Introduction
Discussion within the guitar/gear realm can get so convoluted at times, fascinatingly so when it comes to something so seemingly simple in its design and execution such as the pickup. Pickups are after all just magnets wrapped in a coil of copper wire - but the subtleties in that art and the attention to detail is what elevates the great ones from the rest.
Next to the strings, the pickups are one of the first components that produce the sound you eventually hear out of your amp. I don't think I've ever heard any guitar player from cork sniffer to casual observer dispute the importance of the pickup. Heated debates exist regarding the importance of tonewoods, capacitor types, headstock design, hardware, etc (I could really go on) but the humble pickup seems to transcend all of that. Of course there are preferences and different needs for different players - and it's important to establish that before you go seeking something out to buy.
In my case, I had the stock Fender pickups in the 96 AVRI telecaster. I was ambivalent about the bridge pickup, I could make it work at times but other times I just couldn't be bothered with it. The neck pickup I had no qualms about. It sounded sweet to me and adequately balanced but from memory (it's been a while since I've had it in) maybe a little bit boomy. In any case I would have been happy to leave it in. Neither of them were noisy pickups, so that wasn't an issue. Going by the description above, my only criteria for success was a bridge pickup that I could use throughout the whole spectrum of the tone/volume knob. And if I had to change the neck pickup, that it wasn't worse sounding than what I currently had.
I had heard of Sliders via Youtube years ago. I usually stay clear of pickups named after tiny hamburgers (I kid, I kid...) but I did some research and found out that he was a builder out of NSW, Australia. Bonus! I love sourcing good products locally and it always amazes me how much expertise and talent we have in our own back yard. I hit the man up and was dealing with the builder himself - Rod McQueen. He sent me over a few blurbs and to cut a long story short, I had to choose from 2 sets that he was offering for the tele: a 52 set and a 58 set. There are too many details to get into here, but I chose the 52 set to match the 52 RI guitar that it was getting installed into. The set was also a little hotter than the 58 option, not that it matters too much to me.
Turnaround was very quick, and it was posted via Express mail to me within 7 days of payment. The pickups came well packed, and each one had a slip on it detailing the DC resistance as well as other details. There was also a short blurb from Rod.
I usually do an A/B comparison whenever I install new hardware, just so I can form my opinions better in the future. However with this guitar I had plenty of other jobs that I wanted to do to it, and it was going to take too long to A/B everything. In total, I wanted to perform the following modifications: 1. Replace plastic nut with bone 2. Remove stock treble bleed cap 3. Replace stock tone cap to one with a different value 4. Replace both pickups 5. Usual maintenance on frets and neck With so many changes, it would be pointless to A/B the before and after and I was not in the mood to do separate A/Bs for each item. I just wanted to get that guitar playing well and those pickups installed so I could play!
Review and soundclips
On to the reviews...
Starting point: The guitar had stock electronics on there, which in this case meant two 250K pots for volume and tone, a 0.001 µF ceramic capacitor used as a treble bleed, and a 0.05 µF ceramic cap as a tone cap. These were all wired to the pickups through a 3 way switch. The wiring is similar to the "Standard Telecaster" wiring diagram found on Seymour Duncan (and all over the web). The stock pickups were both Alnico 5 (from what I can gather anyway), copper base on the bridge one.
Installation: The only modifications to the circuit as described above was 1. Desoldered the treble bleed cap 2. Changed tone cap to a 0.068 µF one that was provided by Rod 3. Pickups replaced in the same positions
Thoughts and comments Desoldering the treble bleed cap had a very obvious effect. As a player I do play around with my volume control a lot and with the treble bleed gone it became very noticeable that if I even put the volume down by a little (say from an imaginary 10 to 9) the treble would get rolled off considerably. It's still very useable as I hope the upcoming clips show, and definitely an improvement from before where the treble seemed to be unnaturally affected (it almost became more prominent) when you rolled down the volume. However I might experiment with a different treble bleed network in the future, and I might just end up leaving it as is. Not going back to that single 0.001 µF cap though.
I'm not sure what the change in the value of the tone cap achieved. In theory I guess there would be more treble roll off as I closed my tone pot. However I can't verify that or any tone improvement unless it was an isolated test.
Moving on, the pickups. Wow...I know as with all these reviews I will be susceptible to a little confirmation bias having purchased these with my own money. But I can do no more than to say I am honestly impressed with them.
The bridge pickup is now very useable even with the volume and tone fully dimed. I know this is a cliche but the brilliance is there without being ice picky or thin when run through the same rig. In my opinion the output is just right, a little hotter than what you'd expect if you're used to vintage Strat bridge pickups, but not quite humbucker output. This particular one utilises A2 magnets.
This little clip was run with the volume and tone fully open. The Signal chain is described in the Soundcloud description, as with all these clips.
This is without any gain, but helped a little with the Koji compressor. The volume was fully open but I can't remember now if the Tone was.
The following is the neck pickup run through a fuzz (Fulltone 69). The start of the clip is with the volume rolled off probably around mid way and toward the end the volume is dimed. Apologies for the mistakes, hope it's not too much of a hassle to your listening experience.
Middle position demonstrated here, again with a little smoothing coming from the Koji. Volume is all the way up.
I don't profess to be an expert in Telecasters, nevermind Telecaster pickups, but I have played a few along the way. To me there is something honest about the Telecaster, even acoustically it has its own tonal profile totally different to a Strat or a Les Paul. Maybe it's in the high end response, or the attack on the bass notes, I'm really not sure. But whether or not the pickups complement or detriment that honest, raw sound is the key to whether or not I start to resonate with that guitar. In this regard I can say that the Sliders have surpassed expectations. At the end of the day, you can talk about resonant peaks and construction methods till you're blue in the face, but does it make you wanna pick that thing up and play? These Sliders will!
If you're interested, you can hit Rod up via his website.