liddas Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Still not 100% convinced.
>
> I know I can't trust my ears. 1995 and 1997: yes,
> Keith's tele's sounded somehow sharper, and
> "tawngier" for what it means. Wouldn't be
> surprised if the hb was paired with a single. BUT
> 2006, JJF, THAT, to me, sounds absolutely like a
> hb alone.
>
> Now, all the pics show that Keith had the selector
> in the bridge position, and we know that this
> means neck. So, if you hear a single, we need to
> conclude that his teles equipped with the blender
> as gwen noted
>
> (by the way I have a blender on my strato and it
> works great
>
> [
www.kinman.com]
> selections.pdf ).
>
> Overall, I LOVE the HB alone sound on a telecaster
> (provided it is a good hb and not those shitty pu
> fender puts on its mexican teles these days!), I
> love fenders sounding "dark". Never was a great
> fan of the twang ...
>
> C
Sorry my dear friend Liddas, but it is total crap what you're saying here.
First, all this talk about "blending pots"on Tele's: yes this was true for the very first two years of the Broadcaster. Fender wanted that the guitarist could play bass lines, so they installed a blender pot with a very dark and muddy sound. As soon as the tele was released, it wasn't the jazz players whom liked the Tele, but it were the mid-west cowboys who picked up on it, as the tele had all the treble they needed to pierce through a mix in a crowded jukejoint. By 1952, Fender recognized this and changed the circuitry so that you could select both pickups seperately. Still, the neck pickup sounded muddy, and most guitarists started clipping the 5 mfd capacitor between the switch and the volume pot from the circuit. Fender changed the circuit again in 1967, when they didn't install that 5 mfd cap anymore.
With all Tele's: the switch pointed towards the volume pot means BRIDGE position, not neck. It has been this way since the earliest 1949 Broadcaster and never has changed. This is the way it works on all of Keith's Tele's. The signature Keith sound -aggressive, biting, loud, rough- is THE typical sound of a very good Telecaster bridge pickup. Many people think that Tele bridge pickups sound weak and trebly, but then they never heard of played a good one. A good Tele pickup is as strong as a P90, and can be just as loud as any good PAF (which is a low output humbucker by itself). JJF in 2006: that's the sound of a very good, aggressive bridge pickup through a cranked Fender Twin. By the way, he used the black Custom Tele for JJF in 2006, and this guitar has always sounded more aggressive than his regular Tele's. Micabre has a hollow, phase-like quality to the sound (typical of light weight '50's Tele's), the black Custom sounds more aggresive with more mids, more like a good P90.
But really: in the 70's Keith only used the middle position on tracks like Tumbling Dice, YCAGWYW, sometimes Happy, and one time Wild Horses (Knebworth). If he wanted a darker sound he never switched to the humbucker, but he would play his Zemaitis, or played his black Custom Tele with the better Wide Range Humbucker. It simply is a known fact: neck pickups on tele's just don't sound that good. It is due to the fysics of the guitar. You can improve it by installing a low output humbucker, but still: you play a Tele for its bridge pickup, and sometimes the middle position, not for the neck position. If you want a great neck position sound, take a Strat.
Mathijs