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Greetings,I hope someone here can help me with my query. I am planning to purchase a Jerry Donahue pickup for my Fender 72 custom tele (2002 model) and was wondering about the polarity match/mismatch of these pickups.

I've read elsewhere that if a different brand of pickup (i.e. NOT Fender) is installed in a Fender guitar, the polarity will be different and out-of-phase. Apparently a thin and weak sound is produced, exactly the opposite of what I hope to achieve by purchasing the JD pickup in the first place!

Can anybody tell me how compatible the JD pickup is in a 72 custom? (Concerning the technical specs). If the polarity IS different, how do I correct it? Is it as simple as wiring the new pickup reversed, or have I completely missed the boat?

Do I just install and hope for the best, or is there a more informed way to go about this?

Thanks in advance for any helpful replies.

My Fat Strat has SD cool Rail neck/Fender texas Custom shop/JB Bridge and the polarity is the same. I belive I read Fender And Seymour pups all have the same polarity.

yes, if the polarity turns out to be reversed, simply reverse the two wires and everything should be fine .. order your JD without any hesitation - you'll love the tone of that pickup in that guitar ... and just to be clear, polarity issues only come up when combining pickups (as in the middle position of a 3-way tele switch)

good luck
t4d

Hi there,

Cheers for the quick reply. So you just popped the in the bridge position and away you went? No problems with polarity being different or the phasing cancelling the humbucking properties when both pickups are selected?

The Jerry Donahue pickup I am installing is actually taken from a Fender JD tele, and that has a fender strat pickup in the neck, so I wonder if it (the JD bridge pickup) is already compatible/suitable with other fender pickups...

I didn't have to switch the wiring at all. My fender pickup sounds incredible with SD cool rails.

Thanks Woodcutter, that has eased my worried mind!

The JD pickup is from a Fender JD Tele that sounds incredible in the bridge position, I mean it can keep up with my Gibson historic Les Paul in pure rock tone, but sounds thin and brittle in the other 4 positions. I hesitate to steal this guitars one great sound, but if I can transplant that great sound into my 72 custom then i'll have one singing guitar!

I will eventually purchase a new JD pickup to put back in the JD tele, as the pickup i'm 'stealing' from it is already 20 years old and sounds very nice and vintage.

This way, I can play the aged JD pickup, and let the 'new' one sit in the JD tele to begin its journey into mojo land...

It's a crazy mixed up world!!!