Telemastery

[andy]

Ok, so here is the latest project.

It's a Tele, as I'm sure you have guessed; an unbranded ebay gamble! Turns out it is pretty good, certainly as a 'worker' and as upgradable as any standard guitar out there. It is 60's style in it's specs, with a rosewood board and alder body, a gloss neck finish, steel bridge saddles and the usual pickup combination. Not sure on the bridge material, but I'm not sure that I wish to get myself too concerned over that matter anyhow.

There are a few spots where the finish is imperfect, but nothing problematic, or even visble from a few feet away. The setup was quite respectable as it arrived, but I usually find new rosewood necks to be quite thirsty. My usual approach has been to douse them in 'Fastfret', applying repeatedly until the oil stops dissapearing into the wood and leaves a little sheen on the board, which I wipe away with tissue paper. Once this process is done, the oil tends to leach back out, particualrly when playing, making everything slippery and duly wrecking a set of strings. However, once this nasty messiness is past I find the oil has equalised the woods porosity, and tends to stay smooth and slick without letting out any more oil for a good long period. Right now, I'm still washing my hands and wiping down the board every few minutes, but in the past it has proved a worthwhile phase.

Here are some shots from shortly after tearing open the carboard box...







I've already changed the bridge saddles for compensated brass ones. The tone is certainly different and the intonation should be better, although I have not set them up that well yet. In fact, to get rough intonation I have drawn the saddles back so far that the dome-topped screws holding the bridge to the body are getting in the way of height adjustment, but as I still have the .009's which came with the guitar I'm not going to worry myself about that too much yet. Never could get .009's to behave.

Here is a shot of the saddles in situ...



From this point on, aside from playing out that oil, I'm considering my options on shielding. I may go the whole hog, or perhaps just do the control cavity, or maybe submit to laziness and leave it all together. The other primary upgrade will be a pair of hum-cancelling pickups anyway (Dimarzio Area Ts, no doubt) so we'll see how the mood takes me!

[yakkmeister]

Looks like a really nice tele!
Thanks for sharing

[newey]

Love the color- I've seen that referred to as "vintage green", darker than either the Fender seafoam or the surf green.

All my Tele-ish guitars have the Strat-style 6 individual saddles. They intonate better but I wonder if the vintage style, especially with the brass compensated saddles, gives more sustain and "depth" to it, since there's more mass involved in the dual saddles (and the two strings attached thereto). But I dunno since I've never had one . . .

[andy]

Thanks chaps!

It is 'teal green' in fact. Being a mix of blue and green, I think it can be made to lean a bit in the direction of either, but this is even slighlty greener than it appears (on my monitor, at least) born out by the fact that that in real life it has a mint pickguard, too. I keep glancing over at it as I type, and it does look rather classy.

In my experience Newey, the saddles certainly make some difference. My first Tele was a thinline model, with the 3 saddles which I replaced with 6. Its character definately changed, and became less distinctive, though that guitar had such an over abundance of distinction, it hardly made a dent really! The mitigating factor there is that I also changed to a much thicker bridge material, which changes the tone too, but going back to the original bridge brought back the additional ring and twang that had left. My second Tele was a Nashville with 6 saddles, and while it may have been lacking for various reasons, it certainly didn't have it from a twanging Tele point of view. This new one has it in spades, reigned in just enough by the alder/rosewood construction to have powerful twang without an overly brash sound. Going from the original saddles (I'm supposing steel) to brass made a big difference too. In super-short, the steel was more 'rock', the brass more 'country'. If I remember right, it's anathema round here, but I dig that bit of cheesy twang in the tone!

[newey]

Thanks, Andy, that pretty much confirms what I suspected. I may have to replace the bridge on my Tele eventually. After all, having a Tele is all about the twang.

In super-short, the steel was more 'rock', the brass more 'country'. If I remember right, it's anathema round here, but I dig that bit of cheesy twang in the tone!

Cynical is in that camp, but not all of us. The over-produced Nashville Country-pop stuff that dominates the charts leaves me cold, but I like some of the more traditional Country and bluegrass. Also some Western Swing is good, like old Bob Willis stuff.

In my lesson last evening, my instructor and I were working on some old Commander Cody stuff. They were basically a Western Swing band for all practical purposes.

