EMG T SYSTEM Prewired Telecaster Guitar Pickup Set Plus Control Plate System,Black

I had been thinking of upgrading my Tele pickups for a while. It came down to two options for me: this EMG T Set or a set of Seymour Duncan Tele Hot Rails. After watching a few vids on YouTube, I chose the EMG's. After playing with them for a few days now, here are my thoughts: The pros: -Solderless setup (I can solder well enough to install a passive pickup and get it to work but I'm not a professional by any means and I'm not confident enough in my soldering skills to wire a dual pickup setup) -The tone (I've played with it mainly using my cheap fuzz pedal and you can get a variety of tones from the classic clean "Tele twang" to some pretty sick stoner/doom metal tones when you run them through high-gain fuzz) -The selector switch (both clean and dirty, you get three distinctly different sounds from each of the three switch positions) The cons: -Battery-powered (I don't like having to change batteries but you know what you're getting into amd accept it when you choose active pickups) -Possible modifications to your guitar (I had to take a wood chisel and a hammer to carve put a cavity deep enough to fit the battery and I had some slight issues threading the neck pickup cable through the body; not EMG's fault since not every Tele (or custom Tele-style build) is the same; expect to possibly have to break out a few tools) All in all, I would recommend this set to anyone who would like to add some "oomph" to their Tele. You can get the classic Tele sounds but you can also get some pretty aggressive tones when you use distortion. I'm happy with this set.

This sound really good! They are too big to fit into a Squire bridge plate so I upgraded. Also too so elbow grease to get the jack plate and jack to marry together. That said these are the best pickups I've ever heard in a tele.

I purchased a Tele style guitar from Temu and replaced the pickups with these EMG’s and the guitar turned into a beast, very impressed!!!!! I have such a hard time soldering and these pickups were so easy to install, I did have to open the bridge to fit the bridge pickup inside and same for the pick guard.

Sound is great! I had to do a bit of removing wood on my 97 Tele so that the 9 volt battery would fit with everything else in the electronics cavity. My handy neighbor helped me with the right tools. I ready like the EMG solder-less connections. I have used the new EMGs on two gigs and thoroughly enjoyed the noiseless performance of the pickups. Now my strat has more noise than the Tele!

Great product

These are advertised as solderless. That is mostly true, but not entirely. The bigger deception here isthat these imply drop in and easy for those folks not wanting to do soldering. What they don;t tell you is that the target market probably dreads using a router even more than soldering iron -- and there is a good chance you will need to carve wood in your guitar. Depending upon how much carving you want to do the job is major or minor. And then, you probably will need to solder anyway. Let me explain. The battery for these active pickups theoretically is meant to install under the control plate. From what I have gleaned -- most teles do not have adequate room under the controller so to do that you need to carve some. But really, who wants to take off the control plate to change a battery? So EMG recommends (as do I) installing a battery box. For this you will need to carve a hole in the back of your tele and then solder a wire from that box to the connector for the EMG pickups. This is not a simple drop-in replacement. Honestly, passive pickups (and some are solderless) would be a lot easier for most folks. Having said all of the foregoing, once these pickups are installed they sound great.

They made my Harley Benton a contender!

I mostly play guitar in an environment with a lot of electrical interference. Fed up with the noise, I finally broke down and decided to try active pickups. I was nervous I would dislike the sound of the active pickups and that the tone would be negatively impacted. After an extremely simple and easy install that took less than an hour, I plugged my Tele in and was blown away. Totally silent but the tone is all there and truly impressive. Recommend 100%. Oh, and this pickup system was way cheaper than my previous passive pickups.