
Another popular modification is the addition of a B-Bender, used by country guitarists to emulate the pedal steel (see below).
#Don rich telecaster pickups mod
The most common mod is the addition of ] pickups, used to fatten up the sound. The Telecaster is known for its many modifications though, and often is a guitar hot-rodder’s first pick. Accidental design couldn’t get much better. The bottom pickup, close to the bridge and mainly responsible for the Tele’s characteristic high tones, was originally designed with a faceplate ( like so) dubbed an “ashtray.” But since it would get in the way of so many player’s strumming hand, the ashtray would be ripped off in nearly every case, influencing future designs to forego the plate completely, leaving an uncovered and unfinished metal bracket encasing the pickup. One of the neat things about the Telecaster is an element nobody uses.

Distinguishing guitar models by their sound is usually a job only for guitar geeks, but the Tele’s clean treble cut can be heard a mile away by anyone. Maybe 2nd fiddle to its brother the ], championed by Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, the Tele (telly) is simply cooler, still in style today thanks to its boxier, understated design. Keep in mind that high-gain sounds here may also be a little gnarly – don’t look to this Tele for manicured, EQ-friendly saturations.īut if you’re seeking a guitar that sounds big and rich in detail, lets each string speak and will surprise you with how well it responds to your touch and attack, this meaty, mighty revived cult classic may be just the expressive instrument you’re looking for.The Fender Telecaster is perhaps the most iconic and revered electric guitar. We were likewise pleasantly surprised at how good that bridge pickup sounded through Marshall-type amps, even with Tube Screamer or DS-1–style circuits engaged for extra saturation.
#Don rich telecaster pickups full
And even if standard Teles are more your bag, you’re likely to feel quite at home, especially when playing through a clean Fender amp.Īnd while the CuNiFe humbucker can be a bit intense and wooly when run through overdrives, it sounds surprisingly jazzy, warm and full of detail through a clean amp, and fingerstyle players will love its fat but articulate voice. The Fender American Original ’70s Telecaster Custom will certainly work as an all-purpose Telecaster – that bridge pickup, paired with the three-saddle bridge, evokes all the compressed bite and twang you’d expect from a great Tele pickup. What’s more, it’ll add character, snap, weight and a dose of defiance to even delicate top-string partial chords and double-stops north of the ninth fret as well. Like a neck-position PAF (though with less sheer output), the CuNiFe Wide-Range Humbucker responds to big, beady lines in the lower and middle zones of the fretboard, and it sings with a certain dark sparkle on those long D- and A-string bends and growling, guttural grabs at the low-E around the 3rd fret. You won’t be using this humbucker for your palm-muted crunch riffs and metal chunk.


You already have some idea of where the Wide-Range sits sonically by virtue of it being in the neck position.

Using the individual tone controls for each pickup, you can find a variety of complex and grainy medium-body tonesįrankly, the CuNiFe magnets were not quite as powerful as Gibson’s – some have compared them to Alnico 3 magnets – but they did produce a rich and singular sound, one that would hibernate, albeit with some less-than-accurate reproductions, for around 40 years, until Fender found a new forge to build them on just a few years ago. Back in the early ’70s, in an effort to muscle in on some of Gibson’s increasing market share in a rock climate suddenly ruled by humbucking pickups, Fender brought in none other than Gibson’s own pickup guru Seth Lover to design what became the CuNiFe Wide-Range Humbucker, a distinctive, oversized hunk of metal with large bobbins and a three-by-three offset exposed pole-piece design that used threaded magnets made from a combination of copper, nickel and iron, a recipe previously favored for use in speedometers and tachometers.
