Pick Up Configurations

[The_Gent]

Hello,

I started out wanting to build a tele, and now have the body and neck in the post and somehow along the way started to re-fit my old strat copy. I am trying to work out what pickup configuration in them both to give me two different guitars, bearing in mind that I already have an Epiphone Les Paul

I am a rock/metal guitar player but still looking for some diversity in sound in these two guitars.

Tele has ash body and the neck is rosewood. I was looking to make this the rock-ier of the two, perhaps a humbucker in the bridge and a singe in the neck. I have been in touch with bareknuckle pick ups in the UK if anyone has heard of them, their stuff is quite brutal!

Strat was a far east copy I not sure what wood type it is but it is pretty light, I have got a lovely maple neck to put on it though. I was thinking of making this one less heavy and more dynamic and for some brighter sounds. I was hopeing for something that would cut through the mix for some spacey sounds over some heavy riffing. I didn't want to go for a conventional 3 singles, and had HSS configuration in mind.

Would be open to anyones idea's, what you do in my situation?

[al heeley]

You know what? Nothing sounds better at being a tele than a Tele. I would use the guitar to its max character if I wanted diverse sounds. Don't try to make a Tele more rocky, use it for what it's best at. Leave the standard pup configs in - that way it will be faithful to its own strengths and remain very different from the les paul. I would do the same with the strat - for me a strat at its best is the 3 s/c config, not the hot rod HB bridge version - I'd get a different type of guitar for that and leave the strat to do what its good at.

Onoly a little mod to the wiring (the eric johnson mod..?) to use the tone as a master on all 3 pups to take the brittle edge off the bridge pup, its only a 1 wire resolder, then leave as is.