The thing I hate about Teles...

[arealken]

Let me preface this by sayin' I am a devout Stat player. Have many. Played Strats all my life. I only got one Tele, but what a Tele! Warmoth Dark Ebony fretbaord with Koa neck and 35  year old very light weight air dried Swamp Ash body.

That said, I am a constant pickup position switcher. No problem with Strat.
Tele? man, With  my 3 position switch and  '52 Tele Klein Epic bridge, and my Dimarzio Mini Humbucker neck, when I change positions, I got to either dial up or dial down both tone and volume. PITA!

Anyone feelin' me?

 

[Twanking45]

Sounds like you are saying that to get great tone on one pickup you need to have the vol and tone a certain way that does not work with the other pickup. Am I correct or have I just been awake and working like a dog too long today?

If that's what you're saying, I would suggest choosing which pickup you like best and then finding a replacement for the other that sounds good.

 

[line6man]

Why don't you just put trim pots or fixed resistors in the control cavity, to "preset" the setting you like?

 

[musicispeace]

+1 on the Klein. And I am also interested in what the forum has to say on this situation.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

What is the resistance value of your pots? I have a 90s MIM Tele Special (the one in my avatar in fact) with the Tele bridge / humbucker neck pickup configuration and have been toying with it for twenty years now, so I can relate. Currently it's got a Seymour Duncan Jerry Donahue bridge and a Lollar Firebird neck, both of which I think are pretty similar in nature to what you've got. I wired the controls with 500k pots, which make the neck pickup sing. Then I wired a 470k resistor in parallel from the bridge pickup switch lug to ground which has the effect of "showing" the bridge pickup about 250k, which knocks out the ice pick frequencies and does away with the whole "roll down the tone control every time you switch to the bridge pickup" thing. They get on very nicely. Not as seamless as a set of calibrated Strat pickups, nor for that matter a set of well balanced traditional Tele pickups, but you really can't expect that. This setup works very well for me though.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

Get a Rutters ergonomic tele control plate.

The switch is at an ergonomic angle, and the volume pot is re-located 3/8" further towards the tone.



You won't regret it.

 

[DangerousR6]

I wasn't a tele fan either until I built this one, not the typical tele, but then I'm not a typical person... :turtle:

 

[Twanking45]

Holy fashiznozzle! That's a slick looking guitar

 

[Nightclub Dwight]

Sounds like you need to either make a pickup change or play with the height of one or both pickups to bring things into better balance. 

Keep at it, the Telecaster is a fine guitar, definitely superior to the Strat.  Once you get your Tele dialed in I think you will be very happy.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

Sounds like you need to either make a pickup change or play with the height of one or both pickups to bring things into better balance. 

Keep at it, the Telecaster is a fine guitar, definitely superior to the Strat.  Once you get your Tele dialed in I think you will be very happy.

Agreed.

I think that I can get far more "useful" tones out of a tele than a strat, but that's just my opinion.  I don't use the center pickup at all, but on a tele, with a 4 way switch and a splittable humbucker in the bridge, "Bob's your uncle"....

 

[swarfrat]

I used to love 2&4, played literally almost nothing else. But then I realized what I loved about it was the lack of hum. With EMG's, stacked pickups, or humbuckers, I rarely use two pickup settings.

 

[rgand]

Sounds like you need to either make a pickup change or play with the height of one or both pickups to bring things into better balance. 

Keep at it, the Telecaster is a fine guitar, definitely superior to the Strat.  Once you get your Tele dialed in I think you will be very happy.

Agreed.

I think that I can get far more "useful" tones out of a tele than a strat, but that's just my opinion.  I don't use the center pickup at all, but on a tele, with a 4 way switch and a splittable humbucker in the bridge, "Bob's your uncle"....

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