I think that those of us who came of age in the late '60s- early '70s, during the Country-rock era, will always have a bit of a soft spot for that Country twang. It's not that big a leap from The Byrds and Flying Burrito Bros. to Nashville. . .

Granted, having said that, if anyone pops the disc out of my CD player they're more likely to find a rock band than anything else in there. Lately, it'd be likely to be either the Black Keys or the Boss Martians.

[sumgai]

Did someone say..... Evan Foster?

[andy]

I thought the Boss Martians must be some underground rock band which had passed under my radar, then I saw Sumgai's post. THEN I looked them up on Google and... they are an underground rock band which have passed under my radar. Or a surf band.

This rock'n'roll malarkey ain't half complicated.

[sumgai]

andy,

Having spent a good part of his formulative years in LA, the answer would be Yes, a resounding influence during that time was Surf Music. But Foster has branched out from time to time into other genres, sometimes with the same band (but under his own name) and sometimes with other musicians.

I've been to several BM shows over the years, because the bass player's brother and I used to gig together. Good times, good times.



sumgai

[andy]

Ok hang on...

So these Boss Martians...


Are the same as these Boss Martians!


I had then down as two different bands, but then I hadn't spotted that the surf track was from 1994! They have the sound and the style of the cover down really well, I assumed I was listening to a 60's surf track.

[newey]

The album version of their "Mars is for Martians" (off the "Pressure from the SODO") features vocals by Iggy hisownself, which was what tumbled me to the band in the first place.

And, yes quite a bit of change over the years in their style, but it's all in my wheelhouse . . .

[sumgai]

Hadn't seen that particular video, nice to see the old gang back at it and still goin' strong.

But yeah, the name of the game is evolve or die on the vine. I think EF/BM is/are pulling it off just fine.

You know how many musicians would give their left nut to be able to walk on stage and not have to perform their 20-year-old hit for the 2000^th time? They got it in them, but the fans won't let it out, sorry to say. (But I'm just as guilty of that, so I'm not one to talk.....)



sumgai

[andy]

And, yes quite a bit of change over the years in their style, but it's all in my wheelhouse . . .

Mine too...

But yeah, the name of the game is evolve or die on the vine. I think EF/BM is/are pulling it off just fine.

AC/DC might not agree, but yeah, the best bands seem to keep moving forward and keeping things fresh. It's rare that a band successfully wanders so far under the same name, but they do it all very convincingly. Hats off to the fellas.

I hate to rein in the roaming conversation, but I ordered a set of pickups to stick into the Tele. Dimarzio Model T's, with the new DP615 bridge pickup, by all accounts very good single-coil aping humcancellers. They won't get installed for another week or two, but once I get the chance I'll report back on the results.

[newey]

While you're in there wiring in new pickups, you might want to consider doing the "control plate flip" mod. I had this on my Tele for a while, until I did some rewiring and changed it back, just to look stock.

You simply swap the positions of the volume and tone pots so that the volume is at the end of the plate. Then you have to either flip the switch 180 degrees or rewire it mirror-image. Then you flip the control plate 180 degrees and remount it.

This puts the switch at the back and the volume pot up front, where it can be accessed by a pinkie for swells.

On import switches, you have to rewire them rather than just flipping the switch, as the import jobbies are asymmetrical with respect to the screw holes, so you can't just flip it around, as it then will contact the side of the cavity.

But I liked my tele a lot better in that configuration. The switch is further back but still easily accessible. This is a quite popular mod among Telecistas, so if you're an old Tele hand you've probably heard of or done that one. (But I got the impression you were new to the Tele world here.)

[andy]

I had considered that; the jury is still out for the moment!

I might even flip it but leave the pots as they are to make for easier tone-wah/steam train horn effects if they work well on the new pickups. I've owned a couple of Fender Teles before, a Thinline and a Nashville, but this is the first 'normal' one I've owned.

[andy]

The pickups arrived today! ;D

They are the Dimarzio Area T neck and the new Area T 615, supposedly a 'modern country' pickup for massive twang and a strong overdriven voice. Opinions so far seem to have been very good, so I'm really looking forward to getting these in there. I've got a run of gigs and a couple of days real work to do first, so it'll be a few more days yet...

