Telecaster's Need Two Tone Knobs

Sprinter

Sprinter

New member
I've thought for years that the biggest flaw with the Telecaster is the single tone knob. To me, the tone difference between the neck and bridge pickup is so drastic that they need their own tone knobs. Every time that I move the switch I have to adjust the tone knob too. I love my vintage Telecaster, but I'm not willing to modify it. I think it's time to build a Telecaster my way with two tone knobs!

It's 14 degrees outside, so I've been enjoying this combo today. 1971 Fender, Princeton Reverb and 1974 Telecaster.

 
Re: Telecaster's Need Two Tone Knobs

I think it is fine just the way it is. I don't want my neck pickup to sound anything like the bridge pickup; if I wanted both pickups to sound similar, I'd just use one pickup/an Esquire. I want my bridge pickup bright, raunchy, and twangy, while I want my neck pickup thick, smooth, and darker.
 
Re: Telecaster's Need Two Tone Knobs

Thats a really nice rig.
You can always do a few small things tho like adding a resistor to the bridge pickup, or not wiring the neck pickup to the tone pot. There are of course other options, but these two are easily reversible and non invasive.

...or you can go with your original idea as an excuse to build a new axe! ;)
 
Re: Telecaster's Need Two Tone Knobs

Have always liked the different sounds from a Tele..
I always fool around with the volume and tone anyways, like the simple layout.
Only thing that bugs me alittle is the 3 way switch....maybe I will get a control plate with an angled switch.
 
Re: Telecaster's Need Two Tone Knobs

With three control knobs, it would become impossible to do the Speedy West "swell" tricks.
 
Re: Telecaster's Need Two Tone Knobs

Four things you could try:
Concentric tone pot each with it's own tone capacitor.
Push pull pot to choose between tone capacitors for each position. Like .033 bridge and .010 neck.
Wire a bass trap (capacitor+resistor) in series with the neck pickup to even the tone for each position. The capacitor determines the range of frequency and the resistor determines the depth of cut.
Wire a resistor in parallel on the switch so the pickups each sees a different load 250K or 500K.


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Currently I have both of my Tele's setup with bass traps for the neck pickups and resistors in parallel for the bridge pickups. That way the neck sees 500K and the bridge sees 333K. This smooths out the bridge position and keeps it from being too bright, while it brightens the neck position.
 
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Re: Telecaster's Need Two Tone Knobs

The easiest thing is to rewire the guitar so that only the bridge pickup is affected by the tone control. This is a slight variation on the "old" Tele wiring, in which the tone control affected the neck pickup only (when in the center switch position).

I've run a Tele with two tones and no volume before. You really don't lose much that way. (You can easily add an on/off switch – hidden or not – if you like to be able to shut your guitar off.)

You can also rewire the guitar to have two tone knobs in addition to the master volume. You can put the two tone knobs in one hole using stacked pots, or you can add a middle pot to the switch plate (a fairly common mod on Teles).

I solve all Tele problems by using Esquires instead. IMO, having three switchable, pre-set tones from the same pickup is a far preferable way to go than to have two very different pickups with slightly cumbersome master controls.
 
Re: Telecaster's Need Two Tone Knobs

+2 to the concentric tone pot.

Nice rig, I was playing my 52RI through my Princeton Reverb earlier. Awesome tones, especially with the volume up! :)
 
Re: Telecaster's Need Two Tone Knobs

You could do the concentric pot thing, or get a different control plate with an added hole and add your 2nd tone pot. You could always switch it back if you didn't like it. But I think that huge difference in tone is the point of the Tele. I do like the idea of wiring it so the tone pot only affects the bridge pickup. You could then get them to match tonally fairly easily if that is the sound you are after.
 
Re: Telecaster's Need Two Tone Knobs

Not half as stupid as a strat layout, 2 tone controls!!
surely it would be better to have two volumes to tweak pup balance.
 
Re: Telecaster's Need Two Tone Knobs

ChAoZ said:
Concentric tone pot?

View attachment 69445
Click to expand...

That was what I was gonna address.

I rarely use the tone pot on the guitar itself–I like to match pickups (even if unorthodox such as a Screamin Demon in the neck) to get a good combo that doesn't need a whole lot of adjustments–use my pedals to shape the tone. So this was never an issue for me.
 
Re: Telecaster's Need Two Tone Knobs

Since I don't use the tone knobs on most electric guitars I play I'd be happy with no tone knobs!!
 
Re: Telecaster's Need Two Tone Knobs

Yeah, I'd think if you are going to build it from scratch, just abandon the Tele 'look' and go for the 4 knob layout above. It still looks cool, classy, and unique.
 
Re: Telecaster's Need Two Tone Knobs

I love the look of your Tele. My uncle has a Tele he bought new in 1974...not sure what year it was made. It's a great sounding guitar.

I like Teles a lot myself. Some players want a decidedly different sound in neck and bridge. Those players may like the standard setup. I like a more defined tone in the neck; the standard Tele neck always sounds like it has a blanket over it. I dealt with the issue by using a strat pickup in the neck position. I'm using an SSL-1 in the neck and a SD vintage Tele in the bridge. Still different but more similar and I find the master tone to be more useable in this setup.
 
Re: Telecaster's Need Two Tone Knobs

Mincer said:
You could do the concentric pot thing, or get a different control plate with an added hole and add your 2nd tone pot. You could always switch it back if you didn't like it. But I think that huge difference in tone is the point of the Tele. I do like the idea of wiring it so the tone pot only affects the bridge pickup. You could then get them to match tonally fairly easily if that is the sound you are after.
Click to expand...

This is getting close to a problem I ran across... I have the Bournes concentric pots in the tone control and my guitar geek luthier said to wire it so the tone controls go through the switch rather than 'tone to volume pot' as we are accustomed to in a 3-way switch. I have a 4-way Tele switch mounted and nothing wired yet. The 4-way I have done before but do not understand how to wire inner knob for neck pup and outer ring for bridge pup and go through the switch (to maintain separation of the tone control over both pups)... Any diagrams on what to do ? I don't know what to do, but the soldering part is the least of it. - Doug in Richmond, VA
 
Re: Telecaster's Need Two Tone Knobs

Well, the two tone controls go to the lugs that their pickup leads attach to. The pot itself you might need a google search for - but the lugs are still the same so you are just duplicating the pattern of a regular tone pot but with the ground to the same place.
 
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