Seymour Duncan Billy Gibbons BG1400 Tele pickups! They make your Tele snarl...

[rockabilly69]

Because I've loved them ever since I popped one into a Tele, I now have the Seymour Duncan BG1400 bridge pickup in three Teles, but this is the first time I've had the set of both pickups in a guitar. I've had problems getting a neck humbucker that would balance well with the BG1400, and finally the custom shop started offering a BG1400 for the neck position. This set took quite a bit of fiddling with both pickup heights, but, I really wound up with a good balance. The trick was to get the neck pickup right under the strings then adjust the height of the bridge pickup for a good middle position. Soon as you get that middle position sounding right, the bridge pickup volume will be just slightly louder than the other two positions, and frankly, that's where I like it.

In this demo I break the song into thirds, neck pickup first, middle, then bridge. I tried to use enough gain to make the pickups sing, but not too much where it would make it hard to discern what each position sounds like. The Tele is plugged straight into my Mesa Fillmore 50, and I'm also using one of my closed back Marshall Speaker cabs (Celestion Cream Alnico). The ext cab is mic'd with a CAD E350 condensor, and the Fillmore with a Sennehiser MD421. The bass and drums are guys from my band Vorraro, Martin Carle on Drums, and Jeff Aaron on bass.

 

Edited Sunday at 03:46 AM by rockabilly69

[PunkKitty]

I built this one with a BG1400 and a Duncan P90. A friend lightly aged the body for me. I used a 1987 Squier MIJ neck for this build and a Allen Eden body. The BG1400 has become my favorite Tele bridge pickup.

[rockabilly69]

14 hours ago, PunkKitty said:

I built this one with a BG1400 and a Duncan P90. A friend lightly aged the body for me. I used a 1987 Squier MIJ neck for this build and a Allen Eden body. The BG1400 has become my favorite Tele bridge pickup.

Nice Tele Kitty! I've never tried the BG1400 with a P90 because I record alot around computer monitors so I like noiseless Teles, but I bet that combo sounds great! My main Tele, which I built, has a Tyson Tone Lab Precious and Grace humbucker in the neck, and the BG`1400 in the bridge. The body is an Allen Eden Body made from Paulownia wood, and it's light as a feather. It's the best Tele that I've ever owned and one the best Teles I've ever heard. It's the one that really got me into the BG1400...

Edited Monday at 05:01 AM by rockabilly69

[RJLII]

Give these Lollars a try sometime. Otherworldly. 
 

[rockabilly69]

9 hours ago, RJLII said:

Give these Lollars a try sometime. Otherworldly. 
 

I have given them a try  nice pickups! The CC pickup in the neck position is a particularly cool pickup. I'm not a fan of Lollars across the board, but they make certain pickups that do it for me.

The Heritage H535 P90 that Kuz sold me has a particularly good set of Lollar P90s which generally I never liked before, buit these pickups changed my mind about Lollar P90s...

 

 

My Teye La Perla has custom made for Teye Lollar low wound Imperials and I LOVE them...

[img]https://i.imgur.com/HMAEORY.jpg[/img]

Edited yesterday at 09:30 AM by rockabilly69

[tbonesullivan]

Wow, I was just checking out the DC resistance for those pickups. 17.7k for the neck and 29.2k for the neck. That's a lot of turns! I also noticed the "Hot Chicken" set with Neck: 15.8k, Bridge: 26.46k.

[DetroitBlues]

I used to put the single coil sized humbuckers in my Strat's for year, that sounded good, but never quite what I wanted.  

When I got a Tele style guitar (Reverend Buckshot), I did the same thing again.  Still sounded okay.

My last Reverend was a Trickshot which again, I used a ZexCoil in the bridge.  Sounded okay again.

A couple years ago, I bought a used Highway 1 (1st Gen) Strat that had a single coil sized rail in the bridge pickup.  That sounded awesome!

I've since starting using a Dimarzio Chopper T in the bridge of my Am Pro II Tele and I absolutely love it.  Its noiseless, has some great spank, but still sounds like a single coil.

I've since converted both my Strats to Dimarzio single coil rail pickups.  A Chopper in a Player Series Strat and a Fast Track 2 in a "vintage" American Standard.

Both sound great; just another option if you want a noiseless option that still sounds like a single coil

Edited yesterday at 04:59 PM by DetroitBlues

[rockabilly69]

6 hours ago, tbonesullivan said:

Wow, I was just checking out the DC resistance for those pickups. 17.7k for the neck and 29.2k for the neck. That's a lot of turns! I also noticed the "Hot Chicken" set with Neck: 15.8k, Bridge: 26.46k.

I know crazy resistance values, but the output doesn't reflect that. It's more of a medium output due to the stacked coils and different size wire than a conventional humbucker.. I have side by side coil humbuckers with much lower DC resistance and a much hotter output. 

