On Pickups

Hi there, Arturo here, I just posted my first post here in the forums and asked a question just here:

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/welcome-wagon/341607-newbie-here.html

But a good fella - Rod Parsons - suggested to ask the same question in the just pickups section, so here I go:

Now, one quick question, I'm using the stock pickups and seems like there's some kind of a bassy sound, depending on what pedal I'm using the sound is bassier, but I don't want that kind of sound, at least not that much bass, I have a Les Paul for that , but I'm wondering if changing pick ups its going to change the sound to a something I'm more looking for, I'm really new to teles so, I was checking ebay and found this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/TELECASTER-T...item43b2257d85

and

http://www.ebay.com/itm/TELECASTER-T...item3a76b76b04

Do you guys think this pick ups are good enough and deliver a nice rounded balanced tone and not the bassy, sometimes muddy tone I have right now?

Somebody asked me about the model and my response here:

Well, to be honest, I don't know, I'm really new to teles and this was a gift from my wife, but is this same model, same color:

http://www.barossamusic.com.au/assets/Uploads/_resampled/colorbox-fen-ltd-ed-tele.jpg

I modified a few things, a kinda' aged paisley pickguard - black with shapes in aged gold - and aged the plate control, will change the tuners as well for a schaller locking tuners in nickel.

Thanks so much!

Arturo

I think you need to say a bit more about your issue, Arturo. Is the bridge pup too bassy? You could try a different value capacitor between vol and tone pots - I'd try that before changing pickups. Also, are you sure that you don't have a tele with the original control set up? This gave very different sounds to the 'modern' 3 way switch set up. On original teles, the neck pup selection was supposed to be a faux bass sound!

A different cap won't have any consistent, or significant affect until the tone knob is below ~5. Does the tone knob work? If not, the cap may be shorting to ground. Take some pictures of the control panel wiring from a few angles and post them here. Also, try setting the PUP's to the Fender spec heights. You can fine tune from there.

...

Now, one quick question, I'm using the stock pickups and seems like there's some kind of a bassy sound, depending on what pedal I'm using the sound is bassier, but I don't want that kind of sound, at least not that much bass, I have a Les Paul for that , but I'm wondering if changing pick ups its going to change the sound to a something I'm more looking for, I'm really new to teles so, I was checking ebay and found this:

...

Do you guys think this pick ups are good enough and deliver a nice rounded balanced tone and not the bassy, sometimes muddy tone I have right now?

...


welcome to the insanity, arturo. :cool:

in all honesty, asking for help with "tone" will get you nothing but more questions. there is no substitute for first hand experience, and yes, that is a costly if not time consuming route to travel. but it will be your reality and not someone else's vicarious fantasy,

before beginning your don quixote pickup quest, try to make the most of your existing pups. put on a fresh set of strings, tune up, intonate - old, dirty strings will color the tone. play with pickup height, in very very small increments. use as clean and sparse a circuit as possible. use a .022uf tone pot cap, and if possible make that tone pot a no-load. do all of your initial testing direct to a clean amp with no modulation at sane volume levels. vary the volume - volume pots wthout bleeder caps are like tone pots. use and don't use the tone pot. this is the way to test out all pups, in as neutral an environment as possible. progress to modulation. evaluate. perhaps try a different brand and heavier gauge of strings. good luck.

Perhaps your amp or speaker is not so good and there's nothing wrong with the guitar.

The guitar you have looks very nice. If you ask your wife where she got it, so that you could then ask the seller what model of Tele it is, or if the seller knows whether or not the original pickups have been changed,then we would know what pickups are probably in it. That's at least a start to determining how vintage or how hot the pickups are. And if you would also let us know what kind of amp you're using, that could help....

First up, the tele does not lack for bass, it has plenty of bottom end, enough to shame a LP.

But it does have a crisper, cleaner top end. One generally does need to alter the amp settings. Compared to an LP, you should be able to get that "breaking glass" sound on clean and full treble.

Do try adjusting the pickups, that's what the height screws are for. Bring the bridge pickup up too far and you will get characteristic nasty fingernails on the blackboard icepick saturation, just before you hit the strings. Drop it down from there to its sweet spot. Then adjust the neck pickup to match output.

Hi there, thanks for everybody for their response, so much to learn, as a few of you guys suggested, I'll take pictures of the control cavity and will post here in a few hours, now about the guitar, I'm still not sure about the model, but seems like it is this same one posted here:

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/telecaster-discussion-forum/246863-ngd-fsr-butterscotch-tele.html

Trying to answering questions:

1.- Is the bridge pup too bassy? You could try a different value capacitor between vol and tone pots

Yup, that's the one, and yes I upgraded the cap to a bigger one, but can't remember which one, pictures soon, promise.

