Tele question

[rauchman]

Greetings,

First off, I have a problem.  I'm in the middle of a Velocity build, and I'm already thinking of the next build....sigh

I built a Tele as my first build a couple of years ago, and I love it.  A Tele was never on my radar until a couple of years ago when folks on various guitar related sites (this one included) inspired an itch. 

Recently, I completed a Hybrid Tele build, and while I'm happy with it...I picked up the Tele a couple of days ago and I'm just wowed by the tones.

And finally....the question

I'd like to make something with a Tele bridge pickup (non Tele body), but also a tremolo bridge.
How important is the Tele bridge to the Tele sound?
Are there Tele bridge options for mounting a Tele bridge pup that allows for a trem?  Ideally (at least I think ideally), take a standard Tele bridge and hack off the area that would be over the trem, but this would still allow for the bridge pup to be hanging from a metal plate.  Not sure how this plate would mount though since it basically screws into the body in the bridge area.

Would this still capture the Tele sound or am I deluding myself?  Is this even doable?

Edited to add...forgot to ask

Does anyone use a 24.75" conversion neck with a Tele and how does it affect the sound?  I bought a conversion neck over the summer for the Tele Hybrid (that's now going on the Velocity body I'm working on) and loved how it made the humbuckers sound richer/fatter.  Not sure how this would effect a Tele bridge pup.

 

[Rick]

Maverick Tele Bridge?

I found the pick up choice more important.  The most tele like pups, for me, have been Bill Lawrence.  I've had DiMarzios that sound great allegedly Tele bridge pups, but not 100% tele.  YMMV.  The plate will affect the sound but not as much as the right pup.

I had a conversion neck on a tele once, but went back to a regular size.  But that was more of a comfort thing, than sound.  I suppose there was a little sound difference, but not much.  The Bill Lawrence pup made it.

 

[NedRyerson]

A Tele was never on my radar until a couple of years ago when folks on various guitar related sites (this one included) inspired an itch.

Totally off the main topic, but this sentence is why I'm doing a Tele as my from-the-blank-piece-of-wood-on-up project.  It's atonement, so to speak.

Back in the early '90s when I was a know-it-all late-teens kid, I bought an Epiphone Telecaster.  Credit cards are a dangerous thing for an 18/19-year-old.  Problem was that I had no idea what I was doing.  I was more in love with the idea of owning guitars rather than actually being able to play it or maintain it.

Long story short, I ruined the hell out of it because of my ineptitude.  I ended up throwing away a bunch of broken down components on what was probably a really good guitar in the hands of someone more deserving.  I've learned so much more in the 30 years since, and now feel like I have to make it up to the guitar gods to have a Tele in my possession that I'll treat right. Even though I'm a metal player, and Teles aren't exactly metal-oriented guitars.

 

[PhilHill]

If you want a Tele bridge pup but a different bridge, there are several outfits that make these..http://thebridge-works.com/Fender-Telecaster-Tone-Ring-Plate-P2358196.aspx
Wouldn't have to cut up a tele bridge then...

 

[Ace Flibble]

If you want as close to a standard Tele arrangement as possible but with a vibrato, there are some bridges which combine both. Wudtone's New Country Telecaster bridge is my favourite, though it's rather expensive and you do need to get the body routed specifically for it. (I don't know if Warmoth can accomodate that particular one; there are some other companies that do offer it as a standard route, so give Warmoth an e-mail and see.) I can tell you from experience the Stetsbar for Tele is atrocious. Of course there are many types of Bigsby vibrato for Tele that work well, and of course many cheap knock-offs that don't. Unless you want to do full Floyd Rose dive bombing, any of these kinds of bridge should work for you; I usually get about two full stops down and a half stop up out of a Bigsby, for example.

If you continue on with using a more common Strat-style vibrato, there are a few ways to mount Tele bridge pickups and none of them really take away from the standard Tele bridge sound. Some pickguard companies, such as Terrapin, can make adapters that will fit a Tele bridge pickup, at the standard angle, into a kind of humbucker ring. I believe GFS make a cheap plastic one as a standard part. Some specialist hardware manufacturers (e.g. Guique) may be able to make you a metal one if you want to be really sure it won't change the tone.
You can also simply mount the pickup directly to the wood, as with any other pickup.

The Tele bridge tone primarily comes from the pickup itself. The baseplate and the larger coil are what give it more bass and treble than a Strat pickup. Put a Tele bridge pickup in a plastic pickguard and you still get 99% of a Tele sound. I use them even as neck pickups and they still retain some of the Tele 'twang'. You'll only miss out on the standard Tele tone if you opt for a very non-standard pickup; a Tele Hot Rails never sounds like a normal Tele no matter how you mount it or what you do to its other electronics and hardware.
Adding or taking away large bits of metal from a guitar, or replacing them with plastic, does alter the overall tone when you're nitpicking and sturmming the guitar unplugged, but through an amp at even just common practice volumes, it won't matter.

