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Need to warm up my tele's sound

dNA said:
12-51 Pure Nickel D'Addarios.

... but I think essentially the strings solved my problem and saved me from buying a new neck within the next year. :D
Click to expand...

Yessiree, those "pure" nickel strings work wonders.  I recommend them to everyone.

(hey, maybe I should start another thread titled, "Think A String Is Just A String?"  hah - and wait 'til I do my preamp t00bs test)
 
Superlizard said:
dNA said:
12-51 Pure Nickel D'Addarios.

... but I think essentially the strings solved my problem and saved me from buying a new neck within the next year. :D
Click to expand...

Yessiree, those "pure" nickel strings work wonders.  I recommend them to everyone.

(hey, maybe I should start another thread titled, "Think A String Is Just A String?"  hah - and wait 'til I do my preamp t00bs test)
Click to expand...

Conversely, I Just put D'Addario Pro Steels (all steel roundwounds) on my Artist and it was an amazing transformation too. Like the thing acoustically sounds like a fender now. i couldn't believe how much it changed, and not just in one dimension either. This has revolutionized how i think about guitars.
 
Would recommend a mahogany neck with a rosewood fretboard. Have the mahogany neckwood tinted close to the colour of the body.
 
dNA said:
sucks all the exotic necks in the showcase are standard thins. there are a couple all-rosewood tele necks I'dve grabbed by now if any of them were '59 or SRV profiles
Click to expand...
Yeah i agree it suck quite a bit :sad:
More Boat and Fat back exotic necks is what i want to see in the showcase,with a fat neck there's all ways the possibility to shave it down and shape it to the profile you like!   
 
I actually picked up a Goncalo Alves/Pau Ferro neck with the SRV profile from the showcase. it's a strat neck, but it works

unfortunately, what i've found is that even though the guitar does sound fuller and warmer, I still don't really like how it sounds. And if I could quite put my finger on how, i'd be much happier, but i don't know. For staccato or percussive stuff, it works fine. But sustained notes and chords just don't sound good to me. and it's really disappointing.
What i'm trying to figure out now is whether or not it's a matter of one controlled element i can change, or if i just have to go with a totally different design. After changing the neck, the pickups, and the electronic components, I'm left thinking it's either
a) the body
b) the bridge design

I don't know if the Tele's bridge design has anything to do with it's classic "twang" but that could be exactly what i don't like about it. it makes me wonder if i had the same design but with a different type of bridge would it be different? Or would the same bridge on a different body wood sound better? I can't spend more money buying a different body (i'd probably go with solid mahogany), especially if I'm not sure that would actually fix my problem.

*grumble*
 
I would be willing to bet its the bridge that's making it sound bright and non sustain-y.
 
Well, tonar is dead right - LONG before you go freak out and buy different wood, you have to look at reshaping the frequencies that are coming out of the guitar electronically. You can lower the value of a 500K pot by bridging it with a 750K resistor:
http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/potm.htm

You can wire a capacitor in series with either a single pickup, or change the entire guitar's "q" point or center frequency:
http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2010/Aug/The_Vintage_Coiled_Cable_Simulator_Mod.aspx
ANY time you need to fatten a Fender (or any other thinny) this is an easy mod, or it can be done with an outboard box, or people have even built this added cap into a cord they only use on their "thin" guitar. Also, capacitors in any application are additive in parallel, meaning you can stack them - if you put a .022 on the tone control maybe just adding another one (to get to a .044 value) would do. In my experience, a "thin" guitar is usually not lacking bass and mids, it's just putting out more treble proportionally to the rest. Most electric guitars have plenty of bass, and midrange, and treble - you just need to learn to shape the output. There are probably a dozen ways to do this, speaker choice and all, but as you mentioned, you don't want to change all your amp settings. So you just want to categorically dump/throttle/squelch the excess treble, bringing it down to the point where your tone and volume controls become useful to you.* And, caps, resistors and even pots are cheap....

Remember that the electronic component's values "traditionally" used for Fenders and Gibsons are based on certain woods and certain pickups, and anytime you go putting a humbucker on a Fender or going hollow or exotic woody, you should expect that the "traditional" values will be off - they should be! I get kinda amazed at the tonal qualities that people will ascribe to a certain fingerboard wood or bridge saddle type or string or fret profile, and they don't know much at all about the "electric" part of an... "electric" guitar.

*(I am a proud, happy user/abuser of Bill Lawrence's various blade pickups, so I have long-standing experience with teeth-cracking tonal issues.... :evil4: if it's LOUD enough, you just need to tame the tiger.)
 
dNA said:
I actually picked up a Goncalo Alves/Pau Ferro neck with the SRV profile from the showcase. it's a strat neck, but it works
Click to expand...

