Seymour Duncan Brad Paisley La Brea Tele Pickup Set - Black/Nickel

When it comes to modern purveyors to Telecaster tone, Brad Paisley's name is certainly front of mind. The Seymour Duncan La Brea Tele pickup set is not meant to be a reproduction of specific era pickups, but instead captures the essence of what Brad Paisley wants from his Telecaster.

Telecaster pickups -- especially the neck pickup -- have gone through many changes over the decades, and the LaBrea neck pickup uses Alnico II magnets for a sweet top end and enough output to give it some muscle. We dropped a set into a Tele upgrade project and found the LaBrea neck pickup to have the warm round top end that we expected, minus the overly compressed low end that some neck pickups have. We wouldn't say it has a lot of low end "bite" -- that's not a Tele thing -- but still responded nicely to pick attack, and with plenty of snap when finger picking. Smooth but not mushy, it's the textbook Tele neck tone. 

For the bridge pickup Seymour Duncan took a different direction by using Alnico IV construction. Alnico IV sits somewhere in the middle of things with a snappier response than Alnico II, but not quite as aggressive as Alnico V. The net result is an open sounding pickup with plenty of snap, not too scooped, and a twangy top end that avoids the sharpness so often associated with Tele bridge pickups. It's a pickup that invites heavy pick attack, thumb picking and country licks without becoming brittle or fatiguing. 

Both pickups together produce some of the best country picking tones this side of Nashville, with the same excellent response to picking techniques as the individual pickups. There are countless Tele replacement sets out there, but the LaBrea set stands out as being balanced and soulful without the typical downsides that make finding a great set of Tele pickups such as quest. Consider your quest over.

In the words of Seymour Duncan...

In 2017, after a long search for the perfect guitar, Brad Paisley acquired an original 1968 Telecaster. The guitar played beautifully but had unfortunately been refinished in black acrylic paint. So, Brad brought the guitar to veteran luthier and paisley paper expert, Bill Crook, to have the black paint stripped away to have a classic ’68 paisley pattern applied instead. After removing some of the thick black paint, Bill stumbled on a surprise that would shock them both: Fender’s original pink paisley finish from 1968! Brad dubbed the guitar La Brea, because the black paint hiding the perfectly intact, all-original pink paisley paper reminded him of the tar pits in Southern California. At this point, Brad loved almost everything about La Brea, but there was still something that wasn’t quite right – the pickups. Naturally, Brad called his buddy Seymour W. Duncan, and together they created the perfect, vintage accurate matched pickups – the Brad Paisley Signature La Brea Telecaster Set.

The bridge model features alnico IV rod magnets, vintage-correct cloth push-back wire, vintage output of 7.44k, and classic grey forbon flatwork, giving you the wonderful open quality that you expect from a vintage pickup, but with the focused midrange that only an alnico IV magnet can provide. The neck pickup uses alnico II rod magnets alongside an output of 7.55k, and the same period-correct wire and flatwork to provide a smooth, thick neck tone. Together, these pickups deliver the snap and twang that Brad is known for, with a round top end and full but tight lows.