Tele Mod - Craig Andertons DIY projects for guitarist

[disto]

has anyone tried the telecaster rewiring found in the book Craing Anderton - DIY projects for guitarists?

is it worth it?

the project talks about metal cover on each pick-up i only have a metal cover over my neck pick-up can anyone explain this?!
do i need to buy a new pick-up for my bridge position?

plus the project also talks about a 5 position selector however it seems that s1a and b is a DPDT!!

http://distouk.tripod.com/cgi-bin/img/img.pl?id=guit - heres a link to some pics of my guitar on my site http://distouk.tripod.com

[stm]

first of all im not going to post scan or send anyone a copy of this project so if you dont have the book then dont ask!!!

There are more polite and preferrable ways to ask for help.  With this attitude you are excluding those who don't have the answer as well as some of us who might have it!!!

By the way, in the english language the use of three exclamation marks is equivalent to shouting!!!

[StephenGiles]

I quite agree with you stm, it was una postera de gente no como uno!!!!
Stephen

[disto]

ok im sorry!

i just wanted to make clear i wasnt going to scan the book in.

[Mark Hammer]

Well, given that the appropriate edits have been made (I gather so, since I see absolutelyno evidence of anything upsetting), the question remains of whether the Tele mods are worth doing.

Depends on what you want your Tele to be able to do.  I don't have the document in front of me, but I seem to recall very large value pots in there plus some series parallel switching.

If you try to do everything humanly possible to preserve high end in your guitar, then 1M pots will be useful.  IN other circumstances, some folks find they want lower value pots to load down the pickups and tame some of the high end.  What sounds "silky" to one player sounds "dry and brittle" to another.  Similarly, if a person is intent on running the instrument throuh a barrage of pedals, and setting the amp for stun, many of the various pickup combinations that are feasible turn out not to be audible.  If one's style is to play absolutely clean with as crisp a tone as is achievable, then many of those combinations are worth aiming for.

Go to the Stewart-MacDonald website and take a look at some of the wiring diagrams they have for the various "megaswitches" they have for sale.  Some of those involve dual-coil pickups, but some involve single coil, and may be of interest to you.  Though I generally find that Craig's taste and my own are similar, I know his taste in tone does not appeal to everyone.

(P.S.:  Your enthusiasm, humility, and conscientiousness are appreciated Disto.  Nice recovery.  )

[Harry]

Well I have not seen the book, but I assume the 2nd metal cover he's talking about is the one's on the old tele's, the ashtray bridge cover http://www.coreguitars.co.uk/fentele69.jpg. What is the mod for?

[(doug harrison)]

I don't have any books in front of me, either, but there is a five-way selector switch mod to a Telecaster that is worth doing. The version I tried used the existing tone control as a blend switch for one of the pickups; the switch reversed the phasing and pick-up combination (series out-of-phase, then parallel out-of-phase). I added a third pot and left the tone control alone. Basically, you get the three standard positions, plus two out-of-phase settings. That third knob brought out a lot of extra tones from just two single coil pickups.

[Harry]

Then thee's Deaf Eddie's 5-way mod. Same thing doug exdplained cept instead of parallell out of phase he's got series in phase.

[Mark Hammer]

I'm still waiting to see the wiring for the Jerry Donahue Telecaster.  This uses 2 pickups,with a Strat type neck pickup, and a 5 way switch that employs a series cap to nail some Strat-like tones with just a neck and bridge pickup.

[disto]

ah right ok it might be worth having a look at some of the mods then!!! im getting a odd buzz throught my amp.

this buzz reduces when you touch either the metal plate by the controls the plate by the bridge or the strings.

any ideas?

i opened it up to have a look and couldnt see any soldered joints that were bad apart from at the jack socket!
i did have one problem i took off the strings and the shaft on one of the tuning pegs poped out! so thats another thing to sort.

ashtray bridge cover

i dont think this is what craig was refering to, isnt that just a removable cover over the pickup and bridge?

[Gus]

go to the blue guitar site and find my tele 5 way gif ,  Three  standard and two in series in and out of phase.  Thats been on the web for years.

The fender 4 way switch and wiring is fun.