You could have asked them to cut the headstock in tele shape...
 
stubhead said:
Well, tonar is dead right - LONG before you go freak out and buy different wood, you have to look at reshaping the frequencies that are coming out of the guitar electronically. You can lower the value of a 500K pot by bridging it with a 750K resistor:
http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/potm.htm

You can wire a capacitor in series with either a single pickup, or change the entire guitar's "q" point or center frequency:
http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2010/Aug/The_Vintage_Coiled_Cable_Simulator_Mod.aspx
ANY time you need to fatten a Fender (or any other thinny) this is an easy mod, or it can be done with an outboard box, or people have even built this added cap into a cord they only use on their "thin" guitar. Also, capacitors in any application are additive in parallel, meaning you can stack them - if you put a .022 on the tone control maybe just adding another one (to get to a .044 value) would do. In my experience, a "thin" guitar is usually not lacking bass and mids, it's just putting out more treble proportionally to the rest. Most electric guitars have plenty of bass, and midrange, and treble - you just need to learn to shape the output. There are probably a dozen ways to do this, speaker choice and all, but as you mentioned, you don't want to change all your amp settings. So you just want to categorically dump/throttle/squelch the excess treble, bringing it down to the point where your tone and volume controls become useful to you.* And, caps, resistors and even pots are cheap....

Remember that the electronic component's values "traditionally" used for Fenders and Gibsons are based on certain woods and certain pickups, and anytime you go putting a humbucker on a Fender or going hollow or exotic woody, you should expect that the "traditional" values will be off - they should be! I get kinda amazed at the tonal qualities that people will ascribe to a certain fingerboard wood or bridge saddle type or string or fret profile, and they don't know much at all about the "electric" part of an... "electric" guitar.

*(I am a proud, happy user/abuser of Bill Lawrence's various blade pickups, so I have long-standing experience with teeth-cracking tonal issues.... :evil4: if it's LOUD enough, you just need to tame the tiger.)
Click to expand...

I appreciate everythign you said here, maybe more than you know. But I'm not even looking at how this thing sounds plugged in. I just don't like how it sounds unplugged. and i'm not interested in trying to manipulate it to sound good plugged in if it doesn't sound good unplugged, because none of my other electric guitars have ever been that way. they sounded great unplugged, and i often play them unplugged - sometimes more. I actually write a lot of material on my electrics just playing them unplugged, and if the guitar doesn't sound good unplugged, I'm not gonna use it no matter how great the electronics are.
 
srsly.jpg
 
dNA said:
But I'm not even looking at how this thing sounds plugged in. I just don't like how it sounds unplugged. and i'm not interested in trying to manipulate it to sound good plugged in if it doesn't sound good unplugged, because none of my other electric guitars have ever been that way. they sounded great unplugged, and i often play them unplugged - sometimes more. I actually write a lot of material on my electrics just playing them unplugged, and if the guitar doesn't sound good unplugged, I'm not gonna use it no matter how great the electronics are.
Click to expand...

Agreed... and the unplugged vibe  (good or bad) obviously gets amplified whenst plugged in.
 
Well I'll try two more things then de-materialize, here:

1) I like my guitars to be as different from each other as possible, because they bring out different kinds of music and seem suited for different playing styles - otherwise, why even have two, much less... well, you know.  :eek: If I had a pile of warm round fat-sounding guitars, I'd want a twank-tone as a contrast (it may record very well....)

2) It takes me at least six months to figure what a guitar wants to do, because wood is so different - you could try putting all your other guitars in the closet and forcing yourself to play the twanker for a month of your practice routine, and see if it's still offending you... many, many people play very bright guitars and use it as a starting point (the Tele guys - Gatton/Buchanan/Gill/Volkaert/Mason/etc., Jeff Beck, on and on.

3) If it remains insoluble, try some GHS "GB-LOWS" on it, tuned to DGCFAD. They're 11-53's specially designed for low tunings, they do something to the cores of the wound strings. I had to use them for several months on what eventually became my #1 guitar, till I rewired it (twice) and got the tonal issues settled out - a quarter-sawn boatneck with ebony board + Lawrence pickups is plenty bright, ahem. I still use "Eric Johnson" nickle strings on it, 11-52 because it need a fair amount of string to shake all that wood around. At the right places, they're only a little more than normals, unlike the Santanas or high-toney "jazz" strings.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/REJM/

(HEY - that's supposed to be SWEET + WATER, but this silly porn scanner is removing the T + WAT part.! :cool01: you have to fix the "twat" part.)

4) OR try some medium 12-56's or so tuned to Eb. A lot of tonal issues can be settled with strings, as you know  - the 1st try at nickles got you halfway there.

:confused4:) HaHa I can't count.
 
stubhead said:
Well I'll try two more things then de-materialize, here:

1) I like my guitars to be as different from each other as possible, because they bring out different kinds of music and seem suited for different playing styles - otherwise, why even have two, much less... well, you know.  :eek: If I had a pile of warm round fat-sounding guitars, I'd want a twank-tone as a contrast (it may record very well....)

