Sophomore Outing

June 5

Played the Tele again at church last night and had a totally different experience than I last described.

For starters, I’m getting used to the guitar.  At first the shape, the Wilkinson bridge, the neck… everything… felt awkward.  Also, I was handling it like a Strat or Les Paul.  But I’ve been spending a lot of time with it, and I’m getting used to it.  I’m also falling in love in the process!

As for that “Telecaster twangy squank” that I said it didn’t have... well, I was wrong.  It was in there.  I just had to find it.  It’s actually got a nice twang.

The neck pickup is kinda muddy, but both pickups together sound deliciously full, and I’m very happy with the tone and bite of the bridge pickup.  

Last night I ran it through my (modest*) pedal board, but I was very tempted to plug straight into the amp for totally unadulterated Tele tone. But this is church, which means  a U2-style echo is often required.  I rarely stepped on the distortion pedal because I didn’t want any distraction from the great clean tones. Overall, the band was WAY too loud, but I was told that the bridge pickup really cut through the mix.

I had an Allen wrench with me and kept fine-tuning the bridge saddles throughout the night. I also did some fine-tuning on the intonation afterwards.

*DOD Wah/volume pedal  >  MXR Phase 90  > Boss DS-1 Distortion  > Behringer Tremolo > Boss DSD-2 Delay > Amp