LOUDER NOT LOUDER
I am a long-time reader of your fine magazine, but have never written in… Until now, because I am truly stumped. Like a lot of Fender Telecaster players (I assume) I am often struck by how spiky the treble pickup can sound. I finally decided to take the plunge and have the standard single coil replaced with a Seymour Duncan Little ’59 humbucker (albeit still single-coil sized). After fitting, the increase in power and ‘fatness’ was immediately obvious. “Just the thing!” I thought.
However, at our weekly jam, I found that while the new pickup is certainly thicker sounding, the sound sometimes struggles to cut through even though it is pushing my overdrive pedals and amp harder (Boss BD-2, Tone City King Of Blues, Vox AC15 Custom). I find that I am missing the ‘thinness’ (clarity?) of the old pickup even though it sounds ‘weedy’ when played alone.
My questions are twofold: what am I doing wrong? And, how do so many famous Tele players get such a big sound from a standard treble pickup? Dan Gould, via email This is interesting, Dan, and it’s at the heart of a lot of people’s struggle with tone, namely that what sounds and works in isolation, quietly at home, doesn’t always work in a band context and/or when you change the dynamics of what’s happening in the pedals/amp. In the specific case of your Tele, it sounds as if the humbucker is pushing the pedals or amp into heavier overdrive, which is giving you more compression and less dynamic range and clarity, even though it may well be ‘fatter’ as you say.
It’s similar to when you try to boost an already-over-driving amp with a pedal – all you get is more mush, not more volume. So with your Tele, try backing off the gain and the low end in the amp/pedals, perhaps even boosting some of the upper mids/treble (2.5-4kHz if you have a graphic EQ) and presence (10kHz+), and you will get some clarity restored, though it’ll never chime like a true single coil. You could probably do most of that with the Tone Cut control on the Vox.
As to how the famous guys do it, it varies from guitar to guitar but one thing that always seems to work is volume. Something happens to Teles (and Strats for that matter) at volume; it’s almost as if the ‘weakness’ becomes a virtue in that it suddenly complements what the amp and pedals are doing, rather that fight against it. We could try to explain it, or just point to all the famous Tele players down the ages. It’s not like there’s less treble or spikiness; but loads more mid and bottom to support it.
HOW DO I JUDGE?
I don’t know if you can help with this, but I’ll give it a shot. The more I watch videos and demos online – including your fine YouTube channel – the more I realise how much I’m listening to the production decisions of the recordist, as I am the amp/pedal/ guitar. For example I listen to one