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I'm kind of new to the notion of using a tele for jazz. There are so many different options on a tele:
Ash body or alder body?
Maple board or Rosewood board?
Solid or Thinline?
Single coil, noiseless single, Charlie Christian single, Humbucker, Unbucker?
Saddle shape and material?
I'm looking for opinions, experiences, preferences, and ultimately some sort of consensus. I'll start with mine.
I've played both alder and ash today, and I can get my sound out of each pretty easily. I haven't been playing solidbodies for long, so I can hardly tell them apart. Ash is generally lighter in weight, so I lean toward ash. I tried pine, and I couldn't get jazz out of it at all. Super light, though, and probably great for country.
I've played both maple and rosewood boards today, and I have to say, I prefer maple. The look, feel, and sound put me squarely in the maple pocket. It's clean and sharp, without being too bright. I suppose it has the "right kind" of brightness.
I played a thinline today, but only one, so I really don't know enough to comment.
I found I could get my sound really easily with most stock single coils. I could get jazz out of the noiseless single, but the lower notes were too stringy, like a strat. I've never played though a CC tele pickup, so no comment. Same goes for humbucker and unbucker, unfortunately. I know Ed Bickert played with a humbucker, though.
I have no idea about the bridges, seriously, no clue. Some say that the "tele magic" comes from the bridge area, but I dunno.
So there you go. That ought to get y'all started.
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07-04-2012 07:57 PM
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I went for maple fingerboard, Charlie Christian neck and swamp ash. I would ask whoever is going to build it what they recommend and works best.
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My tele is one of the first Fender reissues, its a '62 Custom reissue that is now over twenty years old. It has rosewood fingerboard and I replaced the neck pickup with a strat pickup. I recently changed the strat pickup with SD Sweet 59 humbucker that is the size of a strat pickup. The guitar gets wide variety of sounds.
I would highly suggest checkout the G & L Blues? tele. It is chambered and gets a great sounds.
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Partial to the G&L ASAT Bluesboy.
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Take a break, Guitar.
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I have a hollowbody, but sometimes the hollowbody breaks down, sometimes the band is too loud and it feeds back. Sometimes I don't feel like a hollowbody.
Originally Posted by Hexatonics
It's important to have a back-up guitar, something portable, reliable, and easy to fix, something I can get my sound out of. That something happens to be a tele for me.
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I use a Squier CV 50s Telecaster. The one in the "vintage blonde" finish and AlNiCo 3 single coils. I use heavy gauge flat rounds and I run the guitar through a Hot Rod Deluxe vII. My response is going to be a bit biased
Mine is made of Pine. That being said, it's pretty lightweight as a result, and only has a dent in it because my sister threw her saxophone case against it accidentally. Otherwise, it's really durable with a PU finish. I found it pretty easy to get a jazz sound out of it on round wounds, but I will admit in that setup, it may have been a bit more suited for rock. However, I switched it to flat wounds a while ago, and I have to admit, I may never switch back. It's easy to pull a jazz sound out of it without trying, but it's also really easy to still get a rock tone out of it as well.
Personally, I prefer maple boards at the moment in many circumstances. If it's gloss, and by chance a bit to "sticky" for your fingertips, I find it easy to adapt and the playing becomes really smooth. Rosewood on a tele felt juuuust a little to rough to me...then again, it depends on the guitar and whatnot...
Mine's solid, I find it perfectly fine, though I almost bought the Fender JA-90 (thinline tele w/P90s), so I can't really advise much there...
I love the brass/barrel saddles. They intonate perfectly with a wound G string, which is what I use. On top of that, as I see it, that's the saddle that was used at the time when many electric guitars came with wound G strings, so they work a little better, I think, than with a solid G string.
I also found that the more modern saddles are a little dull. Perhaps that's just me though.
I don't know much about the different sounds of different pickups on a tele, but I must say, I loved the sound of P90s and of the standard single coils. From the multitude of recordings with the CC pickup, I can say I still feel VERY tempted to buy one myself, but I can't comment on that one in person.
I should note I personally chose the AlNiCo 3 pickups in favour of the other AlNiCo 5 pickups because I enjoyed the slightly warmer and slightly less harsh sound.
I tried many telecasters, and enjoyed many of them. But something about my CV 50s telecaster always drew me back to it over other Fenders...
Best of luck on your hunt! I hope some of this post is a bit helpful.
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I'd like Ron's "CurviLinear" tele: Guitars Main
and Dan's tele: Koentopp Guitars
Hmm ... both of these guys are in Chicago .. I wonder what that means?
Marc
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The so-called Tele-magic doesn"t come alone from Ed Bickert only,
but also from:
Mike Stern,Ted Greene,Linc Chamberland,Scotty Anderson,Les Wise,
Adrien Ingram.
Me has 2 Teles:
an Indonesian Squire and MIM Roadworn,
changed necks to custom made baked maple
(looks like peanut butter compared to maple,absolute no dead-spots)
pick-ups are Lollar Charlie Christian in the Roadworn
and Wulftone Marshall-Head in the Squire.
If you turn up the amp,the pick-ups ride right on the edge of break-up,
which me likes(instant Scofield tone).