2.- Also, are you sure that you don't have a tele with the original control set up?

Honestly, I don't know, first tele ever and I'm just learning and willing to lear here in the forums.

3.- Does the tone knob work?

I can hear some subtle difference when I play with the tone knob, but I'm not sure if its the regular sound because as mentioned this is my first tele and I don't have another point of reference. But I'll post the pictures soon.

4.- ... put on a fresh set of strings, tune up, intonate - old, dirty strings will color the tone. play with pickup height, in very very small increments. use as clean and sparse a circuit as possible.

It has new strings, tuned and the intonation is near to perfect.

use a .022uf tone pot cap, and if possible make that tone pot a no-load.

I changed the cap but still not sure which one I used, I do this a lot on my les pauls so not sure, but I'll post a picture soon.

5.- Perhaps your amp or speaker is not so good and there's nothing wrong with the guitar.

I'm using a line6 cabinet 4x12 stereo speakers and a behringer vtone gmx1200 head

6.- First up, the tele does not lack for bass, it has plenty of bottom end, enough to shame a LP.

Actually my problem is the opposite, to much bass, I love how this guitar sounds but for my taste there's so much bass, sometimes is a little bit muddy, but I'll try first with the pickup height to see if that helps.

Sorry for this long one and again thanks to everybody.

Arturo

To cut bass you could put in a capacitor in series with the pickup. But if all settings are too bassy, maybe try turning down the bass on the amp.

LP usually use a 22nF cap, tele usually use a 47nF.

re amp tone -
you want less bass = turn the treble up
you want more treble = turn the bass down.

Too much bass? - well it is a tele, (transpondian translation, it is supposed to do that) and that's what makes it rather good for rhythm.
Fiddle with the amp.
OMG you are using a 4x12! - no lack of bass there then!

No-load "Delta Tone" pots, ho-hum
- party trick, but doesn't bring much to the party.

You need to get to know your tele before you go making any serious alterations to it. A stock model can be dialled in to do practically anything you want it to.

Do you know what model it is yet?
- the first half of the s/n will tell us place and year.
Your receipt should tell you the arcane model number, which can be translated to name ;)

All right, here a few pictures, and just to confirm, the tome pot is not working, not sure if when I soldered the new cap did something wrong.... :oops:

Thanks

Arturo

http://thenewmediastudio.com/telecaster/01.jpg

http://thenewmediastudio.com/telecaster/02.jpg

http://thenewmediastudio.com/telecaster/03.jpg

http://thenewmediastudio.com/telecaster/04.jpg

http://thenewmediastudio.com/telecaster/05.jpg

http://thenewmediastudio.com/telecaster/06.jpg

http://thenewmediastudio.com/telecaster/07.jpg

http://thenewmediastudio.com/telecaster/08.jpg

http://thenewmediastudio.com/telecaster/09.jpg

http://thenewmediastudio.com/telecaster/010.jpg

Looks like that capacitor pretty much goes from the volume control right to ground on the tone control (the lug it attaches to does as well), and the rest doesn't look like standard wiring to me.

Try something like this, but you can ignore the resistor at the switch or the cap/resistor combo on the volume control.

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb390/wildepickups/Wiring%20Diagrams/tele3way.jpg

Even allowing that the control plate is back to front ;)
you need to look here
http://www.tdpri.com/resources/tele-electronics/
http://www.tdpri.com/articles/gifs/Wiring3-way.gif

The .001 (1nF= 0.001µF) is optional and the .050 is aka 47nF
The ground to bridge is not optional.

Whilst you are under the hood, do twist the pickup and jack socket leads into "twisted pair" for hum-cancelling. Make everything neat and tidy because that way is quieter.

Tip - to solder the back of a pot can use a big 50W iron, everything else use a 15-25W one.
If you do a lot of soldering then get an expensive does the lot 45W Weller TCP

Imo you have a real plumber's nightmare there. I cannot see an input from the selector to the top of the vol and to the tone. Weird.

Even allowing that the control plate is back to front ;)
you need to look here
http://www.tdpri.com/resources/tele-electronics/
http://www.tdpri.com/articles/gifs/Wiring3-way.gif

The .001 (1nF= 0.001µF) is optional and the .050 is aka 47nF
The ground to bridge is not optional.

Whilst you are under the hood, do twist the pickup and jack socket leads into "twisted pair" for hum-cancelling. Make everything neat and tidy because that way is quieter.

