Vintage Vibe Guitars VT-N-BL Telecaster Neck Blade Pickup

Single coil active. I believe that it's supposed to approximate a Charlie Christian-style pickup without the need to do a lot of work to the guitar. Mine has an AlNiCo V magnet.

I installed this bad boy into the neck position of a Deltatone Telecaster copy to replace the stock neck pickup, which I wasn't terribly impressed by. I'm not really sure if there are any other artists using this pickup. I decided to go with this pickup because Jeff Tweedy (Wilco) has a Telecaster with a Lollar CC pickup in the neck position, and I wanted to approximate that without breaking the bank or having to do a ton of work to fill the pickup into the Tele.

I'm using the pickup with a DBA Interstellar Overdrive Supreme, a MidFi Fuzzz, and a Danelectro Tuna Melt into a Fender Champion 600. There's a lot of output on tap with the AlNiCo V magnet...it actually overpowers the stock bridge pickup. The tone is incredibly well balanced. Even with fuzz, I haven't heard any muddiness. I haven't found any positions in which this pickup doesn't do well. It's a fantastic rhythm pickup.

I've been playing for, geez, about 8 years now. If this were stolen/destroyed, I'd definitely get another. Pete over at Vintage Vibe offers a 5-year warranty on his products, and they look to be so well made I doubt I'll need to use the warranty. As far as approximating the Charlie Christian pickup sound, I can't really directly compare it, but I absolutely love this pickup, it's perfect for my needs. For the price, this is a tremendous value.