Suhr Classic T bridge pickup
Here’s a video post to hear John Suhr talking about his pickups and amps: Factory Tour Part 5. The reason I’m posting this is that I just swapped out the pickups on my Squier Classic Vibe Telecaster for a set of Suhr Classic T Tele pickups.

I am very pleased with the results. I got to try the guitar out last Saturday night at a gig. It’s very hard to describe the difference in sound, but I”ll try anyway. The original Squier pickups are very in-your-face. They deliver a nice tubby fat sound on the neck pickup with a lot of bottom and a bright snappy sound at the bridge. The Suhr pickups are more subtle; in a way the sound is closer to my Robert Cray Strat, and that’s a good thing. The Cray Strat is a great gigging guitar because it’s comfortable, easy to play, and has enough sounds to fit any situation. The Tele was much tougher finding the right level in the mix on stage with it’s all-or-nothing take-no-prisoners pickups, and now with the Suhr’s it plays better with others.

I found the middle position great for rhythm parts, bright but not shrill, easy to control dynamics with picking. The front pickup is not as bold as the stock pickup, but again has a very useful frequency response and both Suhr pickups are nicely balanced from treble to bass strings. I had also considered Fender pickups, like the Vintage Noiseless or the Twisted Tele. Fender offer a huge selection of Tele pickups, but after watching the Suhr factory tour video and playing the Suhr guitars we have in stock at Wentworth Music I thought I’d give them a try and I’m glad I did.