Telecaster rewire and modding?

[emanresu]

Hi.

I've had strange issues with my Telecaster (newish American Deluxe). There is that very high-pitched sound occasionally. Depends on even where I sit in the room. So it must be shielding.. But that got me thinking - since gonna dig inside the guitar anyway.

1. Can rewiring help with the tone in general? When using some fancier wires at all?

2. Adding true bypass switch - 1 for the normal functionality, 2&3 for pickups separately - no tone, no volume. Never cared for combining both pickups.. that'd make it a bit simpler I guess. What result to expect with this hassle tonewise?

[KirkP]

1. Fancy wires made of mummy dust or whatever won’t sound better than plain old copper.

2. If you want to be able to bypass the tone control, you could replace your tone pot with a no-load pot. My American Standard Telecaster came with one as part of the “DeltaTone” system. It gets pretty bright when engaged, so I generally dial it back and see little benefit from it. On the other hand, it gives you a bit more tonal range should you need to cut through, and has no effect when disengaged.

Did you also want to bypass the volume control? I don’t think that would sound good, since the pickup needs some resistance across it to smooth out the frequency response. If you think the stock 250K volume pot is too low, you could try replacing it with 500K, but I think that will increase the resonance bump. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is a matter of taste.
Emerson Pro CTS Blender/No-load Pot | stewmac.com

[emanresu]

That 1. snakeoil question, I just thought that since the signal from the pickups are so incredibly weak and delicate, the wires actually may matter somewhat. But whatever, I was just curious.

The second part, thanks! Getting more interested now about the whole thing

[sgosnell]

The signal from the pickup really isn't so weak. It's not thousands of volts, but it doesn't need to be. When the wire is carrying thousands of volts, and high current, the composition can make a difference and you need thick, high quality wire. But for the voltage and current involved in a guitar pickup, the wire is much less important. It just has to stay intact.

[KirkP]

Of course, the signal from the pickup is weak relative to the electromagnetic noise from dimmers, cheap wall warts, etc. That’s what shielding, grounding and humbucking pickups help mitigate.

[Spook410]

There are some useful ways to rewire a Tele depending on your preference. Here are a few ideas:

Three Cool Alternate Wiring Schemes for Telecaster(R) | Seymour Duncan

When installing mods, the wire you choose may not improve the sound, but if you use wire well suited to the purpose (gauge, insulation material, et al) you'll find it easier to work with.

[emanresu]

Thanks for the hints there. But I ain't gonna go radical with the project at all.

Another question - the tone and volume on the guitar. Might they sit there only for the practical reasons or do you think they actually figured "no that doesn't sound good enough, lets put something in" when designing the whole guitar? If thinking about it, the best way would seem to get the purest tone out of the source and then let the player start to tinker with it. With the circuit already in place, they took our jobs! (South Park ref.)

Hm.. toying with the other guitar here with just wires going straight to the output jack. While it's a horrible guitar(made from maple plank myself), it is way more sensitive to anything what the fingers do.. Has more immediate feel also - hard to describe. Toy guitar sounds "in front of me", the real one is wide and a bit more distant and surely more stable... eh. should post an example here perhaps.

edit: Update your browser to use Google Drive - Google Drive Help
The toy guitar is really a bad one in every way. It has a random tele-type neck pickup. But it kinda sounds naked and without makeup like that The real instrument kinda sounds already processed compared to it. Should be the wood mostly but.. hm. Makes me wonder even more about that bypass. If I just attach another plug directly to the wires from the pickup, without even soldering/unsoldering anything, would that be a legit test or there is some electronic trickery involved when leaving the original circuit connected? Sorry for the dumb questions, I'm clueless and ignorant about electronics

[BBGuitar]

Be sure to replace the knobs with the ones that go up to 11.

[sgosnell]

The electric guitar was not designed, it just evolved, with input from many different people over time. Anyone could probably design a better product from scratch, but it's what we have, and tradition keeps it very much as it is. People have tried radical changes, but they don't sell, even in the rock market. What is on the market now is what works, and what sells. If you want something different, you're certainly free to modify your instruments however you like. But I would advise you not to expect miracles. There is absolutely nothing that you can try that hasn't already been tried already.

[emanresu]

The electric guitar was not designed, it just evolved, with input from many different people over time. Anyone could probably design a better product from scratch, but it's what we have, and tradition keeps it very much as it is. People have tried radical changes, but they don't sell, even in the rock market. What is on the market now is what works, and what sells. If you want something different, you're certainly free to modify your instruments however you like. But I would advise you not to expect miracles. There is absolutely nothing that you can try that hasn't already been tried already.

I understand. The idea for bypass came from a strange experience from long time ago. Had to go repair my amp and the technician let me play his own little amps. Those were... some very simple Fender copies. One of them had the best clean sound I've ever heard and haven't really heard since. So I asked if the trick is to put as little crap into an audio device as possible and he agreed that this was one reason.. among a few more of course.

But here I only wanted seasoned opinions. I try not to go mental with all that Not so easy sometimes

[KirkP]

A magnetic coil pickup with no load connected to it will have a strong resonance peak. The resistance of the volume pot and the impedance of the series RC tone control help reduce that peak for a smoother frequency response. If the impedance values are set too low, high frequencies can be severely attenuated.

We all have different preferences. If you like the resonance peak of the raw pickup and you have no need for volume or tone controls in the guitar you can connect the hot side of the pickup directly to the jack. You’ll need to disconnect the volume and tone controls from the hot side of the circuit. They are in parallel with the pickup, so there is no way to bypass them without disconnecting.

More on pickup frequency responses:
BuildYourGuitar.com :: The Secrets of Electric Guitar Pickups

If you want that resonant peak but it’s at the wrong frequency, you can move it around by putting some capacitance across the pickup. It’s not something I’d want, but it’s possible.
Resonant frequencies of some well-know pickups for various parallel capacitors