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Old 09-19-2014, 02:14 PM   #1
beingmf
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Default Q to guitar players - Tele pickups

I somehow wonder if it's just my personal preference or if it's common knowledge: what is the bridge pickup on a Tele good for?

Last week I've been recording guitar tracks, and while the guitar player claimed he never used anything but the bridge pickup, I couldn't resist switching to the neck pickup most of the time when we recorded "clean" sound. Isn't the bridge pickup overtone hell? Ringing like there's no tomorrow especially when strummed?

Some of you with more experience (I'm rather a drummer, bass and keyboard player) might enlighten me please. I simply couldn't believe that he recorded his last 3 albums with just that bridge pickup!?

[neck pickup sounds GREAT! Even better through a subtle H&K Tubeman 1 setting]
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Old 09-19-2014, 02:22 PM   #2
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Being a guitar player, I never really thought much about such things. I just flip the switch until it works with whatever it is I'm playing at the time and that means the switch on my Tele, Les Paul, Strats or Gretsch could end up anywhere.
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Old 09-19-2014, 02:44 PM   #3
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If you want something that cuts, the bridge pickup on a tele might be just the thing. Some amps/speakers can be tonally dark, and a bright cutting guitar sound might balance out just right.
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Old 09-19-2014, 03:46 PM   #4
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Impossible to tell you without seeing the guitar and it's set up, and playing it. Every guitar needs to be set up properly before you can make any claims about the pick ups.

They could just be too close to the strings. How is the balance in volume when you switch between pickups?

Also ringy where, low end? High end?
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Old 09-19-2014, 04:12 PM   #5
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I own a Tele. :-)) and sometimes I know for what the bridge pu is. its for situations where you want to hurt someone really bad. :-))) seriously, that is the thing that cuts steel. the bridge pu on my Brian May is even more brutal: its louder, its nearer to the bridge as on the Tele and it comes from a semiacoustic, what gives the tonality an even more high class brutality.

:-)) sometimes I like it ... you should play that pu with a metal pick or a thick coin, 10 eurocent are ideal. :-)))
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Old 09-19-2014, 04:12 PM   #6
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For twang, man! That's the whole damn point of a Tele.

Luther Perkins is said to have only ever used the bridge pickup on his Tele when playing with Johnny Cash.
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Old 09-19-2014, 05:47 PM   #7
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Some of the most famous songs in history had Tele's on them... the solo in Stairway To Heaven, Long Cool Woman, the solo in Thing Called Love just to name a few... and a Pink Floyd song or two as well...
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Old 09-20-2014, 01:42 AM   #8
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Thanks to everybody so far! I know I should've been more precise. The guitar is a mid-90's USA Tele, actually this one:



Before the recording it was freshly set up by a pro. New strings.

Well, at first I thought - like ashcat_lt - that must be the "twang", but that can't be it! It's a blurred, far-too-many-harmonics shrill something. Yes: blurred, smeared ... the indifference of the tone is what made me wonder. Is it too hot? Not enough impedance?
First I tried to cure it by EQ or subtle tube crunch - clueless.

Whereas the neck pickup reminds me of a nice thick Strat sound. We actually compared it to his Strat, but the Tele was "rounder". Takes distortion and EQ very very well. Lipstick, innit ?
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Old 09-20-2014, 03:54 AM   #9
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Strange. What type of pickup is it? Generally (imo, of course) the bridge pup in a tele sounds phenomenal, I do prefer a humbucker there though, single coils aren't really my thing. Can you post a clip of the recorded bridge pup?

Also what amp/processor are you running it through? Do other guitars exhibit the same problems through the setup? Is it something you hear when listening to the cab live, or is it only on the recording?

It could just be that you have a preference toward the lower-output, cleaner, rounder tone of a neck pickup. I generally prefer the neck (in any guitar) for most clean tones. I only stick to the bridge for clean when I want a sharper, thinner, mids-driven sound.
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Old 09-20-2014, 05:19 AM   #10
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It's the stock Fender humbucker. We fed 5 amps, solid state as well as tube, with and without tube pre pedal. It never sounded convincing, though at first I tried to compensate with a "darker" mic selection for the recording, but of course that only limits the problem to a smaller frequency range. The "ringing" is there no matter what.

