Telecaster Love Thread, No Archtops Allowed

[archtopeddy]

Thought I'd join the thread. Here's a couple of lefty Teles. A 52 reissue Fender with a Bigsby/Vibramate, and a Mary Kay white Nash with white pick and arm guards. The Nash is one of my go-to gig guitars. Has great Lollar pickups on it too.

[jazzjames]

Here's mine! Nash T-52 with Lollars. The neck pickup is a TV jones Filtertron now...I normally don't buy guitars that are beat up but this one was something special...really like it!

[rio]

Which Lollars are they, the Special Ts? I had them in my old Tele and loved them. I sold the neck pickup when I put a burstbucker in the neck but still have the bridge pickup waiting to go in some guitar in the future or maybe to be sold eventually if I never get to it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[jazzjames]

Yes! Lollar Special T bridge and a 52 neck I think. The bridge pickup is great for rock...I use my tele to teach with. The neck needed some help. I will probably end up with a Duncan Seth Lover in there but right now I have a TV Jones Brian Setzer in the neck. when I change again I'll buy another bakelite pickguard from Stew Mac, route the hole with screw holes to mount it, and scuff it up with some oooo grit steel wool so it looks old...I'm curious as to how it would sound. I'm hoping for Ed Bickert but you have to be able to play those voicings!

[archtopeddy]

Which Lollars are they, the Special Ts? I

On the lefty Nash Tele, the PUs are whatever Lollars that normally come with the T52 model. It came with a blackguard but I swapped to the white guard for a change of pace. I picked it up at Southpaw Guitars during a trip to Houston. For you fellow-lefties: Go to Houston; visit Southpaw Guitars. There is nothing like having a choice of back-to-back 700 lefty guitars to play!

[Hammertone]

Thought I'd join the thread. Here's a couple of lefty Teles. A 52 reissue Fender with a Bigsby/Vibramate, and a Mary Kay white Nash with white pick and arm guards. The Nash is one of my go-to gig guitars. Has great Lollar pickups on it too.

Cool! But obviously you had a photo posting problem - fixed it for you, heh.

[rio]

Thought I'd join the thread. Here's a couple of lefty Teles. A 52 reissue Fender with a Bigsby/Vibramate, and a Mary Kay white Nash with white pick and arm guards. The Nash is one of my go-to gig guitars. Has great Lollar pickups on it too.

Is the arm guard just to protect the finish or is there some curvature to it for comfort? I am getting used to my Tele as is but I am still curious about and looking for armrests that might make my arm more comfortable going over the angle of the body.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Little Jay]

Last Sunday I finally got around to change the pickups and wiring of my Fender Modern Player Thinline P90 Telecaster (longest name in guitar history!).

I changed the generic Chinese P90s for a pair of modern Gibson P90s I bought for cheap in an auction, both measuring 8.0k and I wanted 500k pots instead of the standard 250k pots.

I had bought a complete Epiphone Les Paul wiring harness for $4.99 on eBay: full size 500k Alpha pots, lineair (B) for volume and audio/log (A) for tone, .022uF caps. The harness looked pretty neat and switch and jack seemed pretty sturdy.

After plugging in I really liked what I heard! I expected the 500k pots to allow more highs to be send to the amp and that was indeed the case. Whereas the guitar sounded pretty good before, I felt it sounded a bit muddy and lifeless and would probably benefit from a pickup update and change of pot and cap values. And it did!

The modern Gibson P90s sound a bit less transparent and a bit 'beefier' than the '48 P90 in my ES-125 (I don't know how much the old cap in there changed over timer), but the highs are pleasant, not too sharp and the whole sound firmed up quite a bit and high notes have a sweet singing quality to it. It's maybe not your standard twangy Telecaster sound, but a standard Thinline P90 sound perhaps? Anyway, it's a now an even sweeter sounding guitar, great jazz-axe and a good all-rounder too. The Alpha pots feel good and solid and have a real workable sweep.

This is such a fun cheap guitar! (But a serious instrument!)

[Hammertone]

Beautiful. How do you categorize the sound of the neck? Does the lack of a truss rod make a difference in sound/feel?

Yes, it has a very different sound as a result of the neck being solid wood with no truss rod, compared to a variety of other telecasters I play and/or have worked on over the years. I had this neck on a tele with a conventional alder body/6-way stamped bridge/'60s pickups a year or so back, so I've had the opportunity to test it out with a very different setup. With no trussrod, a toploader bridge, typical early-'50s-style pickups (from Dave Budzinski), and a mid-weight ash body, it has a raw "early tele" sound when pushing the amp a bit (I was playing through some little old Boogie 1x12 combo and having a great time) but with way more air and wood in the sound. On the old setup, it had way more air and wood in the sound as well.

