I think of good tone as being largely subtractive, meaning there are parts of a good rig that are eliminating sound at certain frequencies - most electric guitar players have never heard what a guitar sounds like plugged straight into a power amp through to full range output through a PA with tweeters or horns. It's pretty awful... a good telecaster bridge unit has CRANKED midrange, which comes through, and a lot of treble that doesn't make it past the speakers, but does affect how the signal triggers everything before the speaker.
The problem is that a pickup like that isn't going to be coerced into sounding too much like a regular humbucker, if you just keep cutting midrange you're cutting off it's... spirit, let's say. So the best way I've found to approximate a telecaster is to use a pickup with a really wide range, like a Lawrence L500, Duncan Dimebucker, DiMarzio D-Activator - and then figure out how to cut the low end to fake a Tele. And cut other parts of the signal, to fake other things. When I say "wide range" I mean with a relatively flat response - plenty of bass, mids and treble. To most people that will sound thin, if they're used to a regular humbucker in the PAF or overdriven-PAF range. That's because "normal" humbuckers are kicking bass and mids really hard; it's inherent in the original design. And simply adding windings for more output really makes them muddy... which is good, sometimes. But with a balanced pickup and LOTS of power, you have the best luck at approximating anything else by cutting frequencies elsewhere. Go to US Speaker and look at the frequency response curves of just about any speaker:
http://www.usspeaker.com/homepage.htm
Just about all of them fall off a cliff between 2K and 2.5K, which is a critical zone of midrange and an area of "EQ" many people don't even think about. EVERYTHING IS EQ, and there is no "best", only preferences. And one thing that works is compensating for other parts. You can take some of the best parts in the world and make an awful-sounding guitar, and you can take some ordinary parts and make a great guitar. It's not really hard, and there's a lot of info out there. But it is time-consuming to learn.
The problem is that a pickup like that isn't going to be coerced into sounding too much like a regular humbucker, if you just keep cutting midrange you're cutting off it's... spirit, let's say. So the best way I've found to approximate a telecaster is to use a pickup with a really wide range, like a Lawrence L500, Duncan Dimebucker, DiMarzio D-Activator - and then figure out how to cut the low end to fake a Tele. And cut other parts of the signal, to fake other things. When I say "wide range" I mean with a relatively flat response - plenty of bass, mids and treble. To most people that will sound thin, if they're used to a regular humbucker in the PAF or overdriven-PAF range. That's because "normal" humbuckers are kicking bass and mids really hard; it's inherent in the original design. And simply adding windings for more output really makes them muddy... which is good, sometimes. But with a balanced pickup and LOTS of power, you have the best luck at approximating anything else by cutting frequencies elsewhere. Go to US Speaker and look at the frequency response curves of just about any speaker:
http://www.usspeaker.com/homepage.htm
Just about all of them fall off a cliff between 2K and 2.5K, which is a critical zone of midrange and an area of "EQ" many people don't even think about. EVERYTHING IS EQ, and there is no "best", only preferences. And one thing that works is compensating for other parts. You can take some of the best parts in the world and make an awful-sounding guitar, and you can take some ordinary parts and make a great guitar. It's not really hard, and there's a lot of info out there. But it is time-consuming to learn.