Can't direct link to blue guitar files.  Look in mis at blueguitar.org

Hey eddies looks like my circuit.    Mark remeber back in the older days at ampage when things were shared?.  I sent my schematic to Steve A. and he posted it years ago.  I did not see or find a wiring schematic like mine in books or on the web at that time.  I used the Yamaha switch I don't remember the other mega switch being out then.

http://www.deaf-eddie.net/drawings/5-tone.jpg

[Peter Snow]

Craig's diagram is a little confusing, but after looking at it for a few minutes, it seems to be logical enough.
What is confusing is that he refers to replacing the Tele 3-way pickup selector with a Strat 5-way (2-pole) switch, yet the diagram only shows 3 positions.
I believe he is referring to the old style Strat switch which was basically a 3-way but it was possible to put the lever "in between" the first and third positions shorting out the two adjacent terminals and thus giving 5 possible switch combinations.

If you look at the list of possible switch combinations on page 88 it makes it a little clearer. He refers to the combinations as A, A+B, B, B+C, and C.

I have not done this mod on my Yamaha Tele so I cannot tell you how it sounds.  I doubt I would do the cap mod as I never use the tone control on any of my guitars - I find it makes the tone too muddy .

I can't offer any explanation as to the grounding on the bridge pickup, but if there is no metal shield (underneath?), then you can't ground it. Case closed

It looks like he is sticking to the stock Tele volume control so perhaps you are thinking of another of his mods that involves a larger value pot, Mark?

Cheers,

Peter

[Mark Hammer]

Take a peek in issue 4 of DEVICE (http://hammer.ampage.org) and tell me if that's the diagram you are looking at.

[Peter Snowberg]

I did a C.A. Tele mod for somebody a bunch of years ago and I remember them liking it quite a bit.

This one (IIRC) gave you the original (1) lead only, (2) lead in parallel with bridge, & (3) bridge only, and it also added (4) bridge with treble cut, and (5) lead and bridge in series. There was also a DPDT toggle to select the phase of settings 2 and 5.

Setting 4 wasn't very useful (to me at least) and I have no idea what ever became of "The Butt Ugly Hillbillys" so I don't know if it was useful in performance. Maybe in front of a fuzz? In any case the other settings were all very useful.

[Peter Snow]

Take a peek in issue 4 of DEVICE (http://hammer.ampage.org) and tell me if that's the diagram you are looking at.

Hi Mark. No, I'm looking at page 87-88 in the "Do it youself Projects for Guitarists".  The switches used seem to be different - two 3-way switches; one is 2-pole the other is 3-pole.  The final result may similar though .

Cheers,

Peter

[Peter Snow]

... that seems confusing. The switches mentioned in my previous post were the ones in Device 3, not the ones in the DIY book.

Peter

[lvs]

As a sidenote, here's some info on Donahue's Tele circuit.

http://web.archive.org/web/20031222084722/http://guitarrage.virtualave.net/guitar/mods_electrical/fender/telecaster_jerry_donahue.html

At some selector positions, more highs are achieved by disconnecting the tone pot. The special cap + resistors do not play a part in there. They are only active in position 4, of which a simplified diagram can be seen at
http://web.archive.org/web/20040308125402/http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~mic/info/guitar/JD-Telecaster-Wiring

In position 4, two out of phase pickups in parallel create a skinny sound because the difference in phase makes low frequencies cancel each other out in favor of highs, that's no news. Adding a cap into one branch (in series with one of the 2 pickups) causes a further change of relative phase and the tone will become different again. A neck and bridge pickup that are out of phase and in parallel and with the right cap (10 nano-ish) at one side, can approximate a N+M Strat in between sound. This sound can also be obtained without the resistors.

From another view, this also provides an alternative and even somewhat adjustable (cap value) way to make parallel out-of-phase sounds without having to connect one pickup backwards.

Sorry about hijacking the thread for a moment, this was just meant as some additional info.

[Mark Hammer]

A very grateful tip of the hat to you.  Ever since reading the enthusiastic reviews of the JD Tele some years back, I always wondered what was going on in there.  I don't think it's that much of a thread hijack, since the goal is more variation from a 2-pickup Tele, and this wiring arrangement obviously aims dead on at that.

It raises a more general topic of interest, and that is the expanded range of sounds available when you go past simply combining the whole range of a pickup out of phase with another, and moves towards being selective about what opposite phase content gets combined and in what proportion.  In the JD example, the series cap chops much of the lows and mids out, such that the cancellation produced by opposite phase is restricted, or rather emphasized, at a certain part of the spectrum.

If you think of it, the JD Tele is a phase shifter!!

[Harry]

hey that's pretty interesting

[Ge_Whiz]

Incidentally, for all good things involving guitar rewiring, google the 'Guitarnuts' site.