[55bar]

Here's my Hahn 228 with voodoo T-60 pickups.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[PeteE]

i just picked up a used squier cv tele and to be honest im very happy with it. I set it up and installed a custom 5 way loom I had knocking about into it and its quite frankly amazing. I was going to change the pups but cannot see the point, as the stock ones are really nice. I have owned US telecasters that were not as nice, it is really superb value for money. Im even considering selling my Heritage H575!

[Bob Sushko]

I'll have to read through this thread to catch up, meanwhile;
Like most musicians I've gone through my share of guitars and amps and pedals. Today, I use a Fender American Telecaster which is very dear to me for personal reasons. It is outfitted with a neck kit and a bridge pickup personally wound for me by Jay Monterose who was involved with the late great Danny Gatton. The neck pickup is a Dimarzio Twang King. Together they provide me with the tone I am looking for, very 'tele' sounding but with strat tones in the neck position.

My amp is a godsend from luthier and super tech Alan Watsky (Mr. Wizard) who took a Fender Blues Junior and installed the infamous Bill M mods. This amp is my secret weapon, it delivers vintage Fender tones and is exactly the sound I have been looking for.

[rio]

I made an interesting discovery. I have only been using rounds for a while now. I have a new archtop on the way and I had a set of Bebops and a set of Swings. I have been going back to .012 gauge sets on my guitars and still had a .014 set on my partscaster, and I wasn't crazy about the sound I was getting from the brand I was trying out anyway. I definitely wanted the Bebops for the archtop when it arrives so I put the Swings on the partscaster. I think the flats actually suit the guitar much better. The subdued tone and less sustain just sound really good on it. I have rounds on my semi and I always considered semis to basically be like solidbodies but I think that flats will be on the partscaster now. And it isn't a single coil thing, it has a PAF, so it isn't like comparing drastically different pickups. I am surprised and happy with the change.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Greentone]

Couple of gigs coming up this weekend within walking distance of each other. I need something to do blues and some jazz at the first gig, and 80s rock at the second.

Easy choice: I'm going to use my NSP Buckaroo (parts-o-caster) that I built up from a neck and a body that Hammertone sold me. This guitar just kills. HUGE neck helps give the guitar a big, sweet tone. Whether playing Wes Montgomery, Allman Brothers Band, or Guns n Roses, this guitar fits the bill. Now, I just have to get back into a rock head space for a bit.

[jazzbow]

I made an interesting discovery. I put the Swings on the partscaster. I think the flats actually suit the guitar much better. The subdued tone and less sustain just sound really good on it. I think that flats will be on the partscaster now. And it isn't a single coil thing, it has a PAF, so it isn't like comparing drastically different pickups. I am surprised and happy with the change.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

I hear you Rio. The brass saddles and flatwounds makes for a satisfying chime to chords on me jazz Tele.
I had pure nickel 12's on before and they really suited the AlNiCo 2 pickups on there too!

[Jehu]

I fully and hideously shielded the cavities, the wire that runs through the body, and the back of the pickguard with copper tape. Man that stuff is sticky!

Then I replaced the all of the wiring with better stuff (Oak Grigsby switch, CTS pots, oil paper cap, cloth wire) before hooking up the Bare Knuckles. I went for a 4-way switch so that I can have both pickups in serial, which it turns out is a pretty cool option to have.



Rather than a treble bleed cap I opted for the "50s wiring"/Ted Greene mod. The result is that you don't get much treble roll off when you back down the volume, but the flipside is that rolling off the treble results in a decrease in volume. You also get some cool interactive effects, especially when you have the volume pot down under halfway.

Next I ordered some compensated saddles from Rutters, which are pretty cool. The intonation is now close to perfect, though the D and G are still a bit of a compromise. (I wonder if it would be closer with lighter strings.) While I was at it I thought "YOLO", and I indulged in a groovy chrome Broadcaster-style switch tip!



I also replaced the flat-top knobs with domes, to go along with my Blackguard-inspired theme.



And just for Doublea A, here is a (very) short clip of roughly how that neck Bare Knuckle sounds. I'm still dialing things in, but hopefully it is enough to give you an idea of the character of the pickups. The difference between these and the stock pickups they replaced are like night and day. "Ballsy" is the best word I can come up with. I should also mention that I have D'Addario NYXLs on which I find a bit zingy; I plan to change to Pure Nickels on the next string change.