Probably it's also the style of his playing that simply doesn't suit the bridge sound. Or maybe we should try a Duncan Antiquity pickup which everybody seems to love because of its far more balanced tone?
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Old 09-20-2014, 05:42 AM   #11
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I dunno, it could just be a bad (as in, not generally well reviewed, not generally liked) stock pickup I guess. I haven't messed with a whole lot of tele's, I'm more of a super-strat (metal) guy. I am pretty curious to hear clips of what you're talking about though.
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Old 09-20-2014, 06:42 AM   #12
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I've done some pickup swaps (MIM Jazz Bass, frankenstrat) and while stock pickups can do quite well, in both my cases they were like lifting veils off the sound.
More focused, more "authoritative", more "real".

A caveat: chasing tone can be a lifetime obsession, and if you're recording with Reaper at the same time, you may be falling down a rather deep rabbit hole.

Edit -- this is the Tele with the bridge humbucker? I'd recommend a swap.
Humbuckers are not as 'open' on the treble end of the spectrum as single coils, generally speaking.
For the most part, HB's are great for hot-output, roaring, blazing overdrive, with lots of power in the lows and mids.
You might be picking flowers with a shotgun, here.
Of course, this is my opinion; your mileage may vary.

Last edited by ginormous; 09-20-2014 at 06:59 AM.
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Old 09-20-2014, 06:50 AM   #13
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A caveat: chasing tone can be a lifetime obsession, and if you're recording with Reaper at the same time, you may be falling down a rather deep rabbit hole.
Quoted for truth. The worst is when you realize an amp you sold/traded two or three amps back down the line actually really was pretty damn perfect and now you'll never be able to afford one again :P
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Old 09-20-2014, 08:37 AM   #14
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A caveat: chasing tone can be a lifetime obsession, and if you're recording with Reaper at the same time, you may be falling down a rather deep rabbit hole.
Thank god I'm not recording that guitar exclusively - but I'll be on tour with the artist in winter/spring. I just reckon the FOH engineer will be happy if the sound is close to perfect. I simply don't want to spend 3 hours just for the guitar soundcheck

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Humbuckers are not as 'open' on the treble end of the spectrum as single coils, generally speaking.
For the most part, HB's are great for hot-output, roaring, blazing overdrive, with lots of power in the lows and mids.
You might be picking flowers with a shotgun, here.
Of course, this is my opinion; your mileage may vary.
Good advice! (Though the "lows and mids" comment doesn't apply here at all :/ ) My guess was also "output too hot", so I'd have to look for a convenient single coil maybe. Any downsides to this?
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Old 09-20-2014, 08:42 AM   #15
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Well, at first I thought - like ashcat_lt - that must be the "twang", but that can't be it! It's a blurred, far-too-many-harmonics shrill something. Yes: blurred, smeared ... the indifference of the tone is what made me wonder. Is it too hot? Not enough impedance?
First I tried to cure it by EQ or subtle tube crunch - clueless.
most likely the reason is simple: its a not so good guitar. that happens. there are guitars - regardless of brand and price and whatever - that sound good under a little number of circumstances and if these are not given they dont sound good or really shite.

I had 2 Les Pauls, only difference was the color, and the white one went away. sounded a little bit like crap, regardless what you did to it and with it. the black one sounds like hell is open, regardless what you do. so ... the bridge pu of that Tele sucks ... no biggie. get another one or ignore the pu if the rest is so good.
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Old 09-22-2014, 09:17 PM   #16
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Let's hear some sound clips of this thing. It has to be something with the setup, because a tele just doesn't sound bad. Beat me up if you want, but that's a classic sound you can recognize anywhere, and it's pure badass.
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Old 09-23-2014, 12:40 AM   #17
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A tele with a humbucker anywhere is not ever going to behave like a real telecaster.
The two models they have done (H/S and H/H) are nothing like a "real" tele, sound wise.
I played in a band with a friend who has two Thinlines (H/H) and he always sounded like a wasp in a jamjar to me.
If what you want is an actual telecaster bridge pickup sound, he will have to get a S/S telecaster and start from there.

And as has been said many times, the volume and tone controls play a huge part in what sound any guitar makes.
I run my Woolworths "tele" (with Custard Shop/Texas Special pickups) with the volume backed off a fair bit.
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Old 09-23-2014, 07:07 AM   #18
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he always sounded like a wasp in a jamjar
This is my new goto sound 8-D

NO more "sounds like a chainsaw buzzin" fer me ;-)

1997 California Series Fat Telecaster (H/S) 5-way switch
Love me my Tex-Mex bridge sc...

Tex-Mex Trio pickups pack enough firepower and spice to humble a jalapeno.

