NGD: I refitted a MIM Telecaster back to a more Vintage look and sound

William Williamson

http://i.imgur.com/gHZleYp.jpg

To cut a long story short (although you can review videos #1 and #2 in the playlist below if you care enough to sit through a few minutes of discussion), I got rid of my MIJ Strat because it ended up being the worst of two worlds: neither vintage nor superstrat. I went for a Tele because despite an earlier bad experience with telecasters, I found myself using the neck and bridge the most when I did use the strat - and someone offered a Part Ex I could hardly turn down.

It came very soiled, with loose controls and a really nasty looking cream pearloid pickguard - so I went about refitting it with a bakelite guard, CTS 250k pots, a sprague 0.047f capacitor and (because i am meant to be playing this!) a treble bleed circuit.

For sounds, I went with @TheGuitarWeasel Oil City pickups. After a really nice conversation with Ash we settled on a Honkey Tonk Angel in the neck and a super-early Tele pickup he winds called a "49'er". There's a demo in the second half of the below video (at 2 minutes)

RocknRollDave

Nice work! The black definitely looks way better than the vile pearloid thing, and wtf is that third pickup doing existing in the first place?!

proggy

That bridge pickup sounds f**king lush. Good choice.

William Williamson

RocknRollDave said:

Nice work! The black definitely looks way better than the vile pearloid thing, and wtf is that third pickup doing existing in the first place?!

I am reliably informed that it was 'what Nashville session players would do to their Teles to get Strat tones, to be more versatile when laying down studio tracks' but IMO it just sounds like an excuse for Fender to put out a model. 

proggy said:

That bridge pickup sounds f**king lush. Good choice.

Hells yeah - if you look at video 2/3 of the series I go over it but essentially an early Broadcaster pickup is much more P90 in terms of tonal characteristic than slightly later (but still achingly vintage) late 50's and early 60's pickups.