2) It takes me at least six months to figure what a guitar wants to do, because wood is so different - you could try putting all your other guitars in the closet and forcing yourself to play the twanker for a month of your practice routine, and see if it's still offending you... many, many people play very bright guitars and use it as a starting point (the Tele guys - Gatton/Buchanan/Gill/Volkaert/Mason/etc., Jeff Beck, on and on.

3) If it remains insoluble, try some GHS "GB-LOWS" on it, tuned to DGCFAD. They're 11-53's specially designed for low tunings, they do something to the cores of the wound strings. I had to use them for several months on what eventually became my #1 guitar, till I rewired it (twice) and got the tonal issues settled out - a quarter-sawn boatneck with ebony board + Lawrence pickups is plenty bright, ahem. I still use "Eric Johnson" nickle strings on it, 11-52 because it need a fair amount of string to shake all that wood around. At the right places, they're only a little more than normals, unlike the Santanas or high-toney "jazz" strings.

http://www.sweetwiter.com/store/detail/REJM/

(HEY - that's supposed to be SWEET + WATER, but this silly porn scanner is removing the T + WAT part.! :cool01: you have to fix the "twit" part.)

4) OR try some medium 12-56's or so tuned to Eb. A lot of tonal issues can be settled with strings, as you know  - the 1st try at nickles got you halfway there.

:confused4:) HaHa I can't count.
Click to expand...

I'm with ya dude. I think it'll be many more months of experimenting before I settle on anything. i'm just frustrated, because the guitar did not come out how i expected it to.

what i realized is that i really want is a guitar that will play and sound as much like my archtop as possible, but won't feedback at performance volumes. I don't play jazz at all, but my archtop has been my go-to guitar since forever. Plus, i wanted the versatility of a H/S which none of my other guitars were/are.


I tried this guitar with 11-52's, starting 1 1/2 steps below standard and moving up in half steps increments at first. When i wasn't happy with that, I tried 10-46 pure nickels tuned up to F#, which is how I tune my other main axes. Then i eventually tuned that set down a half step, so now it's at F standard.
I'm gonna try some Beefy Slinkies that i've got, 11-54 and see how that does. I used to have an ibanez SA in C# that sounded wonderful. we'll see...

i may just go back to the maple neck with nickel 12's, because that gave me the sound i was most comfortable with. It wasn't exactly what I was after when I built the thing, but it could grow on me. almost acoustic-like.
 
dNA said:
stubhead said:
Well, tonar is dead right - LONG before you go freak out and buy different wood, you have to look at reshaping the frequencies that are coming out of the guitar electronically. You can lower the value of a 500K pot by bridging it with a 750K resistor:
http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/potm.htm

You can wire a capacitor in series with either a single pickup, or change the entire guitar's "q" point or center frequency:
http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2010/Aug/The_Vintage_Coiled_Cable_Simulator_Mod.aspx
ANY time you need to fatten a Fender (or any other thinny) this is an easy mod, or it can be done with an outboard box, or people have even built this added cap into a cord they only use on their "thin" guitar. Also, capacitors in any application are additive in parallel, meaning you can stack them - if you put a .022 on the tone control maybe just adding another one (to get to a .044 value) would do. In my experience, a "thin" guitar is usually not lacking bass and mids, it's just putting out more treble proportionally to the rest. Most electric guitars have plenty of bass, and midrange, and treble - you just need to learn to shape the output. There are probably a dozen ways to do this, speaker choice and all, but as you mentioned, you don't want to change all your amp settings. So you just want to categorically dump/throttle/squelch the excess treble, bringing it down to the point where your tone and volume controls become useful to you.* And, caps, resistors and even pots are cheap....

Remember that the electronic component's values "traditionally" used for Fenders and Gibsons are based on certain woods and certain pickups, and anytime you go putting a humbucker on a Fender or going hollow or exotic woody, you should expect that the "traditional" values will be off - they should be! I get kinda amazed at the tonal qualities that people will ascribe to a certain fingerboard wood or bridge saddle type or string or fret profile, and they don't know much at all about the "electric" part of an... "electric" guitar.

*(I am a proud, happy user/abuser of Bill Lawrence's various blade pickups, so I have long-standing experience with teeth-cracking tonal issues.... :evil4: if it's LOUD enough, you just need to tame the tiger.)
Click to expand...

I appreciate everythign you said here, maybe more than you know. But I'm not even looking at how this thing sounds plugged in. I just don't like how it sounds unplugged. and i'm not interested in trying to manipulate it to sound good plugged in if it doesn't sound good unplugged, because none of my other electric guitars have ever been that way. they sounded great unplugged, and i often play them unplugged - sometimes more. I actually write a lot of material on my electrics just playing them unplugged, and if the guitar doesn't sound good unplugged, I'm not gonna use it no matter how great the electronics are.
Click to expand...
Agree 1000%
If it does not sound great acoustically it never going to sound good plugged in !
 
well one thing i found out:
my amp sounds f'in incredible when it's cranked. and it just made the cleans out of the tele waaay more usable, dare i say "amazing"
we'll see if it was a fluke or if i'll still love the guitar in the morning. :)
 
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