Same goes for conversions necks. I currently have two 25.5" Teles and two 24.75" Teles, with similar pickups and wood across the board, and there's really no difference in sound between them at the bridge. Some of that is because I do compensate for the tone difference a little—500k pots on the 24.75" guitars an 300k on the 25.5" scale, for example—but even if I kept them 100% identical bar the scale length, it still wouldn't affect the tone much. I've swapped a couple of these bodies between 24.75", 25.5" and back again and the tone has never been significantly affected. Always use the scale length you're most comfortable with, don't worry about the sound. The difference is so minimal nobody who hears you will ever tell and even if you A:B your guitars meticulously and spot a tone difference, it's never a big enough change for it to not be compensated for by pickup selection, wiring tricks, hardware, or simply adjusting your amp's EQ a little bit.

 

[rauchman]

If you want a Tele bridge pup but a different bridge, there are several outfits that make these..http://thebridge-works.com/Fender-Telecaster-Tone-Ring-Plate-P2358196.aspx
Wouldn't have to cut up a tele bridge then...

Exactly what I was looking for.....thanks!

 

[DuckBaloo]

The big impact I see isn't how the PU is mounted  — you can mount it to the wood, like the GE Smith Sig Tele, and I don't think it'll be that different — but might be the trem itself. You won't have the same snap and fast attack that a traditional Telecaster or hardtail Stratocaster have, the trem absorbs a lot of that and mellows it out. Would it be a dealbreaker for me? No, but it may be for those looking for "Bakersfield" tone.

 

[solmaz]

Greetings,
How important is the Tele bridge to the Tele sound?

A lot of it is the pickup. There is a steel base plate under tele bridge pickup that changes the tone dramatically. I mounted the pickup directly to the body, hot rail humbucker tele pickup. Still has a nice fat twang.  :toothy10:

The big impact I see isn't not how the PU is mounted  — you can mount it to the wood, like the GE Smith Sig Tele, and I don't think it'll be that different — but might be the trem itself. You won't have the same snap and fast attack that a traditional Telecaster or hardtail Stratocaster have, the trem absorbs a lot of that and mellows it out. Would it be a dealbreaker for me? No, but it may be for those looking for "Bakersfield" tone.

This is my favorite tele config. My first partscaster based on GE Smith Tele with some modifications.  :icon_thumright:

 

[swarfrat]

My understanding is the bridge plate makes a rather significant impact on tone, taming the highs and fattening quite a bit

 

[DuckBaloo]

My understanding is the bridge plate makes a rather significant impact on tone, taming the highs and fattening quite a bit

Most people give credit for the "fattened tone", increased output, and tighter focus comes to the base plate under the PU (AKA bottom plate), that's why companies like Fralin sell them for Strat PUs as well. From my experience, the big impact of the bridge design is on the string vibrations (affecting tone, sustain, and the attack of the note) and (IMO) less so the electronics. But I'm sure there are others who feel the opposite, that's how guitar talk works.

But we are probably splitting hairs. There are lot of Teles will alternate bridges ... the cut-down bridge on the Fender GE Smith Sig, the Strat hardtail bridge on the Anderson Classic T, the Jazzmaster bridge on the Fender factory-loaded Bigsby Telecasters, etc. that all sound like a Tele.

 

[zebra]

There's a lot of mojo-talk surrounding the significance of the Tele bridge pickup's baseplate and other aspects of its design, and I've heard of lot of vague, unsubstantiated, and contradictory things (by "things" I mean "opinions") about the impact of those design factors. 

Aren't there any electrical engineers with a passion for pickups on this board to set us straight?!  :dontknow:

 

[AleForce1]

Interesting Tele Bridges available at https://super-vee.com/products/tremolo-systems/maverick 

 

[rauchman]

Interesting Tele Bridges available at https://super-vee.com/products/tremolo-systems/maverick 

Now that is very interesting.  I looked at the website, but couldn't discern if it pits an existing Strat type route for a trem.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

They supply a paper routing template that is pretty much a standard tremolo route with the modified tele mounting holes.  That second one is really nice, but I think I am more with Solmaz in that I would totally dig. Tele body with direct mount pickups and a Gotoh 510 tremolo, basically a true Tele single coil voice version of the Suhr Modern T Pro.
Picture this, but with Single Coils.

https://www.suhr.com/product-archive/archived-instruments/suhr-modern-t-pro/

 

[Strat Avenger]

Greetings,
How important is the Tele bridge to the Tele sound?

A lot of it is the pickup. There is a steel base plate under tele bridge pickup that changes the tone dramatically. I mounted the pickup directly to the body, hot rail humbucker tele pickup. Still has a nice fat twang.  :toothy10:

The big impact I see isn't not how the PU is mounted  — you can mount it to the wood, like the GE Smith Sig Tele, and I don't think it'll be that different — but might be the trem itself. You won't have the same snap and fast attack that a traditional Telecaster or hardtail Stratocaster have, the trem absorbs a lot of that and mellows it out. Would it be a dealbreaker for me? No, but it may be for those looking for "Bakersfield" tone.

This is my favorite tele config. My first partscaster based on GE Smith Tele with some modifications.  :icon_thumright:

Nice.
Although I'm not doing a body-mounted bridge pickup, G.E. Smith's Tele is what inspired me to build one.

 

[Rick]

Yep that's the maverick bridge.