The California FAT Tele houses a U.S.-made Fender Tele humbucker in the neck position matched with a Tex-Mex Tele pickup in the bridge position.
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Old 09-23-2014, 07:27 AM   #19
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the bridge pu of that Tele sucks ... no biggie. get another one or ignore the pu if the rest is so good.
If it is the PU. I have an SG that sounds like crap with this horrible mid range resonance that makes it sound like a baseball bat. I thought it was the PUs then I realized that playing it not even plugged in has that same nasty ring.
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Old 09-23-2014, 07:56 AM   #20
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If it is the PU. I have an SG that sounds like crap with this horrible mid range resonance that makes it sound like a baseball bat. I thought it was the PUs then I realized that playing it not even plugged in has that same nasty ring.
well, that occurs. I meant with get rid of it not the PU but the whole guitar. sometimes a guitar doesnt do it regardless of what PUs are in it. I can tell, because I started to play electric guitar in 1969. and you dont want to know of the at that time cheap guitars ... :-((
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Old 09-23-2014, 08:03 AM   #21
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well, that occurs. I meant with get rid of it not the PU but the whole guitar. sometimes a guitar doesnt do it regardless of what PUs are in it. I can tell, because I started to play electric guitar in 1969. and you dont want to know of the at that time cheap guitars ... :-((
My first guitar that I got in the late 70s, you could drive a car under the strings.
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Old 09-23-2014, 09:38 AM   #22
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I only use the bridge pick up. Its got that tele sound that makes it sound more like a tele than a strat can imo, Its probably the only reason i switch from my strat as the tele is imo harder to play ie 7.25 neck and ive got flippity floppity fingers.. I have the 52 reissue and hated the Humbuckers (too bassy) untill i got the wiring updated (supplied with guitar)
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Old 09-23-2014, 11:04 AM   #23
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My first guitar that I got in the late 70s, you could drive a car under the strings.
My first guitar in the mid-60s came WITH the car under the strings!
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Old 09-23-2014, 11:24 AM   #24
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My first guitar in the mid-60s came WITH the car under the strings!
I didnt get a car with it. but a tuning whistle, for a guitar, where you could move the bridge around about 3 inches in every direction. so whistle or not, tuning impossible. palmface ...

but the funny thing is: it was an Egmond semiacoustic (because my Dad thought, semiacoustic is half electric so half as loud :-)))), the exact same model that was Brian Mays first electric guitar. only that he drew different consequences from that desaster than me ...
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Old 09-24-2014, 08:34 PM   #25
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I somehow wonder if it's just my personal preference or if it's common knowledge: what is the bridge pickup on a Tele good for?

Last week I've been recording guitar tracks, and while the guitar player claimed he never used anything but the bridge pickup, I couldn't resist switching to the neck pickup most of the time when we recorded "clean" sound. Isn't the bridge pickup overtone hell? Ringing like there's no tomorrow especially when strummed?

Some of you with more experience (I'm rather a drummer, bass and keyboard player) might enlighten me please. I simply couldn't believe that he recorded his last 3 albums with just that bridge pickup!?

[neck pickup sounds GREAT! Even better through a subtle H&K Tubeman 1 setting]
Telecasters can be great guitars, sometimes overlooked by people who visually associate them with country/vintage/Rolling Stones type sounds. I actually think a lot of people who think of the classic "Fender Sound" as a Strat, and the classic "Gibson Sound" as a Les Paul, are missing half the fun with the earlier and more prototypical Teles (and SGs, but separate thread).

I'm going to kind of "begin at the beginning", with some personal, and possibly controversial opinions, about the broad differences between Fender/lighter/single-coil type guitars, and Gibson/heavy/humbucker-type guitars. And I'm going to start with the "bad", or things to dislike about each type, because I find that to be the easiest way to describe tonal differences in words. Bear with me:

If you are used to playing a guitar with humbuckers, especially a physically heavy guitar like a Les Paul Standard, and you switch to a lighter-weight, single coil guitar like a Strat or Tele, you may notice some of the following things:

- The guitar sound seems wild, noisy, and out-of-control. It feeds back easily, every note or chord seems like a different volume, string noise and fret buzz are off the charts, power chords sound powerless, barre chords sound noisy and dissonant, leads sound strangled and uneven, it seems like the guitar is broken.

OTOH, If you are used to playing a lighter-weight single-coil guitar, and you switch to something like a Les Paul, you may feel like:

- All the tone has been sucked out of your playing. Every note or chord sounds flat, and the same, and sustains blandly forever. There are no dynamics and no "punch", picking harder or softer doesn't change the sound, the whole thing just seems sort of flat and muffled, like a toy guitar.

Now, obviously there are great players who get great sounds out of both, and out of any number of other makes and models. But there are real differences in tonal and dynamic response, and the same riff, played by the same player, through the same amp, is going to sound a lot different if played on a Tele vs a Les Paul.

