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Originally Posted by Johnny Caster
Oh, now I guess it's my time to eat some crow. Definately not in the same vein though, Single coils are the one of the greatest charms of Fender's in my opinion.
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well, isn't that the same sort of backwards thinking you were opposed to? leo fender used single-coils because they were the only pickups out there, and probably continued using them because he had to. he tried all sorts of ways to get rid of the noise, from various types of shielding (pickup covers, pickup baseplates, aluminum pickgaurds, the "claws" on jaguar pickups, etcetera), to reverse winding pickups on some models, and even designing his own type of humbucker (the p-bass "split" pickup), and the first pickup design he created after the humbucker's patent expired was a humbucker (the music man stingray pickup), and his first pickup design at G&L was
also a humbucker (the mfd humbucker.) besides, leo fender's humbuckers sound nothing like any of seth lover's!
i do find it strange the same people who love telecasters today are the people who'd have laughed them off when they first came out, just as we're laughing off many of today's innovations. if leo fender built the telecaster today, instead of 50 years ago, what would it be like? and would we like it? hmm...
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Originally Posted by Dr Gonzo
from those pics it is self evident that Leo ran out of 'bright' ideas.. not to worry, if i designed the Telecaster and obvioulsy ALL of the other fender guitars then i doubt i'd be too put down that my newly desinged 'G&L interceptor' was'nt a success. G-200 looks like a cheap LP copy, with a radicall double cuta-way  |
leo fender didn't design the interceptor (actually, he hated it, as far as i know), and probably didn't design the body of the g-200 either, although he might have had more say on that one. leo fender was more interested in designing pickups, controls, bridges, etcetera, than aesthetics, and that was true going all the way back to the telecaster! besides, the g-200 doesn't really look
that much like a les paul, and probably owes as much to earlier fender designs (i'm reminded a bit of the mustang when i look at, for instance.)
on example of his "bright ideas" are the mfd humbuckers. the mfd pickups have a completely different sound than other pickups! they're louder than most "vintage" pickups, but they're also brighter,
and bassier, with that "hi fi" sound i mentioned earlier,
and can be "shaped" much more dramatically by tone controls, equalizers, etcetera, and, most importantly, a player's playing,
and does all of this
without relying on active circuitry like EMGs, etcetera. quite a remarkable design, and still "bleeding edge" today!
i understand that this stuff isn't for everyone, and, heck, it might not even be for
me, but, i don't think it's fair to say that he ran out of ideas!