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

Maiden Voyage!

May 22

Tonight at church I plugged my recently assembled Telecaster into my MESA/Booge Mark III and a borrowed PRS 4x12.

It sounded bright, crisp, and full.  Very clear.  As a “guitar”, it sounds great. It’s just not the sound I’m looking for.  It almost sounds like I have humbuckers in it.  My strat with hotrail pickups has more twang. 

I’m not surprised or complaining, though.  Right now I have Jay Turser pickups in there.  There is a certain Telecaster twangy squank that I’m looking for that I really wasn’t expecting from these.  I have a set of Squire tele pickups that I can drop in and see how they sound. (I would have done that, but instead of two leads they have one lead with grounding wrapped around the hot lead, and I just didn’t feel like messing around with them when the Tursers were ready to go.)

But it is all part of the fun of this guitar.  It is my first build, and I’m looking forward to always be swapping parts and experimenting.  So for now I’ll enjoy it for what it is.

Intonation

May 21

I set the intonation on Saturday. It wasn’t even close!  I'm now embarrassed by my last post.  But it’s good now.

Setting it up

May 20

I’m sure the intonation is out.  I adjusted it by ear and it isn’t noticeably off.  But the strings are brand new and not staying in tune yet, so I’ll wait a week to really go at it.  The pickup heights aren’t adjusted yet, either.

I’m playing at church this Sunday night.  At the moment my plan is to play it at rehearsal, but have another guitar ready to go for the service just in case I’m having tuning/intonation issues.

BTW, I’m having a hard time adjusting to the vintage ashtray style bridge.  I have a flat six-saddle bridge that I can put on it, but I want to give the 3 compensated brass saddles a whirl.

I have a feeling that this guitar will never be “done”, and that I will always be modding, updating, swapping, comparing, etc.  

Let the fun begin!

It's done!

On May 20th I finished putting it together. Unfortunately, I didn’t have either of my good amps at the house, so it had to take its maiden voyage through a crappy little practice amp (which means I can’t comment on its tone or twang yet), but it works!

More to tell

Probably need some more room to explain what went on.

More to come

When I get a chance, I'll provide some more detail.