Pots are Bourns/Allessandro,so the only original parts are body/tuners,
so they are more partscasters.
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your best bet I would suggest is the 1952 american vintage- the dark circuit in the neck is great for this.
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if all the magic is in the bridge, might I suggest:
Mastery Bridge | Home of the Mastery Bridge – MasteryBridge.com – The finest bridge for your Fender® Jazzmaster®, Jaguar®, Mustang®, Bass VI®, Telecaster® with Bigsby® Vibrato & Jag-Stang® guitar.
I added one to my jazzmaster and it is amazing! Complete game changer! Major improvement over tone and clarity!
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ash body rosewood neck for me. Maple feels sticky and too harsh for me.
I'd if it is not vintage put a full sized HB in the neck and whatever you do keep on the three saddle bridge that is one of the main ingredients to the sound.
I love my thinline too it is a joy to play at 5lbs and does a pretty good jazz sounds
my friends cant play it as they are trying to pull off country steel bends and I got 013s on her
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I still use my Heritage 575 or Godin nylon but....there are times that my Tele
works better than either on of them.
Mine is a American Vintage 52 Hot Rod which normally has a small neck humbucker. Mine was set up like a regular 52RI by the previous owner.
I pickguard mounted the neck pickup for better adjustability and added a
Callaham bridge. I've ALWAYS thought of myself as a rosewood/ebony only player but when it comes to Teles....so far, I prefer the ash and maple combo.
Very responsive, versatile guitar.
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Originally Posted by Hexatonics
LOL
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I agree that there's nothing magical about a tele...but the stock neck pickup on many telecasters is s great jazz pickup.
I think it is the simplicity and easy customization that makes the tele popular with some jazzers (i also own a tele and love it)
Basically...teles get it done.
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Telecasters? You can play a bar gig with one - bat away a thrown beer bottle, go down and deck the thrower, go back to the stage and keep on playing without going out of tune.
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FWIW, I have a MIM roadworn that gives a very nice jazz tone that others think is great when I play some jazz stuff at gigs but it doesn't compare very well to my ears with an Eastman John Pisano archtop that I use when I really want to play jazz guitar. I've tried other teles in music stores and none of them can do the jazz tone like the roadworn (the blonde one) in my opinion.
Bill
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I love mine. Made by Chris Kroenlein (K-Line Guitars). Chris made a slightly wider neck, super light body (close to 5 lbs.) and while we initially started with a CC in the neck slot, I ended up preferring a humbucker (Lollar Low Wind Imperial). The bridge is a Lollar Vintage T. It is 1 11/16" at the nut. Normal 25.5" scale. Swamp Ash, maple neck, rosewood FB. It's a great travel guitar. It sounds great amplified, and it is super comfy to play. I don't think anyone would complain about the tone if a real player played it versus a laminated archtop versus a solid wood archtop. I won't claim they sound the same, but I certainly think it holds its own. IMHO, of course.
On another note, lots of people on this site have put up really great sounding clips playing their teles (sadly mine don't count in that category).
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Mate, don't tell me what to do. If you wanna just go around bossing me about, please, go away. Originally Posted by Hexatonics
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The lack of deep curves in the waist also means that it sits pretty well on the lap for most players, often with no strap needed. The same cannot be said for a lot of electric solid body designs. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
For the OP, traditional logic among builders is that swamp ash will give you a tight low end with a pronounced high end sparkle while alder will give you a warmer low end with a smoother, more even response curve. In my own experience, what that means is that swamp ash will provide more acoustic presence but the high end will also be a little harder to control. I happen to like that sound but that's just personal preference.Last edited by Jim Soloway; 07-05-2012 at 03:46 PM.
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I'm really loving the swamp ash grain Originally Posted by msr13
I love mine. Made by Chris Kroenlein (K-Line Guitars). Chris made a slightly wider neck, super light body (close to 5 lbs.) and while we initially started with a CC in the neck slot, I ended up preferring a humbucker (Lollar Low Wind Imperial). The bridge is a Lollar Vintage T. It is 1 11/16" at the nut. Normal 25.5" scale. Swamp Ash, maple neck, rosewood FB.
Hey, have you got a 4 way pickup selector there for series and parallel two pickup combinations?
Lindy Fralin does an 'Unbucker' pickup which is essentially one coil wound to be a higher output than the other so when you tap it to get a single coil you gets a truer single coil sound. Combine this with the 4 way switch and you get 7 different pickup sounds.....
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Check it out matey
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OP,
I normally ignore Hex and Guitar on most posts. Feel free to join me.
Tele is a great universal guitar. I've heard it play everything including jazz very successfully.
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I don't know about "tone" but I've never liked the feel of a maple fretboard, so it's rosewood for me.
I've also never liked scraping my right hand into the standard Tele 3-barrel/bridge plate.
I like Teles, just not those two things.
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before this forum becomes a pissing match might I point out that "Guitar"'s response was "LOL :-)" when he was told to cool it. His reaction suggests that he is A-ok. So maybe we should all play nice and let it go and not become what many forums sadly become. Just a suggestion not a direction
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