Fletcher Pickups - Upgrading my HB Telecaster with some Handwound P'ups

As some of you will know, I recently undertook the project of building a Harley Benton Telecaster using their electric guitar building kit. I was really pleased with the results, especially because the assembly process was so simple and the kit itself reasonably priced. This guitar has since become a bit of a project guitar, one I am going to upgrade piece by piece to keep improving its quality and usability.

The first improvement followed a conversation with Ben Fletcher, the owner and pickup builder at Fletcher Pickups. I was intrigued by the description of his DeFletcher2000 T pickups: "Based on the early Gretsch single coils in standard Tele sized pickups. Thick & Long 6mm magnets and thin wire. With clear ringing highs and tight bass". I love the sound of vintage Gretsch guitars with DeArmond pickups, and enjoyed the idea of having one of these pickups in the neck position of the telecaster - a position which is often overlooked, in my opinion, for being comparatively quiet and uninspiring. Ben agreed it sounded like an interesting idea, and suggested a "slightly hotter than vintage" usual tele bridge pickup, wound to compliment the neck pickup, would work well. 

Fletcher pickups single coils are made in the old fashioned way, with fibreboard flatwork and alnico (5) magnet poles. The neck pickup I chose has thicker and slightly longer poles than a standard tele neck, which gives a higher inductance, resulting in clearer bass and highs. The assembled set is coated in clear lacquer to protect the thin pickup wire from the pole and to prevent shorts. The way the thin wire (0.063mm on bridge) is wound around the poles is what pickup makers do to create their unique pickups and makes each design unique. Ben varies the shape of the coil, the way the coil is spread along the magnet and the tension of the wire while doing so, all of which affect the tone. Even the machine used to wind the coil will have an effect. The specific method used by Fletcher Pickups is his trade secret and is, I'm assured, the secret of the bright tone of his pickups!

Installing these pickups to my tele was very simple. The Harley Benton pickups themselves were solderless, so I cut the wires which led to the pickup selector and soldered the cables of the new pickups in place, meaning the HB pickups still had a decent length of wire, should I want to use them again. The wires on the Fletcher pickups had fabric coating, rather than the usual plastic, which made it harder to strip using a conventional wire stripper, but does look cool and isn't much of an inconvenience. The newly soldered pickups worked first time and the process was considerably easier than unsoldering and desoldering wires to the connectors on the potentiometers (something I had fun with when installing new pickups into my Les Paul!). 

Rather than using a spring to control the pickup height in the mounting, these Fletcher Pickups utilise a rubber material which squashes when the screw is tightened - this was easier than a spring mounted design which can comedically fly off when attempting to tighten them. It's considerations like this which really demonstrate the amount of thought which has gone into the design of these products. 

The sound of these pickups is clearly the main attraction of getting hand wound pickups designed to your own specifications - these suit me down to the ground. Both pickups have so much clarity, and in the same way John Mayer described his new PRS Super Eagle Preamp sound (by the way, I am by no means comparing my HB telecaster to that £11k guitar, despite having these epic pickups in!) it just sounds like HiFi sound - it's the 5-6k sizzle which is so revealing and dynamic to variations in pick attack, which I am in love with. The neck pickup is pleasantly scooped sounding, as Ben suggested in the product description, due to the longer magnets and thinner wire, and sings with some gain slightly overdriving the preamp of my amp. Variation in tone is so easily accessible with alterations in pick attack and by sensibly controlling the volume and tone controls on the guitar - with the tone all the way off, the neck pickup is throaty and thick, and rolling down the volume retains clarity and sustain.

The bridge pickup is delightfully honky, with the typical tele ugliness which just loves to scream through a thick and full band mix. With some taming provided by the Ibanez Tubescreamer mini, musical feedback is certainly on tap. One of my favourite tones available is in the middle position with some compression from the Boss CS3 - the unique telecaster mid frequencies from the bridge position appropriately slot in with the smooth and articulate sound of the neck pickup to create a full rhythm sound which barely clips the preamp valves of my amp but feels chewy and lovely to play.

I am really grateful to Ben from Fletcher Pickups for making these brilliant pickups for me. Ben is super nice, really helpful giving advice for pickup choices for different sounds and makes some excellent products for very reasonable prices. Whether you're in the UK, Europe or the US, definitely go and check out his website and his pickups for excellent tones and customer service. Keep an eye out for the demo coming soon!