so not worth the effort . Really a 4,way with the HOoP would better .

I did some research on the 5 way with the hoop stuff and decided a 4 way with middle pos in parallel and series was the way to go.
He's been very helpful. The terminals are well gripped. Not concerned with that. Pots wise, I'm not really that fussed as long as it works and doesn't fall apart in 6 weeks.

 

[wooders]

Thanks for taking the time on the pickups - really very much appreciated

Glad you got it working too!

Glad you got it going!
Tell us how they sound

FWIW, I had her plugged into amp tonight. Made myself late for football training.
Yeh, really like them.. tone and volume are very useable. Clean for neck and both middle positions is very good. Bridge good, but more useable toned down for me. Crunchy is super nice, higher gain is super on bridge and mid, less so on neck I think, but I don't do metal or the like, so it works for me. They are bright, but nice and clean. No Ice pick. Power chords with gain is just great on all positions.
I like them and they are staying. Been through tone and volume variations with amp clean, crunchy, gain and lots of gain.

 

[wooders]

Just a revisit on the pickups.
Been playing this guitar alot and really playing through pickup heights, tone, volume and amp settings. Something is not quite right with wiring. Ground issue somewhere and I'm not convinced the 500k pots aren't too much.
Having said that, pickups low, volume low, tone low (around the 1-4 roughly) and these are great sounding pickups. Clean, just great, crunchy great, gain great, heavy gain great on bridge and both, but not neck. These sound better clean with a light to medium pick attack, to me anyhow. More gain, less tone variation with picking technique. I've got 9-40 daddariio balanced and the strings and pickups are making me play quite a bit lighter. Something I've been working on anyway, but this guitar is almost encouraging me to play that way.
It'll be going to my luthier to help solve/improve the wiring. £50 for these pickups and pleasantly impressed.

 

[Mike3066]

Just a revisit on the pickups.
Been playing this guitar alot and really playing through pickup heights, tone, volume and amp settings. Something is not quite right with wiring. Ground issue somewhere and I'm not convinced the 500k pots aren't too much.
Having said that, pickups low, volume low, tone low (around the 1-4 roughly) and these are great sounding pickups. Clean, just great, crunchy great, gain great, heavy gain great on bridge and both, but not neck. These sound better clean with a light to medium pick attack, to me anyhow. More gain, less tone variation with picking technique. I've got 9-40 daddariio balanced and the strings and pickups are making me play quite a bit lighter. Something I've been working on anyway, but this guitar is almost encouraging me to play that way.
It'll be going to my luthier to help solve/improve the wiring. £50 for these pickups and pleasantly impressed.

I’ve ordered a set! Look forward to agreeing with you

 

[wooders]

I’ve ordered a set! Look forward to agreeing with you

Hope so.
I've been having a blast with this tele.

 

[wooders]

I’ve ordered a set! Look forward to agreeing with you

Did you get them?

 

[Eric Dahlberg]

500k volume will make it sound bright. 500k tone matters less, just turn it down a smidge to get the same sound as a 250k. That doesn’t work for the volume, unfortunately.

4-way switches are usually 1. Bridge 2. Bridge+Neck Parallel 3. Neck 4. Bridge+Neck Series. I don’t think there’s a way to change that without getting a super switch, which you do not have.

Your guitar will always have hum in the solo pickup positions. If you have hum in the pickups together positions, either the pickups are not RWRP or there is a problem with the wiring.

 

[wooders]

500k volume will make it sound bright. 500k tone matters less, just turn it down a smidge to get the same sound as a 250k. That doesn’t work for the volume, unfortunately.

4-way switches are usually 1. Bridge 2. Bridge+Neck Parallel 3. Neck 4. Bridge+Neck Series. I don’t think there’s a way to change that without getting a super switch, which you do not have.

Your guitar will always have hum in the solo pickup positions. If you have hum in the pickups together positions, either the pickups are not RWRP or there is a problem with the wiring.

Yep. With pickups low (flush neck and almost flush bridge) and volume from about 1-4, I'm getting some lovely sounds. Tone about half and below too. Going to see it bothers me enough to swap out pot/s for 250k.

 

[Mike3066]

Did you get them?

I did!!

Fitted them on Sunday and wanted to give a couple of days to be certain, but I am very very impressed. I’ve spent quite some money on boutique pickups in the past and it’s hard to see the difference here. Really good build quality too

I’ve got them set real low too but with 250k pots - clean and certainly not edgy or shrill at all. They clean up really well and I’m blown away by the crunch on the bridge tbh. Haven’t come across a better value set of pickups and I’ve tried more than I care to count.

Really happy with them and I can’t see them going anywhere - I’m so impressed I’m eyeing up a set of their strat pickups and maybe give their p90s a whirl as they’re cheap enough to just try them out!

 

[wooders]

I did!!

