Quarter Pounders in a tele?

[drjones]

Im looking to finally upgrade my squier affinity tele. Its the butterscotch blonde model, awesome guitar for the price, just very poor pickups. The body is Alder, with a maple neck. I think im going to use it as my Eb guitar.

I will be playing through fender HRDx or Marshall TSL60. Will I be able to get SRV/Hendrix type tones with quarter pounders? I know I should be using a strat, but im not trying to nail the sound just in the same ball park, would also probably try and use it play some GnR and alice in chains. Again I know wrong guitar. I had a Jackson with the QP in it and I really liked it, so I'm hoping that they will be the pups that give my tele what its lacking. Guess i'm more after a versatile tele, with nice warm cleans that can handle distortion more than one specific tone.

My next question is, should I go for the tapped version? Forgive my ignorance, but I have no experience with tapped pups and i'm not sure what they would do for my sound.

Thanks for reading.

 

[ibanezrocks]

Re: Quarter Pounders in a tele?

Tapped just means that while winding the pickup they spliced the wire off at some point, then continued winding more. What this gives you is two output options, the final winding producing a higher output with a darker tone and the spliced off with less windings meaning lower output and brighter tone. Just hook them up to a switch and you've got versatility.

I don't have experience with it, but that should at least explain the tapped part. Hopefully someone can chime in because I'm also interested in the tapped quarter pounds for my upcoming Tele project.

 

[idsnowdog]

Re: Quarter Pounders in a tele?

I have a set and they work pretty well for half distorted high volume hard rock. They're loud with a strong attack. I use my Tele for Son Volt, Georgia Satellites, and AC/DC. I find with 250k pots their too mushy and dark, while with 500k pots their a bit bright and loud. It is possible that 350k pots might balance things out.

 

[Bludave]

Re: Quarter Pounders in a tele?

Im looking to finally upgrade my squier affinity tele. Its the butterscotch blonde model, awesome guitar for the price, just very poor pickups. The body is Alder, with a maple neck. I think im going to use it as my Eb guitar.

I will be playing through fender HRDx or Marshall TSL60. Will I be able to get SRV/Hendrix type tones with quarter pounders? I know I should be using a strat, but im not trying to nail the sound just in the same ball park, would also probably try and use it play some GnR and alice in chains. Again I know wrong guitar. I had a Jackson with the QP in it and I really liked it, so I'm hoping that they will be the pups that give my tele what its lacking. Guess i'm more after a versatile tele, with nice warm cleans that can handle distortion more than one specific tone.

My next question is, should I go for the tapped version? Forgive my ignorance, but I have no experience with tapped pups and i'm not sure what they would do for my sound.

Thanks for reading.

I used to have a Tele with a pair of quarter pounders. I sold it. I don't think the QP's will get you there. I would recommend a Strat pickup in the neck and a Tele Pickup in the bridge. I have a Tele setup this way and it kind of gets a Strat neck sound. I would look at a Vintage type of Pickup, maybe a Texas Hot or a Surfer paired with maybe a Jerry Donahue Bridge. Should work well. I'm not sure if the output of these 2 would pair up well. I do have a Tele with a Vintage 54N and a JD bridge. Awesome sounding guitar, but I don't think is sounds anything like a Strat. If you a re trying to get a Tele to sound like a Strat, you may have to put a Strat PUP in the Neck.

 

[drjones]

Re: Quarter Pounders in a tele?

how did the tele with QP sound clean?

 

[idsnowdog]

Re: Quarter Pounders in a tele?

I rarely play clean but if you back off your pick attack and roll down the volume it does clean up and has a fairly wide dynamic range. But the QP has a HARD and LOUD sound even clean. It's not as much as paintbrush, as a hammer.

 

[drjones]

Re: Quarter Pounders in a tele?

I used to have a QP in the mid position of a jackson. I had hot rails (i think) in neck and Custom HB in bridge. Out of all of them I really liked the cleans of the QP, more so than the others. Would I get this type of clean from the tele?

Another tone I would like to be able to accomplish is the sound Eddie Vedder gets when playing betterman on the madison square garden DVD.

And to be honest, I don't really know what defines the 'classic' tele sound these days.

 

[drew_half_empty]

Re: Quarter Pounders in a tele?

yeah man if i was you i'd get a set of fralin steel poles & a strat neck

they're a lot like p90's with their respective type voicing. And make sure you do the treble bleed mod so if you turn the volume down a bit to tame the volume it doesn't darken your sound

I'd also get a 4 way switch so you can have a position for both pickups in series & one for them in parallel

and then get a dual concentric pot to have volume & tone on the same knob & use the other for a tbx mid boost & use it SPARINGLY

wow... that sounds awesome

 

[MikeS]

Re: Quarter Pounders in a tele?

I've got a tapped QP set in my 50s tele. I dropped a 4-way in it last night then realized I was out of solder. :smack:

Anyway... The QP for tele really is a different breed of pickup. They are very fat, very warm, and at full output can be a bit too dark with 250K pots. The set is capable of covering a lot of bases within blues and hard rock. That said, for the SRV/Hendrix thing I'm wondering if the QP isn't the best set. The tapped versions will get you to the ballpark, but I'm not sure if they've get you to your seat. I agree that a strat pickup might be better in the neck, and perhaps sticking with a more traditionally voiced tele lead pickup. The biggest hurdle to getting your tele to sound more like a strat is overcoming your lack of a middle pickup.

I can't wait to pick up some solder here this afternoon and wire up the 4-way. 12 different sound out of a stock looking tele is the guitar world's version of the sleeper.

 

[drjones]

Re: Quarter Pounders in a tele?

Mike, let me know how it works out for you, it sounds like im trying to do the same thing as you.

Cheers

 

[Slider]

Re: Quarter Pounders in a tele?

Hey Mike....glad to see one of us finally got that project finished..lol.

My tele is on hold right now, but soon I hope...yes let us know how that full series mode is...!!!

 

[MikeS]

Re: Quarter Pounders in a tele?

Just to clarify, I've had tapped quarter pounders in it for a long time with a 3-way switch. It's always been wired so that the volume push/pull taps the bridge pickup and the tone push/pull taps the neck pickup. I had 8 different sounds with that setup. The addition of the 4 way gives me 4 more for a total of 12 sounds in a tele that looks completely stock.

I got it wired up last night. To make the series operation work I had to remove the neck pickup and unsolder the cover ground from the finish lead, so my heights got a little messed up. The bridge pickup is a bit overpowering in the combined positions, so I need to raise the neck pickup a little bit. I didn't play with it for much more than half an hour once I was finished, so it's a bit early to figure out how I'm going to use the series tones. First impression is that the full quarter pounders in series is the biggest, fullest, fattest, and hottest tone I think I've ever heard from an electric guitar. I'll probably post some more on it once I get a chance to really play the series positions.

I always liked the versatility the previous setup afforded me, and now it's even more versatile. I'm looking forward to playing this guitar all week. I may need to swap the tort guard for something with a little more attitude, too.