Now, here is another thing: in general, neck pickups will push the general sonic/responsiveness profile further in the "Gibson/heavy/humbucker/sustain" direction, and bridge pickups will push the sound further in the "Fender/lighter/single-coil/punchy" direction.

I'm trying to avoid talking about pickups/guitars in terms of output and treble/bass, because they are different things, and because most guitar players do a terrible job of taking advantage of the sound-sculpting capabilities of their tone and volume knobs.

To that last point, unless you have a VERY practiced ear, it is extremely difficult to distinguish between "louder" and "better". As a general rule, the volume-knob on your speakers is the biggest sound-quality improvement you can get. Louder sounds are punchier, more detailed, bigger, deeper, clearer, more vivid and immediate, etc etc. Play someone the exact same sound at three different volumes, and they will pick the loudest one as sounding better 100 times out of 100.

A similar phenomenon occurs with cranking up the extreme highs and extreme lows (the infamous "smiley curve" eq, that every car-stereo seems to the be set to). For a whole bunch of reasons that I have covered at length elsewhere on this forum, and that I'm not going to get into here, this perpetual pursuit of louder and more smiley is bad and self-defeating.

However, an extremely relevant point for electric guitar in particular, is the distinct quality of "woman tone": a guitar set to neck pickup, with the tone knob rolled way down, and the amp set to crank the treble: this sounds completely different from "trebly" guitar settings through a flat or bassy amp, and is great at achieving a "crying" or "screaming" sound without being brittle or thin (see Slash, Clapton, etc)

I mention this because a lot of guitar-players tend to always leave their tone and volume knobs rolled all the way up, and then just gravitate towards whatever sounds loudest/brightest as "better". You need to to suss out what your guitar and amp can do, by tweaking and trying different combinations of settings, until you understand the spectrum of settings and sounds. You can't just dial in a good sound for Les Paul bridge-pickup, and then plug in a Tele. It's not the same.

So having said all that, here are some of the uses I have found for bridge-telecaster pickups:

- Spanky/slurpy/grindy ska-style rhythm guitars: mid-high gain through something like a Marshall or Orange Amp, you're going to get a lot more "punch" and "wet mouth" sonic expressiveness than you would get from something like a Les Paul or even a Strat.

- Snarly, shimmery, jangly, "cutting" leads: You can hear some of this on the second half of "Stairway to Heaven," if I'm not mistaken: There is an guitar sound that is way different from the typical Les Paul sound, hammering on the chords with a chimey clarity that is distinctive of the Tele bridge-pickup.

- Twangy, boingy, "punchy" clean-tone leads. If you want a guitar to punch through the mix like a banjo, there is no substitute for a bridge-pickup tele through a big-speaker amp like a Fender Twin Reverb. The player has to be on his game, but that combo will punch like Mike Tyson, and poke like a ride cymbal.


- If you're looking for roaring power-chords that go on forever, or for muscular palm-muted punk/metal chugs, or screaming leads with infinite sustain, you probably want a Les Paul standard, or something similar. It will roar and chug and scream better than anything on the market, but it won't give a lot of player-expressiveness or dynamics.

- If you are looking for a big, open, expressive sound, with Hendrix-style dynamics, clarity, and size, then you want a strat, or something like it. It will make whatever sound the player wants, but it's up to the player to produce it.

- If you want even more of what a strat offers, in terms of punch, snarl, twang, and expressiveness, then you want a tele. It's like the polar-opposite of Les Paul, the notes are short and stringy and noisy and hard to control, but if you are looking for chime and chirp and spank and expressive control, there is no substitute for a lightweight single-coil guitar. And if you play it right, it can sound heavy and powerful as hell.

Note that we are speaking in generalities. There are some cheap asian knockoffs that are better than some authentic guitars, and you can play 10 identical guitars off the same factory-line on the same day, and still have clear favorites. Setup is a huge factor: compare two Teles with the pickups set at slightly different distances from the strings, and you're playing two completely different guitars.

There is also the general instrument-to-instrument variation in wood, construction, etc... It is very difficult to be able to have an intelligent opinion about guitars until you have played and worked with a great many of them, in depth and in detail.

