Telecaster (warmer tone)

[sylnau]

There's something wrong with my guitar tone.
I would like the bridge pickup to be warmer and more present.
The neck pickup seems louder.

It's a Telecaster with a Lollar Regal (wide range humbucker) at the neck and a Special-T at the bridge.
The pots are all 250k (both volume, both tone). The capacitors are the cheap ceramic one at .022

Should I keet all the pot at 250k?
Should I change the capacitors for Orange Drop Capacitors... maybe .022 for the Regal and .047 for the Special-T?

What do you think?

My plan is to keep all the 250k pots but change the capacitors for some Orange Drop .022uf at the neck and .047uf at the bridge.
Good idea or bad idea?

[braaandooon]

I'd stick with 250k pots, the 500k's brighten things up some.

I usually like the sprague 192p .1uf caps on my guitars for maximum warmth and girth.

Body wood will get you the furthest as far as warmth, not sure of many mahogany bodied tele's, but the earlier indian squier vm tele's are made of indian mahogany and produce some of the warmest tele tones I've heard.

Edit: I'd also suggest playing around with pickup height to get both pickups in tune. Lowering the neck bucker or raising the bridge pup should help out alot. You'd probably be best served lowering the neck pup.

[Tristan]

Orange Drops caps are great but very midrangey, if you want a warm tone I would suggest Luxe caps like the ones on this website:
http://store.vcguitars.com/products/lux ... -1952-1958
Not Radio Luxe caps which are distributed by RS Guitarworks or RS Guitarworks (Jensen) caps, they are clearly inferior in my experience, especially if you're looking for a warmer and richer tone.

[skullservant]

Also dropping the neck pickup height or raising the bridge pickup height may balance your volume levels more!

[sylnau]

Thanks guys!

I verified how the K-Line Tele are setup since they are using the same Lollar pickup as I do.
Nash seems to do the same thing.

They have 500k (volume and tone) with Orange Drop .022 for the neck pickup (wide range).
And 250k (volume and tone) with Orange Drop .047 for the bridge pickup.

This is something I might try. Maybe I'll look for Luxe caps too.

[waltdogg]

I'd second Orange Drops being mid-rangy but that might have more to do with the guitar I have them in is wired up modern instead of 50's style. If the tone roll off is too muddy, try a treble bleed instead.

[sylnau]

What I can have here is:
Jensen Paper in Oïl
Orange Drop

[Tristan]

Look harder, whatever you do skip the Jensens, they're garbage.

[colin]

Maybe try a dual rail bucker in the bridge. You're only going to get minor differences with switching pots and caps.

It could also be that the Tele just isn't the right guitar for you Syl.

[sylnau]

It could also be that the Tele just isn't the right guitar for you Syl.

I want to give it a second chance.

[indianDYsummer]

WRHBs are pretty high output so you're gonna have trouble matching the neck position (more string vibration there too) with a tele bridge pickup. You could try adjusting heights but may find the neck pickup getting darker than youd like. Raising the bridge pickup will make it a bit louder but might also make it brighter/harsher sounding.

You could try a cap, but caps help mostly in the sweep of the tone knob and not much (if at all) with the tone knob at 10. You might be best off changing the bridge pickup entirely. Shrug. Your tele sounds like it sounds how it's supposed to tho.