NGD(S): Deluxe Nashville Telecaster

[tjcurtin1]

Lovely - happy NGD! I'll have to go on line to give this a listen; sounds like I'd like those pups, too, for the same reason.

[Robert****]

Nice! You park it next to your Ferrari on the driveway?

[marnold***]

Nice! You park it next to your Ferrari on the driveway?

Heh. More like the '03 Buick

I wanted to make sure to get as much natural light as possible. In dim or fluorescent light it almost looks grey. Of course the grain that shows through got washed out.

[marnold***]

OK, as promised, here are some clips so you know for sure it happened. All of them were recorded using my Jet City retubed with JJs. Tone controls are at noon with the presence at about 1:00. The clean on is on the crunch channel with the preamp at about 9:00. The dirty is on the crunch channel with the preamp at about noon. It's the same riff repeated. I go through positions 1 (bridge) through 5 (neck). It's just to give you a taste of the pickups. I'm mic'd with my Rode NT-USB straight into audacity. It's my first time recording with this mic. Please note that this is in a room with fluorescent lighting, a computer, and a space heater going--still no noise Please be gentle. I'm a terrible guitarist.

Clean

Dirty

Next I go back to the clean tone but I add some reverb from my Digitech Polara's plate setting. I ham-fist my way through the beginning of Sultans of Swing. As you can tell I am struggling with string muting and keeping my volume even. I can play it much more cleanly with a pick but that's not very Knopfler-esque, is it. Once again, please be gentle. I LOVE how this sounds, even if my ability can't match the sound. (After listening again, I should've cut back on the gain a bit to make it cleaner. Ah, well.)

Sultans test (apologies to Mark Knopfler, et al)

[tjcurtin1]

Hey Rev - nice going! The Sultan's clip has just the right sound to my ears, and your mastery of it is coming along really well. Big points to you for putting it out there. I know myself how different it feels and how things go once you hit that 'record' button. If you're anything like me, I sound better 'when no one is listening'

[marnold***]

Hey Rev - nice going! The Sultan's clip has just the right sound to my ears, and your mastery of it is coming along really well. Big points to you for putting it out there. I know myself how different it feels and how things go once you hit that 'record' button. If you're anything like me, I sound better 'when no one is listening'

Thanks!

Absolutely. When record is hit or I'm in a guitar store, it's like I've suffered a minor stroke

I should have mentioned that the guitar is tuned to E flat in case anyone has perfect pitch.

[tjcurtin1]

When ... I'm in a guitar store, it's like I've suffered a minor stroke

I laughed out loud at that one - I know too well what you mean!

[marnold***]

I "auditioned" several resistor/capacitor combos (all with the two components connected in parallel) and decided that the 680 picofarad cap & 150 Kohm resistor combo sounded best to my ear. "YMMV", as they say.

I'm beginning to think that the volume pot taper is fine but the treble roll off is so severe that it makes the volume drop seem worse. The problem is that I don't have a stash of caps and resistors to try. I went cap-only on my Jackson and it can actually get shrill, but I can back off the tone to compensate. I'm going to do the neck-on thing at the same time. Kill two birds.

[marnold***]

I'm working with the place where I bought the guitar for a push-pull and treble bleed. I can try a number of different things that way. I'm also tweaking the setup a bit. It needed more neck relief since it has acclimated to my place. I'm surprised how straight the neck can be but still have minimal buzz. Apart from the minor point with the ends it clearly has very good fretwork.

[Zip]

Congrats! I own several Tele's, and they're a great working guitar. If not my first, they are always my backup at every gig.

Consider doing a control plate swap. Easy (and reversible) mod. Leo should have figured that out 60 years ago

[marnold***]

You mean reversing it so the volume is close and the switch is back further? I might do that since I've accidentally changed pickup selections whilst strumming a couple of times. From a gander under the hood, I should have plenty of wire to play with.

[marnold***]

Some minor brain surgery later . . . my Tele now has a Bourne push-pull pot for a neck-on mod and a treble bleed circuit consisting of a .001 uF (1000pF) cap with a 150 Kohm resister. I can use the volume pot as more than an on-off switch now! Very happy with the results and I have the classic Tele bridge-neck sound again which is one of my favorites in guitardom.

[marnold***]

I should add that I got to play it through the Marshall JCM900 half stack that they have for sale at the place I bought my guitar. The cleans on that amph are absolutely glorious with my new Tele. The tech there just shook his head and sighed and said, "Great. I'm going to have to buy a Nashville Tele now." Apparently I'm a GAS typhoid Mary.

[tjcurtin1]

that works both ways - sounds like you have to buy a Marshall half stack now...

[marnold***]

Just wanted to follow up on this thread:

I really love this guitar. All the specs are like they were made for me specifically. I love the taller frets, the flatter radius, and the noiseless pickups. A real eye-opener is the locking tuners. I now wonder why they aren't on every guitar. They make string changes so easy and the tuning stability is great. I worried a bit about being able to detune a half step, but there's plenty of room for that. Adding the push-pull pot for a neck-on mod and adding a treble bleed cap are must-have mods for me. I even like the all-pickups-on setting for a pseudo acoustic sound. The only problem was that I had to fiddle with pickup heights for a long time to get them properly balanced.

My only complaint is the weight. It weighs a metric ton. That probably also explains why it is so loud acoustically and sustains so well. I'm a very happy camper. It also sounds great with my Carvin X-60. That's a great little amph.