Tips for a Tele newb?

JohnLutz

Member
I've played humbuckers my whole life. I have the Axe dialed in nicely for my PRS singlecut. Just picked up a sweet Zane Tele with Rio Grande single coils. I'm really having trouble dialing in sounds that I like. Just running through bank 1 on 18.07 everything sounds kind of hollow and out of phase. No definition on the low strings. Distortions are horribly fuzzy and undefined.

I've had the guitar to the local music shop where it was played through a real amp by a real Tele player and he thought it sounded great.

What's the secret for dialing in a Tele on the Axe?

John
 
Finding a real Tele player to play it! :)

I am in the same boat as you. They always seem so bright and brittle to me.
 
Roy Buchanan used the thinnest, screechiest Tele sound ever IMHO, and sounded great, but most Tele players control the highs carefully for a fatter tone.
 
My american standard tele sounds amazing thru a wide array of amps. I tend to swap out a cab in place of any eq'ing.
Great thing about the Axe is that if something doesn't sound right, there are so many ways to alter the sound to get it to sound amazing.
 
I've played humbuckers my whole life. I have the Axe dialed in nicely for my PRS singlecut. Just picked up a sweet Zane Tele with Rio Grande single coils. I'm really having trouble dialing in sounds that I like. Just running through bank 1 on 18.07 everything sounds kind of hollow and out of phase. No definition on the low strings. Distortions are horribly fuzzy and undefined.

I've had the guitar to the local music shop where it was played through a real amp by a real Tele player and he thought it sounded great.

What's the secret for dialing in a Tele on the Axe?

John

A few things I've found to be super beneficial of using my Tele:

1. Tele's pair so well with a thicker sound. If you've tracked a humbucker based guitar, double track with a Tele. It's such a great guitar for exactly that.

2. Don't be afraid to role around that Tone knob to get a sound that's less brittle. I've found that it's not like a Les Paul or Strat where you normally keep it maxed, a slight twist will smooth out those highs and make it a little easier for single tracked guitars.
3. Tele's sound amazing thru the older based amps (tweeds, deluxe's, ac 30's, etc.). I've found that they help bring the jangle out of those amps.

Just my two cents. :)
 
I'm using the nuclear tone, or whatever the swart is called , with my tele and it sounds radical.

Also a 121 mic on the cab helps darken it up a bit, 57 can be a bit harsh with a tele I've found.
 
Are the pickups maybe wired funky? I regularly switch between my EVH Wolfgang and my MIM Telecaster with barely a change in sound. Although the stock pickups on the MIM are ceramic and kinda hot so that may have something to do with it.
 
If you have presets for an LP with humbuckers, where you have treble or presence cranked up in the amp or EQs, you might have to dial that back. Of course different cabs can make a world of difference in the sound, and then the mic choices also makes a substantial (but lesser) difference. Also, the extent to which you are accustomed to scooping out the mids may need to be cranked back.

I almost always play a strat with 3 single coils, 5-position switch. Some amps sound great with a given pickup position but not so good with others. It just takes time and experimentation to find little combinations that make your heart sing. Before this, I've never had a fancy classic amp, always something like a Crate G-60 or some Line6 gear. I tended to use and prefer the same pickup position (between saddle and middle position) for everything; but with the AxeFX I really use all the different positions and hear strongly different tones that sound good with different amp combos.
 
I play Axe a ton with a tele. Seconding that you probably need treble and presence down with a tele. I find a tele with the Deluxe Tweed a magical combo, just as in real life. I feel like I never understood what a tele bridge PU was for until I plugged it into my real Tweed Deluxe. When the amp drives, it kills a ton of high end and the balance between the high end killed by the amp and the excessive brightness of the guitar creates a world of magical sweet spots in the interaction between the guitar volume and tone controls and the amp. Tend to have treble quite high on the amp, just like in real life, the Tweed is a dark amp and I like the treble almost all the way up. You might also need to jack up the input trim on a given amp relative to the settings for a humbucker guitar to give you a similar range of gain with the same patch.

Try the Deluxe Tweed with the AC20 cab. It's a great pairing. Also, I have had teles with a lack of definition on the low string, particularly with the neck PU. Using bridge helps tremendously there.
 
FWIW, a Tele and a Plexi is magical.

This.

I've been using my Tele with slightly modified Plexi 100W High amp sim with OwnHammer Marshall pre-rola G12H's. Drive 4-6, bass 5, middle 8, treble 8-9, presence 4, KT66 tubes, Speaker Low Res 7.2. G&L Telecaster with Fender nocaster pickups (Alnico 3). That's my tone atm.

You definitely don't have to tweak that much to get a decent tone, at least with Marshall amps. Almost any other Marshall amp will do with almost default settings. WITH a right cab of course (OH, CK, FAS).

If you end up trying out my settings, note that you might need to lower the treble a little because I use Snake Oil's or Pyramid's vintage string sets. They tend to have a less clang or high end with them, but that's the way I like them. Your guitar will most probably sound very different anyway.

Oh, and you can't go wrong with a Tweed amp with treble and drive cranked.
 
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Also, I have had teles with a lack of definition on the low string, particularly with the neck PU. Using bridge helps tremendously there.

I used to have this problem a lot with my Tele. I compensated it in my Plexi preset with turning up the Speaker Low Res. A good IR also works wonders.
 
Roy Buchanan used the thinnest, screechiest Tele sound ever IMHO, and sounded great, but most Tele players control the highs carefully for a fatter tone.

I'll see your Buchanan and raise you a Steve Howe.

I recently put a Bkp Piledriver in my tele. Still sounds like a tele, but a lot fuller and matches my humbucker guitars. Great with plexi, vox and tweed style amps
 
I've always played a Tele so don't really have any comparison. Never had much of a problem getting a tone I'm happy with from the Axe but what I would say is that I have found a lot of the IRs rather ice-picky. Dialling down the high-res in the speaker tab can help eliminate this but I'm finding the new UR IRs much less problematic in this regard, especially since the 18.07 FW update. The right IR makes all the difference.
 
You need to have presets dialed in for just the tele. Having a patch made for a HB guitar is going to sound bad.

I have my presets marked with an H,S or a T. That gives me instant visual info on what it was dialed in for.

Even a strat will have a different feel. Humbuckers WAY different.
 
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