Fat Tele now even Fatter!

FatTeleTom · June 28th, 2006, 03:06 PM

A longish story with a happy ending:

After winning the Glendale Tele in the '05 TDPRI fundraiser, my American Series Fat Tele has mostly been gathering dust. It's a great guitar, but the Glendale was just "more": lighter, more comfortable neck carve, more resonant, and just flat-out better sounding. Thus I was getting close to putting the Fat Tele up for sale.

Meanwhile, another quandry: I realized I've been missing the tones you can get out of a bridge position humbucker ever since I de-humbuckered an old "superstrat" copy a couple of years ago in favor of Fralin single coils.

I do have a couple of double-humbucker guitars--a 77 Ibanez Les Paul copy and an Ibanez Artcore 335 copy. But the Les Paul has slightly over-the-top Dimarzio pickups and needs some work, and just I haven't been able to get totally comfortable playing the Artcore, at least not for blues and soul stuff.

Part of the issue is that, given limited skills and limited playing time, trying to switch back and forth among guitars that were physically and tonally very different was probably not the best use of my time.

Last week, a solution hit me. After some research here and over at the FDP, and armed with my 20% off Guitar Center coupon, I picked up a Seymour Duncan Little '59 and slapped it into the bridge position on the Fat Tele.

The wiring options took a while to figure out, but with the 5-way switch that comes with the Fat Tele, I was able to get the following:

1) Neck humbucker
2) Neck single
3) Both p'ups in humbucker mode
4) Both p'ups in single-coil mode
5) Bridge humbucker

So far, I'm really diggin the results. Does it sound like a Les Paul? No. But it does sound good--real good, both clean and overdriven, and seems to be giving me the tonal options I was after.

Plus I can swap between the Glendale and the Fat Tele and get some very different tones, without feeling like I have to relearn a new instrument.

Thanks to all the folks who posted questions and opinions on single-coil-sized buckers--digging through those threads was really helpful in settling on a Little '59 as a good choice for my needs.

June 28th, 2006, 03:06 PM	#1 (permalink)
FatTeleTom Tele-Meister Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Evanston Age: 41 Posts: 184 3 Photos	Fat Tele now even Fatter! A longish story with a happy ending: After winning the Glendale Tele in the '05 TDPRI fundraiser, my American Series Fat Tele has mostly been gathering dust. It's a great guitar, but the Glendale was just "more": lighter, more comfortable neck carve, more resonant, and just flat-out better sounding. Thus I was getting close to putting the Fat Tele up for sale. Meanwhile, another quandry: I realized I've been missing the tones you can get out of a bridge position humbucker ever since I de-humbuckered an old "superstrat" copy a couple of years ago in favor of Fralin single coils. I do have a couple of double-humbucker guitars--a 77 Ibanez Les Paul copy and an Ibanez Artcore 335 copy. But the Les Paul has slightly over-the-top Dimarzio pickups and needs some work, and just I haven't been able to get totally comfortable playing the Artcore, at least not for blues and soul stuff. Part of the issue is that, given limited skills and limited playing time, trying to switch back and forth among guitars that were physically and tonally very different was probably not the best use of my time. Last week, a solution hit me. After some research here and over at the FDP, and armed with my 20% off Guitar Center coupon, I picked up a Seymour Duncan Little '59 and slapped it into the bridge position on the Fat Tele. The wiring options took a while to figure out, but with the 5-way switch that comes with the Fat Tele, I was able to get the following: 1) Neck humbucker 2) Neck single 3) Both p'ups in humbucker mode 4) Both p'ups in single-coil mode 5) Bridge humbucker So far, I'm really diggin the results. Does it sound like a Les Paul? No. But it does sound good--real good, both clean and overdriven, and seems to be giving me the tonal options I was after. Plus I can swap between the Glendale and the Fat Tele and get some very different tones, without feeling like I have to relearn a new instrument. Thanks to all the folks who posted questions and opinions on single-coil-sized buckers--digging through those threads was really helpful in settling on a Little '59 as a good choice for my needs.