Tele with humbucker

I want to modify my fender telecaster and put a humbucker pick- up into it. I prefer a metal sound on guitar, like Van halen or mettalica. I love the neck, feel and looks of my tele, but I don't like the sound. will this be hard to pull off and what kind of pickups would u guys reccommend?.

Hi Mruniverce,

The biggest concern is whether your Tele has big enough cavities to fit a humbucker. If your Tele had humbuckers to start, then switching them out should be just fine, but I'm guessing your guitar doesn't, since you're asking this question.

You have to first make sure the cavities are big enough to fit a humbucker, and then once they are, you'll have to get a new pickguard that would also fit humbuckers.

Once you figure out that, you can't go wrong tossing in some Seymour Duncan pickups, or perhaps some EMGs.

If you prefer the metal sound, if it were me, I'd look to sell and replace rather than modifying a stock Tele config, unless you just want to do it for the challenge of the mod? As its a Fender, even a MIM should fetch a reasonable sum.

If your budget won't extend to that, just buy and put hotter alnico single pickups in your Tele until you can. Additionally, buy and feed them through an amp sim or high gain pedal. That's the practical and cheap option until you know exactly what you want and can afford it.

A slick necked Ibanez metal model will probably be your ideal - if you can afford one. Or on the cheap how about a Harley Benton CS24T PRS clone? They really rock,..for the very small $$$. For an aggressive playing Tele, a Cort MBC-1 Matthew Bellamy Signature might be just what you're looking for. Listen here. I'd buy one without hesitation if it was what I was looking for. Plays well above its pay grade. I have a Cort Manson Classic TC. Different tonal orientation, but a beautifully designed, constructed and playing guitar. My fav electric guitar (of my five), I'd buy it again without hesitation.

Modifying a Tele to accept a bridge humbucker if it is currently fitted with a single is quite a job. It's not just unscrew, un/resolder, drop-in, rescrew, level, fit new strings, setup action and intonate. FTR, I just modded my own beater Tele, but with Korean Wilkinson tuners (drop-in replacement), same shape, scale and mounting holes drop-in replacement 6 saddle bridge, Korean Wilkinson alnico neck and bridge paired PUPs and capacitor mod, so know what's involved. No cutting or reshaping required. I made it easy on myself.

Seymour Duncan has single coil sized humbuckers for different guitars, incl. telecaster.

EMG also have mini-hum series.

Tom Morello gets pretty heavy with a tele