Fitted them on Sunday and wanted to give a couple of days to be certain, but I am very very impressed. I’ve spent quite some money on boutique pickups in the past and it’s hard to see the difference here. Really good build quality too

I’ve got them set real low too but with 250k pots - clean and certainly not edgy or shrill at all. They clean up really well and I’m blown away by the crunch on the bridge tbh. Haven’t come across a better value set of pickups and I’ve tried more than I care to count.

Really happy with them and I can’t see them going anywhere - I’m so impressed I’m eyeing up a set of their strat pickups and maybe give their p90s a whirl as they’re cheap enough to just try them out!

Super. Mines going in to my luthier Saturday to get wired up traditional style (still with 4 way though) and 250k pots.
That bridge does like a wee bit of gain, doesn't it.

I've got a p90 build planned next and also thinking it's worth a punt on them.

 

[Stratsquatch]

What kind of bridge is that?

 

[Mike3066]

Super. Mines going in to my luthier Saturday to get wired up traditional style (still with 4 way though) and 250k pots.
That bridge does like a wee bit of gain, doesn't it.

I've got a p90 build planned next and also thinking it's worth a punt on them.

I’m interested to see the difference on the pots - I confess to being traditional and never really having tried 500k in single coils, so will be good to hear your thoughts on the difference.

 

[Eric Dahlberg]

250K vs. 500K is a small but meaningful difference. Single coil through 500K is a little spikey, humbucker through 250K is a little dull. Then again, there are a hundred things that can obliterate that difference, from super long high capacitance cables to treble boosters and buffers. Also, these pickups being higher output than most means they might be darker sounding than most, so maybe the 250K pots will sound dull.

 

[wooders]

250K vs. 500K is a small but meaningful difference. Single coil through 500K is a little spikey, humbucker through 250K is a little dull. Then again, there are a hundred things that can obliterate that difference, from super long high capacitance cables to treble boosters and buffers. Also, these pickups being higher output than most means they might be darker sounding than most, so maybe the 250K pots will sound dull.

Yep. I don't profess to be too knowledgeable with tone pots. I had an issue with my Les Paul on the tone control. My luthier sorted it by putting a 100k tone pot in and it is now perfect. So I understand that the norm is not always the best. She's going in on Saturday to get a new control plate and 250k pots.
I think the treble bleed is not helping.
On the plus side, I have a nice pair of humbuckers stashed away, so I'll take this as fate dictating my next build. HH Tele!

 

[Eric Dahlberg]

Tone pots don't matter. A 100K tone pot on full is exactly the same as setting a 250K audio pot a little more than halfway up. The pot is simply adding the capacitor to the circuit. A no-load tone pot is cool, though, because it's the only ones that can completely remove the capacitor from the circuit.

Volume pots are a different story. A 250K pot full up does not sound the same as a 500K linear pot at 50% (you probably wouldn't want a linear pot as a volume control but I'm using that in this example to better illustrate the point).

 

[Nick L Plate]

Yow. I'm glad you got the pickup cover ground sorted out, because incorrect grounding in the kind of complicated circuit you're running can be a killer. I'm sorry I can't sort things out from the pics because it's simply too complicated for me unless I spend a couple of hours figuring things out rather than just checking a schematic. I always wire up everything myself -- I hate buying harnesses or solderless stuff, etc. -- because I like to be able to check the circuit and connections, and to make easy changes as needed. With some practice (which most people will simply not do, but so it goes) soldering is actually the easiest way to do special circuits and to be able to make changes easily. If your guitar is simply too bright overall (a common enough problem) the problem is not treble bleed unless you've made a mistake with the components of the bleed. The bleed will preserve treble at lower volume settings but will not increase treble overall unless there's a mistake in bleed component choice or connections. If the guitar is way too bright, period, that would begin with the pickups (the actual units, and then height) of course, and then secondarily the pot values. There's no good way to compensate for shrill pickups, but you can of course kill treble with the tone control (if you have the best cap value for your particular guitar). Again, using treble bleed ought not to give excess treble at all settings, assuming you use the tone control, unless the circuit/bleed is wrong. Good luck sorting this out. A correct treble bleed is fantastic for Fenders, where the volume control seriously destroys treble on lower settings and can quickly eliminate the detail so fundamental to Teles and Strats. An incorrect bleed, though, sounds awful. Amp settings help, too. Unless your pickups are just too shrill, you should be able to eventually get this sorted out and when that happens, it's really rewarding.

 

[wooders]

What kind of bridge is that?

It's a Kluson. Came with the body, so I assume it was retro fitted at one stage. Being a Squier standard body, I don't think they had Kluson branded bridges. Don't know if the compensated saddles were native to the Kluson bridge?

 

[Eric Dahlberg]

It's a Kluson. Came with the body, so I assume it was retro fitted at one stage. Being a Squier standard body, I don't think they had Kluson branded bridges. Don't know if the compensated saddles were native to the Kluson bridge?

I believe those are Wilkinson saddles. Good stuff.