tele deluxe build....

[pirate]

Watching this video and and it seems the tele deluxe if VERY close to the LP in tones, certainly nothing that tweaking tone knobs, amps, etc can't duplicate. Making me feel even better about attempting a Tele/LP hybrid build, though really, I suppose I'm just building a Tele deluxe
In fact, I suspect that if the same PU's were in both, it would be even closer, if not spot on. Can't really account for other differences, like woods, necks, etc., but tone effects should be minimal I think.

Makes me wonder, if you love tele's, and want that LP sound on occasion, that the deluxe isn't perfect? I am new to this, but also need to explore the wiring possibilities to maybe get tele tones and twang as well as LP tones? All from one guitar?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0Qz6Zukklc

 

[Rick]

http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=29223.msg413745#msg413745

After playing this for the past year, I think rather than splitting the humbucker trying to get a tele sound, I need to go the other way with a series out of phase option.  As is though, it is a sweet guitar that I won't part with. I smile every time I use it :toothy10:

 

[stratamania]

Perhaps take a look into pickups designed to give different possibilities such as Seymour Duncan P-Rails or Joe Barden Two Tones.

 

[stratamania]

Here is a video of P-Rails in a Tele Deluxe type.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KACL6JQeXoA[/youtube]

 

[Bikertrash2001]

I've been playing a Tele Deluxe from the very first day I picked up a guitar (1982 to be exact). Luckily Dad wasn't playing any more and I've never been without it. I think it is definitely an axe to have in the arsenal. I think Fender was for sure fighting for the rock market and even snatched up Seth Lover to design the pickups (which were nothing like PAF's in design but sound incredible). I'm building a hot-rod Tele right now but with the standard pickup configuration but with Hot Rails that I'll be able to tap. It's a mahogany body too like the ol' LP. My old Deluxe is an absolute shoulder breaker. It weighs in at 10lbs which may not be much in the old LP world. Not sure if it is made from petrified ash or alder.
I think the P-Rails are an awesome idea too. I have them in my SG and love being able to have humbuckers for high gain and the p-90 for the trashy stuff.

 

[rgand]

Sounds like a cool project. Looking forward to following your progress.

Not sure if it is made from petrified ash or alder.

:laughing11:

 

[Ace Flibble]

The Tele Deluxe was literally designed to compete with the Les Paul and to provide Fender with an answer to all of Gibson's designs, which had largely taken over as the most popular guitars in the 1960s. The start of the 70s rolled around and Fender went right, we'll copy that control layout and stick two humbuckers in it, job done.

FWIW with any kind of distortion, the difference in sound between modern Tele Deluxes (which have humbuckers made with regular bar magnets; original 70s guitars had a different design) and Les Pauls is so small that you'd only notice it if it was specifically pointed out to you. In a blind test they're the same. Of course there's variation in guitars, but you get brighter LPs just as you can get darker Teles. Ultimately, two humbuckers with a fixed bridge and a solid body sounds pretty much the same once distortion and/or effects are involved.

Played totally clean, you'll find the neck pickup on the Tele Deluxe is a little brighter and thinner than on a Les Paul, assuming comparable pickups are used. The bridge pickup tends to be a little tighter, too.

Of course when making parts to order and piecing together the guitar yourself, you can twist the sound any way you want. I, for example, recently modded a Tele Deluxe with a P-90 in the neck out of phase with a Seymour Duncan Invader in the bridge, with a coil split. The Invader split wound up sounding like a standard, slightly overwound Telecaster bridge pickup. The full humbucker mode is far thicker and darker than any Les Paul I've ever had. (And I've had a lot.) The out of phase middle sound is a dead ringer for Peter Green's/Gary Moore's/Joe Perry's Les Paul. The neck sounds halfway between a normal Tele neck single coil and a '54 LP clean, but strangely with distortion it sounds far more like a humbucker and is a good ringer for Slash's neck tone.
And that's a regular 25.5" all-maple neck and a not-very-odd solid basswood body. I've had other Teles with mahogany, rosewood, tune-o-matics, 24.75" necks, you name it. Jazzmasters, too. They can all sound like LPs. Hell, I've got a couple of LPs that sound more like Telecasters. Body shape means nothing; if you use the same electronics and the same woods you're going to end up with 99% the same sound.

Try a Tele Deluxe in a store if you can, or if not, just go for it anyway. The routing allows for a lot of combinations and it's easy to get a new pickguard for a different pickup configuration if you want to make further adjustments later. Whatever sound you want—super bright, super dark, thin, thick, warm, cold, whatever—you can get it out of a Tele Deluxe.

 

[MikeW]

... Body shape means nothing; if you use the same electronics and the same woods you're going to end up with 99% the same sound. ...

This! +100!

I tell people all the time that it's pickups that make the sound so you should play a body/neck that you're comfortable with. Electronics can be tweaked to get where ever you want to go.