Tip - to solder the back of a pot can use a big 50W iron, everything else use a 15-25W one.
If you do a lot of soldering then get an expensive does the lot 45W Weller TCP

Imo you have a real plumber's nightmare there. I cannot see an input from the selector to the top of the vol and to the tone. Weird.

Thanks a lot, yup, this model comes with the control plate reversed, let me check what you and Derek suggested, thanks so much!

Arturo

One thing: just use the cap you have. Try it it out, first. You can change it latter if you want something different. Other wise, either diagram is correct. While not top notch, your wiring/soldering looks adequate. Just make sure nothing shorts when you close the panel back up. FI, if the housing for that cap is conductive, it could increase noise and/or short something if a lead, or lug presses against it. I just use one layer of electrical tape when in doubt. If you do more soldering in future, you might find flux to be useful for the pot housing ground solder points. Rather than invest in an expensive iron, try this one: http://www.buildyourownclone.com/tools.html

You're going to hear a world of difference when you get it wired right.

One thing: just use the cap you have. Try it it out, first. You can change it latter if you want something different. Other wise, either diagram is correct. While not top notch, your wiring/soldering looks adequate. Just make sure nothing shorts when you close the panel back up. FI, if the housing for that cap is conductive, it could increase noise and/or short something if a lead, or lug presses against it. I just use one layer of electrical tape when in doubt. If you do more soldering in future, you might find flux to be useful for the pot housing ground solder points. Rather than invest in an expensive iron, try this one: http://www.buildyourownclone.com/tools.html

You're going to hear a world of difference when you get it wired right.

Thank you so so much! thanks to you and to everyone else who replied, I think the problem was about a pedal that I was testing in my pedalboard - EHX Little Big Muff - then I changed to my regular pedals and now the guitar sounds like it should be, however, I'm still interested to learn new things regarding this guitars, for example, what's that famous thing called TWANG and how a tele should properly sound, who knows, maybe at some point I'll be decided to change pickups to a something much more professional, which by the way, I don't have idea of models and prices, anyway, thanks to everybody, this was really educative for me being a newbie in the tele world.

Arturo

Nice guitar. Once you get the wiring figured out & if you still have more bass than you want on the bridge pup, just lower the bass side of the pickup.

Yours looks about even bass-to-treble & I've backed my pups WAY down on the bass side to even out bass-to-treble volume.

Thank you so so much! thanks to you and to everyone else who replied, I think the problem was about a pedal that I was testing in my pedalboard - EHX Little Big Muff - then I changed to my regular pedals and now the guitar sounds like it should be, however, I'm still interested to learn new things regarding this guitars, for example, what's that famous thing called TWANG and how a tele should properly sound, who knows, maybe at some point I'll be decided to change pickups to a something much more professional, which by the way, I don't have idea of models and prices, anyway, thanks to everybody, this was really educative for me being a newbie in the tele world.

Arturo

I'm sorry, I thought it was clear that the wiring is definitely wrong. Just follow either diagram.

I'm sorry, I thought it was clear that the wiring is definitely wrong. Just follow either diagram.

Oh ok, so, exactly, where the cap should go soldered?

Thanks!

Arturo

Oh ok, so, exactly, where the cap should go soldered?

Thanks!

Arturo

It looks like the pots are hooked up wrong. Not sure about the switch. Compare it to either diagram, and you'll see. I can't explain it better than a diagram. If you have a question about the meaning of the symbols on the diagrams, people could help you there.

Yeah, the tone control not working, plus those photos, says to me that the cap goes straight from hot to ground. Therefore it's like the tone control is turned right DOWN at all times. So all your treble is being removed from the signal.

Yeah, and the controls look switched. Rather than continue to point out the flaws, or the wrong way to wire, it's better to just follow the diagram. There is only one correct configuration in each diagram. Follow either one and you'll be fine. As stated: the treble bleed is optional. As Rob stated, a no-load pot can be useful for extra twang, or whatever, but it isn't needed.

All right then, thanks so much, as soon as I have that done I'll post new pictures, thanks for all the help guys!

A.-

Hi there, well, I just did that n o-load option and I have to say I'm in love how my guitar sounds right now, just wanted to thank everybody here who helped with experience, comments and tips!

Arturo

Well, after some time I think I'm continue with the experiments, I don't have that much free time but when I have I use that time trying to see how to improve the sound of this guitar, is amazing how, something that simple has that much to offer, now one question, this guitar uses a upside down control plate, this is first the pots then the switch, wondering if someone here has wiring diagrams with this reversed controls?

Thanks a lot!