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Post subject: Telecaster Change
Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2016 11:29 am
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I made a change to my tele yesterday.

Stock:

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New pickguard, switch, minihum neck pickup, and mini rails bridge pickup:

Image

I only had 5 minutes to noodle around with it after I finished. It was a fun change but I think pot changes are in the near future.


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Change
Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2016 1:27 pm
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Very nice job , congrat :)


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Change
Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2016 10:56 am
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Thanks, Stratele52! :)


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Change
Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2016 1:08 pm
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I will be changing the pots to 500k. Any recommendations on a capacitor change? :?:


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Change
Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2016 3:31 am
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dshalfstack wrote:
I will be changing the pots to 500k. Any recommendations on a capacitor change? :?:



On my 52 Tele RI, I lput a 0.047 mfd


Last edited by stratele52 on Sun Feb 14, 2016 11:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Change
Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2016 10:51 am
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stratele52 wrote:
With 500K pot, sound is darker.

Just clearing this up:
On pots, bigger value = brighter, lower value = darker. If that's a standard Tele, the original pots should be 250K, so the change to 500K makes it brighter.
(On caps, it's the other way; lower value = brighter, higher value = darker.)

The cap value is a very personal thing. For a mini humbucker combo (neck and bridge), Seymour Duncan suggests 500K pots, .047uF caps. Personally, I think a Tele should be bright to the point of being shrieky (I find it's easier to tame brightness than to brighten a dull sounding guitar...), so maybe test how you'd like .033uF.
And don't forget the universe of No-Load tone pots, treble bleed mods etc.

And I agree with st52 on this: the guitar looks nice :wink:


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Change
Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2016 11:22 am
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jmattis wrote:
stratele52 wrote:
With 500K pot, sound is darker.

Just clearing this up:
On pots, bigger value = brighter, lower value = darker. If that's a standard Tele, the original pots should be 250K, so the change to 500K makes it brighter.
(On caps, it's the other way; lower value = brighter, higher value = darker.)

The cap value is a very personal thing. For a mini humbucker combo (neck and bridge), Seymour Duncan suggests 500K pots, .047uF caps. Personally, I think a Tele should be bright to the point of being shrieky (I find it's easier to tame brightness than to brighten a dull sounding guitar...), so maybe test how you'd like .033uF.
And don't forget the universe of No-Load tone pots, treble bleed mods etc.

And I agree with st52 on this: the guitar looks nice :wink:


+1, I change my answer


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Change
Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2016 3:17 pm
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jmattis wrote:
stratele52 wrote:
With 500K pot, sound is darker.

Just clearing this up:
On pots, bigger value = brighter, lower value = darker. If that's a standard Tele, the original pots should be 250K, so the change to 500K makes it brighter.
(On caps, it's the other way; lower value = brighter, higher value = darker.)

The cap value is a very personal thing. For a mini humbucker combo (neck and bridge), Seymour Duncan suggests 500K pots, .047uF caps. Personally, I think a Tele should be bright to the point of being shrieky (I find it's easier to tame brightness than to brighten a dull sounding guitar...), so maybe test how you'd like .033uF.
And don't forget the universe of No-Load tone pots, treble bleed mods etc.

And I agree with st52 on this: the guitar looks nice :wink:


Thanks much! Yes, this is a standard tele and it has 250k pots. Switching to the minihum and the dual rails made it quite dark. I can adjust the EQ on my amp to get a sound I like but I'm thinking 500k pots will give much more flexibility in that regard. So, what is the stock capacitor? .047uF, .033uF, something else?? I must admit, I did not pay attention to the capictor during my project.


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Change
Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2016 12:16 am
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Fender wiring diagrams for (most) current models are on the product page, under the "support" tab.
All published diagrams are here: Fender Support Service Diagrams - just click the "downloads" to unfold the list.

The stock cap in American Standard Teles is .022uF, in Mexican Standards it's .05uF. But: pots and caps are cheap, so test what you like for that particular guitar/pickups combo.


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Change
Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2016 8:10 am
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dshalfstack wrote:
jmattis wrote:
stratele52 wrote:
With 500K pot, sound is darker.

Just clearing this up:
On pots, bigger value = brighter, lower value = darker. If that's a standard Tele, the original pots should be 250K, so the change to 500K makes it brighter.
(On caps, it's the other way; lower value = brighter, higher value = darker.)

The cap value is a very personal thing. For a mini humbucker combo (neck and bridge), Seymour Duncan suggests 500K pots, .047uF caps. Personally, I think a Tele should be bright to the point of being shrieky (I find it's easier to tame brightness than to brighten a dull sounding guitar...), so maybe test how you'd like .033uF.
And don't forget the universe of No-Load tone pots, treble bleed mods etc.

And I agree with st52 on this: the guitar looks nice :wink:


Thanks much! Yes, this is a standard tele and it has 250k pots. Switching to the minihum and the dual rails made it quite dark. I can adjust the EQ on my amp to get a sound I like but I'm thinking 500k pots will give much more flexibility in that regard. So, what is the stock capacitor? .047uF, .033uF, something else?? I must admit, I did not pay attention to the capictor during my project.


First, let me say that you did a nice job on the PU change-out. Please forgive my ignorance, but, although I have been playing for quite a few years, I'm unfamiliar with terminology like dark etc. Not something we used back in my days, well at least I don't think they did. When you say dark, are you referring to a more muddy sound. That term I am familiar with. One thing I would hate to lose on a Tele, is that nice bright sound it is so well known for. Did you lose any of that when you made these changes?


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Change
Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2016 1:15 pm
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F-Stop wrote:
dshalfstack wrote:
jmattis wrote:
stratele52 wrote:
With 500K pot, sound is darker.

Just clearing this up:
On pots, bigger value = brighter, lower value = darker. If that's a standard Tele, the original pots should be 250K, so the change to 500K makes it brighter.
(On caps, it's the other way; lower value = brighter, higher value = darker.)

The cap value is a very personal thing. For a mini humbucker combo (neck and bridge), Seymour Duncan suggests 500K pots, .047uF caps. Personally, I think a Tele should be bright to the point of being shrieky (I find it's easier to tame brightness than to brighten a dull sounding guitar...), so maybe test how you'd like .033uF.
And don't forget the universe of No-Load tone pots, treble bleed mods etc.

And I agree with st52 on this: the guitar looks nice :wink:


Thanks much! Yes, this is a standard tele and it has 250k pots. Switching to the minihum and the dual rails made it quite dark. I can adjust the EQ on my amp to get a sound I like but I'm thinking 500k pots will give much more flexibility in that regard. So, what is the stock capacitor? .047uF, .033uF, something else?? I must admit, I did not pay attention to the capictor during my project.


First, let me say that you did a nice job on the PU change-out. Please forgive my ignorance, but, although I have been playing for quite a few years, I'm unfamiliar with terminology like dark etc. Not something we used back in my days, well at least I don't think they did. When you say dark, are you referring to a more muddy sound. That term I am familiar with. One thing I would hate to lose on a Tele, is that nice bright sound it is so well known for. Did you lose any of that when you made these changes?


Yes, I guess you could say the change made the sound "muddier". Although I think "darker" is a better description. In my mind, a dark sound can be good while a muddy tone is rarely good but that's just me. I'm hopeful that the 500k pot change will brighten things up somewhat.

If you like that Tele twang I would not recommend making the changes I made. It does clean up pretty well but it does not sound like a traditional Telecaster anymore.


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