[ijustwannastrat]

"She's a brick----house
Mighty mighty, just lettin' it all hang out
She's a brick----house
The lady's stacked and that's a fact,
ain't holding nothing back."


Hell, I always thought that was about a woman, but this guitar is making me question all the things I knew about life.

[andy]

She's sure got some purdy curves on her.

I got the pickups in yesterday. Don't really like 'em.

I'll give it a while to settle and finish noodling with the setup, but I guess I'll be forking out for some others sometime in the future. Darn it. I even preferred the originals to these. Hopefully something will change my mind before long.

[yakkmeister]

I got a set of tonerider hot classics for mine ... No idea what they sound like yet (since the guitar is not even finished yet ...) but they're not expensive and could be a fun option for you to try out?

[andy]

I've heard very good things about the Toneriders. Also Wizard Pickups and BareKnuckle here in the UK, although Tonerider wins out on price!

If I let go of the hum-cancelling idea, my options really open up, and things get considerably cheaper too. I'm going to keep the Dimarzios in until I have the guitar set up to play as best I can get it, and then might even drop the originals back in just to test myself. When they were in there, the main issue (aside from the hum) seemed to be the light strings. I'd like to think I could get it spot on with the right strings and then be in love with the originals, but I know my eye (ear?) will wander over the other options before very long.

I'm still hurting from dropping 140-odd quid on a set of pickups, too, so I don't want to just write them off and spend any extra too soon. We all know that probably won't last though ;D.

[yakkmeister]

Cool, man!

I have used Toneriders for a few projects now - honestly, I am not affiliated !! - and I find them to be of very high quality; from packaging to sounds. I have a set of Alnico IV's HB's (nickel cover) on a Canora 335 copy I modded a while back and even though it's a vintage output set, the coil-tapped sound (from any of the 4 coils) is still really nice and plenty loud enough with as good a sound as I have heard from any pickup. I have a fully-loaded Pacifica with 3 DiMarzio humbuckers and ... they're just ok. When I first put them in, I loved them - very good pickups. But clinical. Toneriders seem to have something of an inherent warmth or charm that appeals to me.

YMMV ...

[andy]

Sounds good, Yakkmeister.

I pulled the Dimarzios back out, and I wasn't imagining it- I much prefer the originals, so I'm going to see if I can get a refund, although I bought them from Germany and will probably have to pay for return postage.

I'm going to try to get everything else tidied up on the guitar before I buy any more pickups, but I'll sure as anything be trawling the 'net for reviews of all the Tele pickups there are around. I checked the DC resistance of the originals, and they were about the same as the vintage style Toneriders, although they have (presumably) ceramic bar magnets on them. At least I can get a rough idea of what I'm starting with and try to make some informed decisions.

I had hoped this would be a done deal pretty quickly, but I suppose a few more hours on the net and a lighter wallet are par for the course by now.

[sumgai]

When it comes to single-coil pickups that are essentially Fender in nature, there's only one word you need to know:

Kinman

Several friends of mine in the area have these on one or more guitars, and I have to say, I was all set to lay out the moolah for a set of these for my own Strat, just before the BanHammer got dropped.


Sadly, even though Kinman is in The Land of Oz, he doesn't make it any cheaper for the local folks, so there's no point in asking gumbo, yakky, 4real, JohnH, ozboomer, MrSooty, or any of the other upside-downers to see if they can get you a deal. On the plus side, at least Kinman doesn't play the "kick 'em where it hurts most" game on shipping.... seems to be honest on that front, or at least he was when I last checked.

eBay usually has a few sets for less dough, but as usual, make sure you're covered, in case you get somebody's leftover hackings.....

HTH





sumgai

[yakkmeister]

Holy Balls of Batman, Batman!
That's nearly $500 for set of pickups!

I can get like, 3-4 sets of toneriders for that, shipped. From NewZealand! That's nearly $166 per pickup if you're buying a strat set ... I paid $200 for two hand-made bass pickups ... this guy is terrible!

Though, I sure hope they're the best damned pickups on earth for that price.

