Twang question for Tele Antiquity guys.

J

jim in texas

New member
I hope this is not too dumb a question so your patience is requested.

I installed a set of Antiquity I's in a maple neck, alder bodied AmStd tele. A Callaham 3 brass saddle bridge, an RS tone kit with the Hoveland caps and a 4-way switch are the only mods. The pots are stock 250K and the Delta tone was removed from the tone pot.

The guitar sounds great but it's not "tele" twangy. Granted, this guitar never really twanged when it was new
but it's always been a great player with really good tone.

Would I pick up some twang if I increased the pot value to 500K or even 1 meg? I changed out the brass saddles for a set of Callaham stainless steel and noticed a little more brite-ness but no twang.

I guess it is possible that this guitar will never have that tele sound but I don't want to give up yet. I've got sweet and snarl but no twang.

Those Antiquity pickups are awesome. Ya'll were right.

(edited because I'm a dumbass)
 
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Re: Twang question for Tele Antiquity guys.

i find a lot of the twang comes from the guitar itself and the player, not so much the pickups. I have seen guys get great twangy country sounds out of an LP or a bluesbird. work on technique a bit and also try playing some country licks on the guitar, see how it sounds. that is all i know of to try now.
 
Re: Twang question for Tele Antiquity guys.

I really didn't know how to respond to this ... I'm no "twang expert"!

I think the term is a little subjective ... my feeling is that twang means bright and snappy, and well ... country style

Butch is a little more knowledgeable along these lines, and I know that I saw him remark that twang is (at least partly) an attitude, and a whole approach to playing

my feeling is that the Antiquities are warm and responsive, but certainly capable of twang ... I haven't used the Antiquity II's, but if you read Seymour's comments, he was after a tone that would match well with a maple neck

I just realized I'm not much help at all ... I'm not really a twanger - everything I play on a tele still sounds like the blues
I do love my Antiquities, though :)

the Broadcaster, JD, and '54 may be a little more "twangadelic", although it comes down to the licks ...
here's a site that will help:
Chicken Pickin'
 
Re: Twang question for Tele Antiquity guys.

Thanks to all for your advice.

I've been thinkin' about what's been said about technique and I do agree. My normal style is to use hammer on's, pull off's and country bends but usually in a blues scale. Plus, I tend to play the same way regardless if it's with a tele, strat or a Les Paul.

Another thing I've noticed is how difficult it is to snap and pop the strings with .011's. I get a big sound with Pyramid .011's and they're on all my guitars, but it's alot of work to get them to do what you want on a 25 1/2 scale guitar.

I changed over to a set of .009's and it's made a big difference. I've got to make an effort to stay with the lighter touch but the snappy, twangy tele tone is comin' out.

Is it possible that the .09's make the guitar briter? I put the brass saddles back on because now it seems a little too brite. Maybe I'm just used to the darkness of pure nickle .011's.

One thing's for sure............ those Antiquity pickups are F-I-N-E.
 
Re: Twang question for Tele Antiquity guys.

I'm not a twanger, but I have read that lighter strings aid that sound. A bit of compression helps as well. Some people insist that you need a certain bridge or certain saddles, but I think you'll find a lot of variation across country pickers and twangers on those factors. Fro example, Brent Mason twangs just fine with a modern 6-saddle bridge and SD Vintage Stack lead pickup.

BTW, I find .009's too light on just about any guitar. I really like .010's on my Fenders and .011's on my Gibsons. I do think bigger strings fatten up the sound, so I'm not surprised that you detected a change in tone with the 2-step drop in string gauge.
 
Re: Twang question for Tele Antiquity guys.

Kelsey said:
I'm not a twanger, but I have read that lighter strings aid that sound. A bit of compression helps as well. Some people insist that you need a certain bridge or certain saddles, but I think you'll find a lot of variation across country pickers and twangers on those factors. Fro example, Brent Mason twangs just fine with a modern 6-saddle bridge and SD Vintage Stack lead pickup.

BTW, I find .009's too light on just about any guitar. I really like .010's on my Fenders and .011's on my Gibsons. I do think bigger strings fatten up the sound, so I'm not surprised that you detected a change in tone with the 2-step drop in string gauge.
Click to expand...

Your right Kelsey, there was a major tone change with the .009's. When played thru a Blackface Bassman and a 1X15 cab, the tone seem 20-25% briter with no noticable loss of volume. I'm sure that the preceived increase in treble masks any volume loss.

With a tweed Deluxe, the briteness is less noticable but it's still there, keeping in mind that the two amps are like night and day in tone and the way each responds to touch.

A pack of strings is certainly preferable to heating up the soldering iron and changing pots in a Tele, eh?

I don't mind soldering but I just can't see like I used to.
That and this tele's got a 4 way and the RS tone kit with the big Hoveland caps and there's no damn room to work. :smack:
 
Re: Twang question for Tele Antiquity guys.

If you're talking about that bright spanky clean twangy tone the guys like Don Rich (Buck Owen's guitarist) or James Burton (Ricky Nelson's and Elvis's guitarist) get, I think that's alnico 5 Fender Tele Pickups with raised and staggered polepieces through a powerful clean amp, like a Fender Twin Reverb.

I think flat pole Tele alnico 5 pickups like those Fender made before 1954 are a little thicker sounding with more quack and more mids. The Antiquitys are alnico 2, too, and that brings up the mids even more.

I have the Antiquitys in my Custom Shop Tele Nocaster/53 RI and I love them. They're twangy enough for me, and remind me alot of Roy Buchanan's tone. But I don't think of Roy's tone as being the classic twangy spanky clean country Tele tone...especially when he played through a 40 watt Fender Vibrolux amp on "10", or so I've read.

He screamed through his guitar and sometimes it sounded anything but country.

Still, I think if I plugged my Tele with the Antiquitys into a Twin Reverb set for clean, it'd sound pretty bright and twangy.
 
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