Once upon a time, music shops were run by people who put hands on and cared about every instrument they sold. Instruments were a lot more expensive, back then. Now, people buy stuff online, or from places staffed by minimum-wage or commissioned sales reps. The good news is that access to information, reviews, etc is better than ever in the history of the world.
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Old 10-08-2014, 03:46 PM   #26
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overtone hell
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New strings.
New strings. Overtone hell. Is there a connection?
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I have an SG that sounds like crap
Serious question.... I appreciate that the SG is a very popular beast, and I presume there's a good reason for that.... so, could somebody please point me at a recording (YouTube would be good) where the SG doesn't sound like crap?
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Old 10-08-2014, 04:18 PM   #27
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...could somebody please point me at a recording (YouTube would be good) where the SG doesn't sound like crap?
Black Sabbath?
AC/DC?
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Old 10-08-2014, 05:16 PM   #28
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Always sounded like crap to me. YMMV.
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Sounds great, but I can't help wondering if this is despite the SG....

Thanks for the response. I'm yet to hear an SG sound that blows me away like a strat can....
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Old 10-08-2014, 05:20 PM   #29
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I love SGs, mine sounds like crap on its own, not because it is an SG FYI. It's just a bad hunk of wood IMHO.
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Old 10-08-2014, 05:32 PM   #30
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Always sounded like crap to me. YMMV.
My mileage definitely varies. Black Sabbath has simply fantastic guitar tones, IMO, particularly on the first three albums. Beauty is in the ear of the beholder, I guess .

Much telecaster love here, btw. My tele has a huge, articulate sound even when using pretty fuzzy distortion. Have to be fast on the volume knob to avoid the buzzy, buzzy though...
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Old 10-08-2014, 05:41 PM   #31
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My mileage definitely varies. Black Sabbath has simply fantastic guitar tones, IMO, particularly on the first three albums. Beauty is in the ear of the beholder, I guess
I think I've heard too many bad pub bands try to cover Paranoid. I might completely agree with you about the guitar tones, if I could only stand to listen to Black Sabbath....
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Old 10-08-2014, 07:48 PM   #32
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I cannot believe I forgot Robbie Krieger from the Doors!

Anyway, here's 15 Iconic SG Players from the Gibson website itself.
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Old 10-08-2014, 08:06 PM   #33
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Originally Posted by ashcat_lt View Post
Anyway, here's 15 Iconic SG Players from the Gibson website itself.
Thanks again. Some of that doesn't sound completely crap. I shall study at length.
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Old 10-09-2014, 03:53 AM   #34
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AC/DC, a lot of the good tone isn't an SG. It's that whatever it is thing that Malcolm plays.



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Old 10-09-2014, 04:00 AM   #35
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I put one of these at the back of a Tele. It squeaks.



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Old 10-09-2014, 04:47 AM   #36
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I put one of these at the back of a Tele. It squeaks.
If you used springs for mounting, exchange them for rubber tubes.
Played hundreds of loud gigs with these Duncan minibuckers, never had a microphonics issue. In fact they are quieter than many full size HBs ime.

To the OP - getting a great tone out of a Tele bridge PU might require you to start from scratch when dialing in your tone, forget about what settings you use for other guitars and go by ear.
A decent amp helps, and many of the great Tele players like to use a stomp compressor and / or a good boost pedal like an EP Boost, RC Boost, TC Spark in front of the amp, all used sparingly.
Finally, nobody said a guitar sounds best with the volume dimed, things can look mighty different at lower settings, depending on the treble bleed cap (or lack of one).
If all this doesn't help, you might want to try a 250k volume pot instead of a 500k or similar, quick experiment in a Tele.
ymmv,
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Old 10-09-2014, 06:14 AM   #37
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If you used springs for mounting, exchange them for rubber tubes.
Played hundreds of loud gigs with these Duncan minibuckers, never had a microphonics issue. In fact they are quieter than many full size HBs ime.
The fitting is fine. I meant the sound of the thing "squeaks". Yuh know, out of the amp.

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Old 10-09-2014, 06:44 AM   #38
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The fitting is fine. I meant the sound of the thing "squeaks". Yuh know, out of the amp.
That's exactly what I'm talking about.
Tele PUs tend to get microphonic and squeal when metal springs transfer the vibrations of the bridge plate to the PU.
Rubber tubes isolate the PU from that (mostly undesirable) effect.
In fact, most 7ender style guitars benefit from these little rubber tubes.
Ymmv, a surf player might actually like the trashy, unpredictable feel of a microphonic guitar. But those guys also kick their amps with the boot for ambience ...
lol,
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Old 10-09-2014, 07:26 AM   #39
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http://www.stewmac.com/Pickups_and_E...g.html#details
these things ...

some people, like me, cut them even shorter
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Old 10-09-2014, 10:28 AM   #40
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Cool, Rhino. I just get me lucifer to fit things. The Tele is setup for slide. Yuh can just about fret it with .13's.

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