{"id":27,"date":"2013-07-03T20:29:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-03T20:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.digitaldin.com\/?p=27"},"modified":"2013-07-03T20:29:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-03T20:29:00","slug":"my-telecaster-modded-to-the-extreme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.digitaldin.com\/?p=27","title":{"rendered":"My Telecaster &#8211; Modded to the Extreme!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-8OXKNIzEaTo\/UdSEDYr_6sI\/AAAAAAAAE7A\/JRkhI4RhU68\/s1600\/IMG_20130502_150535.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"300\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-8OXKNIzEaTo\/UdSEDYr_6sI\/AAAAAAAAE7A\/JRkhI4RhU68\/s400\/IMG_20130502_150535.jpg\" width=\"400\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>So yeah, I have this habit of modifying pretty much every guitar or bass I own. I think that the only guitar I haven&#8217;t tricked out might be my Robot Guitar, and that&#8217;s simply because it has some complex electronics that I don&#8217;t want to mess up.<\/p>\n<p>So anyway, my MIM (Made In Mexico) Standard Tele, which I <i>earned <\/i>with Fender sales back when I worked for a major music store in 2002 or so, has been getting the Frankenstein treatment almost since the day I received it. I started by swapping out the plain white pickguard for the cool pearloid black one you see in the photo &#8211; and I didn&#8217;t stop there.<\/p>\n<p>I think now that the only parts left on the guitar that are original are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Neck<\/li>\n<li>Body<\/li>\n<li>Nut<\/li>\n<li>Bridge plate<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><u>Everything else<\/u> has been upgraded.<\/p>\n<p>The pickups and electronics are one of the latest upgrades; I kept the original MIM pickups for a long time, and I had previously put in a 4-way switch. This allowed for standard Neck\/Neck+Bridge\/Bridge switching PLUS a 4th position for Neck+Bridge with Series (rather than Parallel) wiring. From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guitar-mod.com\/rg_4wayinfo.html\" target=\"_blank\">Rothstein Guitars<\/a>, I provide you with a well-worded understanding of the upgrade:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>Adding a 4-way switch to a Tele is one of my absolute favorite mods. Without any visual differences to the instrument you get a totally different and really really useful 4th sound, namely bridge and neck pickups in series. Normally, when 2 pickup are combined in position 2 of a Telecaster, they are wired in parallel. This is a fine and very classic Fender sound. The nice thing about the 4-way mod is that you don&#8217;t lose this sound, as the classic parallel sound still remains in position 2. However, you gain this really beefy tone with the added series connection in position 4. It provides a noticeably thicker and louder sound that is a bit darker as well. In esssence, you&#8217;ve taken the 2 single coil pickups and combined them to become a humbucker in this position. I like to kick this position in for solos.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guitar-mod.com\/rg_4wayinfo.html\" target=\"_blank\">Visit that page<\/a> for wiring diagrams and further information.<\/p>\n<p>So, the pickups always sounded good, but my GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) kicked in, and I got a set of No-Caster Tele pickups. (The No-Caster was an early 50&#8217;s model of the Tele, so-called because Leo Fender had to remove the original name, &#8220;Broadcaster,&#8221; from the labels due to a trademark lawsuit over the name. Hence, the guitar had no &#8220;name&#8221; on it other than Fender, and became known as the No-Caster.) My new pickups are faithful recreations of the pickups in that guitar, down to the winding, wire style and gauge, and cloth covered wiring. And they sound fabulous.<\/p>\n<p>When I was upgrading my Tele Bass (for another post) I came across a company called &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.toneshapers.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">ToneShaper<\/a>.&#8221; They create pre-wired, modular systems for replacing controls on popular guitars. Wanting to upgrade to better quality electronics, I figured I&#8217;d take the leap; they even had a setup that allowed for the 4-way switching &#8211; AND the reversed electronics I favor (putting the switch for the pickups at the bridge end of the control plate, more like a Strat, and the volume knob at the neck side of the plate.) And the guitar sounds STELLAR &#8211; between the clean, improved wiring, and the excellent pickups, it sounds like a million bucks.<\/p>\n<p>So what else have I changed out? Well, the tuning machines were average, and I HATE poking my fingers with the E-string when stringing, so I got a set of Fender locking tuners. SO much easier to re-string. Also, they stay in tune better, and have better tuning action. And they dropped right in, with no modification, and you can barely see a difference. Very &#8220;OEM&#8221; upgrade.<\/p>\n<p>I also put a set of Graphtech saddles on the bridge, and put a custom neck plate (with classic 80&#8217;s Fender artwork) on the guitar. I also got a pair of knobs to replace the original flat-tops &#8211; they feature a glass jeweled top in almost exactly the same color as the guitar; normally I don&#8217;t like flashy knobs, but they look totally money. Finally, a set of straplocks to keep the thing from falling to the floor&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>All in all, this guitar is finished. Plays well, sounds amazing, and has custom features and plenty vibe to spare.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;Next (?)<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So yeah, I have this habit of modifying pretty much every guitar or bass I own. I think that the only guitar I haven&#8217;t tricked out might be my Robot Guitar, and that&#8217;s simply because&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.digitaldin.com\/?p=27\" class=\"more-link\">Read more<\/a>\n\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.digitaldin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.digitaldin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.digitaldin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.digitaldin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.digitaldin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.digitaldin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.digitaldin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.digitaldin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.digitaldin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}