My telecaster has no balls

chcjunior

chcjunior

New member
in the bridge position. Is it due to the fact I'm running the APII single coil, the ash body and maple neck, or combination? I've never been a single coil guy before, so I'm wondering if they're just not for me, or if there is a single coil pup with more punch. Note that I love the guitar for its clean capabilities however.
 
Re: My telecaster has no balls

You might have a female Tele! :laugh2:

Or maybe you'd like a hotter pickup like the Jerry Donahue or Tele Hot?

Some guys who sound fine playing other guitars are just not meant to play a Tele...that might be it too....they can be a challenge!
 
Re: My telecaster has no balls

Maybe it's female... :rolleyes:

Just kidding....The APTL-1 is a marvelous pickup but it's not for everyone. I think you might want to move up to the Jerry Donahue model. It's wound to almost 8k instead of 6.2k. It still has Anico 2 magnets and is very punchy. I think it's the one you're looking for.
 
Re: My telecaster has no balls

One of the things that I have found is that single coil pickups into high gain amps often sound thin and weak, especially if you have humbucker loaded guitars that get played through the same rig using simular settings. Single coil pickups just dont hit the preamp as hard and the tone becomes weak sounding.

A pedal combined with lowering the gain of the amp usually fattens things up. I've had great results with my Tele and Mesa stuff by front ending the amp with the SD Pickup Booster or a Rat pedal. Once you get the signal up before the preamp, your amp and tone should sound closer to what you are used to with a humbucker while retaining single coil tone.
 
Re: My telecaster has no balls

It really depends on what you want out of your tele. I need a little hotter pickup in the bridge. The hotter pickup is not as bright as the regular tele which really didn't make it for me. I wanted that tele tone though so the bridge pickup is not too hot. I am also not a fan of stock neck pickups. They are too dull sounding to me. I prefer a strat type pickup in the neck position.

I do think that the donuhue pickup is a great pickup and might do what you want it to do. I certainly wouldn't put a hot rails in my tele. Buy a hot rodded humbucker equipped guitar if thats what you want.
 
Re: My telecaster has no balls

My telecaster has no balls

Get some truck nutz and hang 'em off the headstock.
 
Re: My telecaster has no balls

You can't go wrong with a Hot Rails for the bridge. CHC that MXR Micro Amp you sold me would also help you out by punching up the pre-amp of the amp. BTW I love that pedal! Works great with the V-amp2 I use it with.
 
Re: My telecaster has no balls

The Pickup Booster pedal may help, from what ive read it will 'beef' up your tone. However ive had no personal experience, so maybe do a search or try one out.
 
Re: My telecaster has no balls

With all due respect to all who have the pickup booster - I wouldn't use that if I could get a pickup to get me where I wanted to be. The pickup is always there and I would have to take the pickup booster with me and plug it in everywhere I went...
 
Re: My telecaster has no balls

The JD or STL-2 Hot could be the ticket. If you want to retain the highs, then go JD; but if you want more low end punch and a darker tone with smooth highs, the go Hot. Both of them have great mids and hotter output than the A2 Pro. A good OD pedal is helpful to boost the signal and fatten things up -- my Fulldrive 2 does a great job of this in any of the 3 modes.

There are lots of other good choices, as suggested, but these two will get you headed in the right direction while retaining that unmistable Tele tone.
 
Re: My telecaster has no balls

Well singlecoils actually requires work!
Different ampsettings, a different style alltogether....good for keeping you on your toes, very unforgiving instrument.
Try to dig into it....not just two or three times, play it alot.
That is the only thing I would do, instead of using more money and ending up with something un-tel'ish;)
 
Re: My telecaster has no balls

Rid said:
Different ampsettings, a different style alltogether....
Click to expand...

This is true. Ask yourself whether a Tele is the right guitar for the music you are trying to play. I've owned a Tele before and I loved it, but I'm not sure it would work for what I do with Les Pauls these days. I've been through phases of being unhappy with my Strat's tone whilst subconsciously trying to get it to sound like my LPs. Sometimes I forgot it's a different beast. A single coil guitar plugged into a rig you normally use for buckers won't sound right unless you tweak things.

There are two reasons for owning more than one guitar (apart from the fact that you have terminal GAS):

1 - To get different sounds
2 - You need a backup for guitar #1

This gives you two options for your Tele:

1 - Appreciate that it sounds different and use it for different things
2 - Mod it so it sounds as close as possible to guitar #1 (e.g. add Hot Rails etc.)
 
Re: My telecaster has no balls

I have tried both the tele hot rails and the hot stack. The hot stack stays truer to the original sound of a telecaster, I have it in 1 of my teles now and love it.
 
Re: My telecaster has no balls

I've looked over the specs of the Hot and the JD. My concern is that the bridge and neck pups will somewhat unbalanced volume wise (I'll keep the APII in the neck since I do really like what it does there). Of course, I don't have seperate volume controls with the tele being a tele.
 
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