I would like to try the Hot Chicken bridge pickup. I think I'm going to put one in my custom shop Deluxe Tele which currently has a BG1400 in it. I think the Hot Chiicken might blend better with the Duncan "Vintage Stack" I have in the neck. The Vintage Stack isn't hot enough to get a good middle position with the BG 1400. And since I have the BG1400 in two other Teles, I think it would be nice to have a slightly lower output in one guitar. Beside I can stick the BG1400 I pull into the Esquire that I built:)

 

 

 

2 hours ago, DetroitBlues said:

I used to put the single coil sized humbuckers in my Strat's for year, that sounded good, but never quite what I wanted.  

When I got a Tele style guitar (Reverend Buckshot), I did the same thing again.  Still sounded okay.

My last Reverend was a Trickshot which again, I used a ZexCoil in the bridge.  Sounded okay again.

A couple years ago, I bought a used Highway 1 (1st Gen) Strat that had a single coil sized rail in the bridge pickup.  That sounded awesome!

I've since starting using a Dimarzio Chopper T in the bridge of my Am Pro II Tele and I absolutely love it.  Its noiseless, has some great spank, but still sounds like a single coil.

I've since converted both my Strats to Dimarzio single coil rail pickups.  A Chopper in a Player Series Strat and a Fast Track 2 in a "vintage" American Standard.

Both sound great; just another option if you want a noiseless option that still sounds like a single coil

They do sound like a single coil, but I'm more of a fan of the Duncan's tone for getting the Tele tone. I do like the Area T DiMarzio stacked humbuckers which I think get great Tele tone. 

Edited yesterday at 07:48 PM by rockabilly69

[RJLII]

11 hours ago, rockabilly69 said:

I have given them a try  nice pickups! The CC pickup in the neck position is a particularly cool pickup. I'm not a fan of Lollars across the board, but they make certain pickups that do it for me.

The Heritage H535 P90 that Kuz sold me has a particularly good set of Lollar P90s which generally I never liked before, built these pickups changed my mind about Lollar P90s…

 

 

My old H-137 had Lollar P90s. Too “polite” for me. Wonderful HiFi sound, but they didn’t punch very hard. I prefer the Gibson variety. 
 

edit: Lollar has multiple winds available for their P90s. Truth be told, I don’t know what they were. 

Edited yesterday at 09:03 PM by RJLII

[rockabilly69]

4 hours ago, RJLII said:

My old H-137 had Lollar P90s. Too “polite” for me. Wonderful HiFi sound, but they didn’t punch very hard. I prefer the Gibson variety. 
 

edit: Lollar has multiple winds available for their P90s. Truth be told, I don’t know what they were. 

That's exactly what I thought of their P90s and I tried muiltiple winds. Too polite, too hifi! I like Gibsons too, and Wolfetone Mean and Meaners.

[Kuz]

I have found Lollar's P-90s to vary from set to set and also to sound better in different guitars.  I loved the Lollar P-90s in the 535 P90 guitar I sold to Daniel Rockabilly and the Lollar p-90s that came in my Collings gold top City Limits.  I tried a couple different sets of P-90s in the Collings, and to my surprise the Lollars sounded the best.  

My personal favorite P-90s are the Throbak '52/'54 P-90s with plenty of grit and growl.  But Throbak's prices have really increased since the pandemic and they are quite an investment now.  

[tbonesullivan]

19 hours ago, rockabilly69 said:

I know crazy resistance values, but the output doesn't reflect that. It's more of a medium output due to the stacked coils and different size wire than a conventional humbucker.. I have side by side coil humbuckers with much lower DC resistance and a much hotter output. 

I would like to try the Hot Chicken bridge pickup. I think I'm going to put one in my custom shop Deluxe Tele which currently has a BG1400 in it. I think the Hot Chicken might blend better with the Duncan "Vintage Stack" I have in the neck. The Vintage Stack isn't hot enough to get a good middle position with the BG 1400. And since I have the BG1400 in two other Teles, I think it would be nice to have a slightly lower output in one guitar. Beside I can stick the BG1400 I pull into the Esquire that I built:)

They do sound like a single coil, but I'm more of a fan of the Duncan's tone for getting the Tele tone. I do like the Area T DiMarzio stacked humbuckers which I think get great Tele tone. 

Ahh, I didn't notice that they were stacked humbuckers. Looks like even the "vintage stacked' set has quite a bit of DC resistance. They just use a different type of design than the Dimarzio stacked single coils, which have a much lower DCR. My experience with the stacked pickups is limited to a Dimarzio Paul Gilbert "Injector" set in a G&L legacy I picked up years ago. I do think they have a really nice sound, definitely a bit more bark than regular single coils.

Regarding P90s, I thought I would chime in with Lindy Fralin pickups. I picked up a set used to put in a Hamer P90 special, and I love them there. The stock pickups were the Seymour Duncan Hot and Custom P90 pickups, which are BEASTLY, but also do sound quite good. You just really need to plug into the low gain input or you're gonna get nothing but Mississippi queen all day long.