Finished my buddy's Tele

[Alvin Lee Fan]

A friend of mine put a SD Quarter Pounder in the bridge of his Tele, but he didn't like how it sounded, kind of boxy. He asked me if I'd take a look at at it. He had placed the baseplate from the old pickup on the new one. I was pretty sure the QP didn't need a baseplate, and that was confirmed here. He already had a QP neck pickup, so now it's got a matched set. It's a fat-sounding Tele to be sure.

I took the guitar apart yesterday, pulled the baseplate off. While I was at it, I pulled the control plate to look around, was amazed. Here's a $7-800 Tele, MIJ, with those crappy dime-sized pots and cheap plastic switch.

I didn't have a new switch handy, but I did have pots, so I fixed him up with a CTS 300k volume pot (332k actually) and a Fender 250k no-load tone pot. Also changed the cap from a .047 to a .022 and did the '50s wiring mod to it. This should help him get some snap and twang back into his sound

I did a setup on it after I buttoned it all back up. It's now a great guitar with great parts. It plays and sounds as good as it looks! I hope he likes it :bigthumb:

 

[Curly]

Re: Finished my buddy's Tele

nice job

I like a .05 cap in my teles, but .02 is likely better for those pickups - same is true for the 300K pot.
It's got to sound better with the pot upgrade!

I've been wanting to try a 4 way switch in a tele, but that might be over the top with QPs!

teles with Bigsbys are cool!

 

[Artie]

Re: Finished my buddy's Tele

Nice work ALF. I bet that thing sounds killer now.

I've been wanting to try a 4 way switch in a tele, but that might be over the top with QPs!

I don't know. It seems to me that a 4-way, wired so that positions #2 and #3 are pups in parallel/pups in series, would be the perfect Tele wiring scheme.

Artie

 

[Alvin Lee Fan]

Re: Finished my buddy's Tele

I might try a switch mod in there. A 4 or 5 way with some wiring options would be fun. I might have done it if I had a switch on hand.

He's got a JD Tele with a 5 way switch, too. That's a fun guitar to play!

 

[Alvin Lee Fan]

Re: Finished my buddy's Tele

Made a few quick clips using a J-Station and a quicky patch I had sitting there already.

Neck Pickup

Both Pickups

Bridge Pickup

 

[BluesGuyJ]

Re: Finished my buddy's Tele

Sweet deal there man. Killer job.

 

[greco]

Re: Finished my buddy's Tele

Nice work and nice guitar. Congrats

 

[Artie]

Re: Finished my buddy's Tele

Made a few quick clips using a J-Station and a quicky patch I had sitting there already.

And they say that modellers don't sound good. :arms:

We'll have to trade some patches sometime.

Artie

 

[Alvin Lee Fan]

Re: Finished my buddy's Tele

Thanks, Artie! You have a J-Station too, I take it? That was a quick patch I made one day that I call Bluesbreaker. Take the Marshall Master Volume amp and pair it with the Vox 2x12 bottom (I think it's called Jenning Blue 2x12 or something). Keep the gain low around 3-5 depending on pickup strength, tone to taste! No compression or noise gating, kills the dynamics. I also had a bit of analog delay and a 14" 2-spring reverb. Nothing was added in the recording software, it's all from the J-Station.