The recording probably doesn't capture it, but in the room they sound huge. Definitely a classic 50s tele sound, especially the bridge pickup. (I should point out that that is what I was going for... an old school tele vibe. If I wanted a straight jazzcaster I probably would have gone for something else.)

[Jehu]

Oh and for the JGF archives, in case someone finds this useful down the track:

- CTS pots don't fit a Squier control plate. I had to drill the holes an extra couple of mm.
- The Rutters switch tip did not fit the Oak Grigsby switch. I had to file the switch narrower.
- The length adjustment screws on the Rutters saddles did not fit the no-name bridge. I had to drill those holes out too. (I don't know how helpful this one is, but if I have to suffer so do you.)

Ain't nothin' easy in this crazy world.

[ruger9]

Hmm... I see in the instructions for the Oak Grigsby switch that the neck pickup has to be modded (cover removed from ground, and ground added from cover to switch) for it function? I used to have a 4-way in my tele and don't remember having to make that mod.

However, my tele has a Texas Special neck pickup with 3 leads, which is why I didn't have to do that, I guess?

I never got on with the series position, but then I was primarily a rocker/blueser then and found it too woofy with the amount of gain I use. If I were playing strictly cleaner stuff, I would probably find a use for it now. Altho Campilongo gets on just fine with a standard 3-way

I'm getting ready to order some P90s for my other tele- a Cabronita Thinline (so actually they will be TV Jones T-90s, because they will fit in the Filtertron routs)... hoping to get some old-school jazz tones out of that neck T90...we'll see...

[Chicago Butcher]

I was just looking at those blonde Bajas. Seem pretty nice. I'm mostly a jazz player and am new the the Tele world. How do you like it vs a MIM 52 reissue? The Baja is about at the top of my budget...

[mr. beaumont]

I actually like the Baja even better, as it has modern wiring. They're a great value, great neck, hand-filling soft V.

[Jehu]

Hmm... I see in the instructions for the Oak Grigsby switch that the neck pickup has to be modded (cover removed from ground, and ground added from cover to switch) for it function? I used to have a 4-way in my tele and don't remember having to make that mod.

However, my tele has a Texas Special neck pickup with 3 leads, which is why I didn't have to do that, I guess?

Yep, that will be why. For the 4-way mod you need that extra ground wire from the neck pickup. Some pickup makers offer it as an option so you don't have to do it yourself (like your TSs and my BKs).

I really like the beefiness of the serial position as an option, but it doesn't replace the three stock positions. I feel like the 4-way doesn't really have any downsides... you just have another option that you can choose to use or not.

[medblues]

3 MORE Tantalizing Tuttle Ts | Essential Pedals

[rio]

I was watching a guitar repair YouTube channel and the guy was working on a hollowbody metal Tele. It looked really cool and I have been looking online to try to find some (this one was a custom instrument). I found this but it isn't available anymore. Steelcaster, Brasscaster, Coppercaster – Imperial Guitars

Does anyone know of any other teles like this? Or for that matter, any true hollow teles?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[archtopeddy]

Sorry, didn't see Rio's question (#1272) until now. He asks about the arm guard. The arm guard is just for looks; it makes little difference in the feel. I put on the guard because I didn't care for the look of the relic'd arm-wear under the guard.

I really like the overall feel, sound and build of the Nash; and while I think jazzjames Nash looks great as-is, I also think Nash can overdo the "roadrash" look. I felt mine was overdone and actually cleaned off a lot of the grit on the guitar. I also fine-sandpapered the back of the neck so it felt more like a Danocaster. It has a big boat-like neck that takes about 15 seconds to get use to and then you're in dreamland! The neck is bolted on tighter than any other neck I have -- so tight, I can't loosen the bolts by hand. I've just left it the way it is, it sounds so good. Also, on my other guitars with bolt-on necks, I've tightened the bolts as much as I dare and I think each guitar has benefited from the tighter fits.

(I also just saw Hammertone's "corrected" image of the guitars -- flipped righty. Cracked me up! I wish I could fix all my lefty guitar searches just as easily. I'd start with an original 1940's Selmer or some unmentionable archtops.)

[Buzzz]

Just got my first tele, a 50s roadworn. Now looking for a practice amp for under about $200 w nice delay/reverb for jazz. Love the delay on my Blackstar Fly 3, and like the Vox amplug too. Any suggestions?