[sumgai]

yakky,

I don't know what you see down there, but up here in The Real World™, I'm seeing something on the order of US $226 for a pair of Telecaster pups. (Or about US $135 for a single unit.)

A moment ago, Google told me that for every US dollar I want to convert to AUD, I'm gonna get back 99 Aussie pennies.

Either the redoubtable Mr. Kinman is out to "stick it" to his fellow countrymen, or else you're getting a page that's been through several rounds of "Telephone Tag".   I'd vote for the latter, myself.

If you're seriously interested, email him and see what he has to say.....




sumgai

[andy]

Yeah, seems odd- I ran through the ordering 'test drive' and with shipping halfway round the globe it came to £198 (307.495 AUD, so I'm told).

Sumgai, I will factor the Kinmans in- I have always ignored them as I first came across them years back when they were unquestionably out of my price range, and I've assumed they were unreachable ever since. They are still painfully expensive, but then I did go ahead and blow £140 on the DiMarzios! I've not done the full research but they seem to be extremely well respected pickups, so I'll give a bit of homework time over to them.

[yakkmeister]

I get $385 now.
Still about 2x as much as it needs to be.

[sumgai]

I was looking at the Tele set of only two pups, are you guys looking at the 3-pup set? For me, that's US $299. Shall I post a screenshot or two?

Based on my past "test drives", the Stratocaster sets are actually down a bit from previous years. He's added some more variety, and those are more moolah, but for the sets I was looking at (Woodstock, Blues), they're actually cheaper by US $31. Go figure.




sumgai

[andy]

No, it was the Tele set. I chose all the cheapest options, although first time round I went for the slow postage, not realising that express was cheaper... but then they state that the express option will incur greater duty taxes, so it's not necessarily a saving. Second go was £186- plus tax. The base price for the set when I looked at the site was 163 GBP.

I can imagine that it might cost more to ship to one international destination than another, but I can't quite see how it would cost more to buy them in the country of origin. Some unusual domestic tax policy, perhaps?

[sumgai]

Jun 18, 2012 13:35:37 GMT -5 andy said:

I can imagine that it might cost more to ship to one international destination than another, but I can't quite see how it would cost more to buy them in the country of origin. Some unusual domestic tax policy, perhaps?

Say no more. Regardless of why the drastic price difference, it's there, and it's not likely to go away.

I'd be happy to "help a brother out", I'm sure the savings would be rather significant. But due to my being a "middle man", any returns might be hard to accomplish - refer to Kinman's policy, here:

www.kinman.com/pdf/shop_term.html

After looking at that, I think it behooves you to make sure you're satisfied that you've done enough homework and that you feel you'll be unbearably happy with whatever you purchase. Either that, or be prepared to eBay the pups, if they don't meet your expectations.

Punt! The ball's in your court.




sumgai

[andy]

I think I've got my computer time laid out for me for the next while! Funny really that I'll be paying most attention to some of the priciest pickups around... and some of the cheapest.

It actually turns out I'll be in the States later this year, so I could look into ordering some Kinmans then if they pique my interest enough. Thanks for the offer of aiding and abetting though SG!

I also put a set of .010s on the Tele yesterday. The extra intonation adjustment meant I had to run the saddles back over the dome-topped bridge mounting screws (in fact they would have had to sit there even to get the .009s right), which meant the saddles would be required to sit higher to clear said screws. The only way to do this without a ridiculously high action was to shim the neck, especially since I took the neck off to check for (and found and cleared) sawdust and debris left over from the factory, so I spent yesterday afternoon messing about with various degrees of shimmage. The neck came off four or so times to get an acceptable angle, by which time the strings were already feeling the strain- on the last installation, just as the top E made its way past Eb it popped and I had to go rummaging through my spares for what turned out to be my last loose .010 string.

Along with all the fuss the little fine edge of the treble side of the neck pocket cracked off a bit. Nothing to panic about, but it's a little scar which joins the hairline scratch I put in the finish while filing the bridge pickup route to make room for the DiMarzio (and forgot to mention ‘til now!).

Although the setup still needs work, it seems to play well and have some room for adjustment, and even with the cheap pickups in there I’m really glad to have the Tele sounds back in my hands. Perhaps it is because I spent so many years using one before, but they just seem so musically useful and versatile.