LPish Tele suggestions

Hey,
I used to have a custom tele style guitar, that was a mahogany body with a maple cap, a beautiful birdseye maple neck with what I think was a rosewood board. It had a Seymour Duncan JB humbucker in the bridge, and it was one of the raunchiest guitars I have ever played...

As far as output goes, you've got PAF's, then a bit further along normal modern Les Paul, and then even further along the scale was this thing. You could always go lower output pickup/s if you want less crunch and squeal, but I absolutely loved the crunch and squeal.

Mine had a tele single coil in the neck which was an utter waste of time. Would've been better off with another humbucker like a SD 59 in the neck.

I don't know how it would be with a maple 50's style neck, but being bolt on, you could always try both maple, rosewood or anything else for that matter and see what you prefer. I love maple boards too, but I think a mahogany guitar with humbuckers should have some sort of dark board like rosewood or ebony.

Mine had a Strat style hard tail 6 saddle bridge, which I'd not hesitate in using again. Recommend its worth looking at...

Hope this has helped...

 

This was my Mahogany Tele with a maple cap and bucker...might give you some ideas

 

Tune-o-matic might help give it that sound. If you wanted to use a traditional tele bridge check out the sound clips of Seymour Duncan L'il '59 on their website. They also make a pearly gates in a tele bridge size. I think that scale length has an effect on sound - it's one of the reason's why fender's are so "snappy" especially on the low strings. So for a more gibson sound you might want to see if you can get a neck built that's 24.75" conversion but still has the shape of a classic '50's.

 

Please forgive me as I'm not trying to self promote....but I have a suggestion.Maybe go with a Top loaded Half-bridge Pinebody Pinecaster.The toploading and half bridge for me gives it a great feel first and foremost plus the half bridge with the pup mounted directly to the body gives it some bigger balls....They make very good R&R guitars....clean up really good and are just plain cool.

 

That looks amazing. Can we hear a bit about it.Type of finish, hardware etc.

 

if you're not set on DIY, Fender's FMT, QMT & Spalted Teles have Les Paul-ish specs....

 

No highjacking on my end.....I'll link my thread on these builds.

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home-depot/150917-southern-3-planksters-begins.html#post1789919

 

Although it's not maple-capped or a LP scale, it is a 1-piece Mahogany body w/ contours. The Strat Neck is mahogany/ebony by Musikraft w/ 6150's. Originally, I intended on putting a Hmbkr in the neck, but went w/ a Mini in the end. Bridge pup is a Seth Lover. Weight is 7 lbs even. With a Tru-Oil finish & the ebony fretboard, the neck plays super fast...Wired it w/ 300k pots & a .033 cap.

 

I saw a youtube video, linked from TDPRI of Redd Volkaert playing the Allman Bros tune, Jessica on a blackguard Telecaster (no humbuckers, no TOM). His tone was darn close to Dicky Betts. I must be his fingers. (Ok, that and his pedal board.)

(http://www.tdpri.com/forum/telecast...d-thread.html?highlight=Redd+Volkaert+Jessica)

 

Here's a Mahogony Core Maple Capper.
Phat Cat in the neck, but what really turns it into a LP-ish is the EMG active controls, which include a 25dB pre-amp and an SPC pot which increases mids while decreasing highs and lows, it really turns a SC tone into a HB tone, hope that helps. You can see the Mahogony in the lower horn. The mahogony really makes a big difference in tone, taking you into Gibson territory, but the active electronics make it possible to get classic country twang AND Gibby beef.
S-90 in the bridge btw. Actually, what I really like about this guitar is the sheer versatility, you're not locked into a Fender vs. Gibson tone, this guitar will do all of them, and well.

 

I love that idea, another fellow great mind LOL!....check out my 69 RI Mod.

 

Drak, that thing is beautiful, I'm speechless wow!!!...love the tortoise pup top and the Longhorn rout!

 

That's a money shot...great looking Drak! I don't know what I'd do w/ all those knobs though...lol?

 

In my view, as someone who(ducking for cover) loves the LP tone, there are a few things that give it "that sound". Firstly, scale length. That growly, gutteral kind of low end chunk in large part is due to scale length, IMHO. Second, the LP is a chunky, thick hunk of wood. That weight, again IMHO, is a huge reason for the sound. Combine that with 2 humbuckers and a heavy stopbar tail piece, and you get "that sound". Again, this is personal opinion, but I think you could get pretty close with the first two(scale length and heavy body weight). In fact, I'm in the planning stages of a guitar that has the short scale and chunky body of an LP, but a modified s-style shape. It'll be next year at the earliest before I can get started on it, but I'd be willing to bet in the end I get the very best of both worlds. That is my personal quest. I got close with the guitar in my avatar. It's a heavy ash body(the whole guitar weighs as much as an LP) with 2 humbuckers. A/B'd alongside my LP (before I sold it) it was almost indistiguishable from the Les Paul. The only difference I could detect was a little more "snappy" tone. Just slightly less "roundness". IMO, the 25.5" scale makes the difference. If the scale length were 24.75" I doubt I could tell them apart. Good luck on your own quest. If I were you I'd go with a thick (2") mahogany tele body with a 24.75" scale length neck and a set of humbuckers with vol., tone and coil splitters. You'd have to have the neck and body built for you(or build them yourself), but I bet you'd get real close to what you're looking for, and still be able to split the coils and get single coil like tones when you wanted them.

And Drak, what everybody else said. Sweet!

 

How about: Mahogony tele body and neck (maybe hollow with maple top) ebony fretboard. 24 3/4 scale, stopbar tailpeice, with 2 seymour duncun P-rails. Tele control plate but with an extra switch for pickup modes.

 

How important is the neck joint for the LP tone, feel and sustain? (set vs bolt on)

Jef

 

There are some great ideas and great looking guitars in this thread but, and I'm sorry if I'm oversimplifying here, why not try an SD 'Lil '59? No routing required.