Which presets are best for a telecaster

Keith White

Keith White

Experienced
Hey everyone. I just bought my first American standard telecaster. I know the telecasters are very sound specific so can someone guide me to the best tele.. country style presets. Either factory or Austin buddy Also which amp models are best for classic tele sounds. I want to learn how to play some of these extraordinary country licks I’ve been hearing
 
I'm sure the presets based on Vox-style amps (Morgan, Carr, Dr. Z) would get you going in theory. But I've always found that Teles sound best with amps that do mid-forward or darker tones well without sounding too compressed. Bright guitar into a dark-ish amp always sounds great to my ears. Do give the Tweed amps a go, btw.
 
Some of the presets I've heard you use in your videos would sound great with a Tele. Yes, teles have a unique tone, but they sound great with all levels of gain and types of amps. As far as suggestions for clean tele tones, swap the amp for a Nuclear Tone, Matchbox EF86, AC-20 EF86 Treble or Deluxe Verb Normal. Use the 'Output' type in the Output Compressor (Dynamics page) and set @ 4.00.

As far as IRs, I have been using the 1x12 G12T 57 A (Factory 1 328) and 1x12 Carol-Ann 57 E (Factory 1 178) panned L/R and really like the combination with a lot of amps.

There's some other things I like to do in the Amp block Speaker page to the SIC to enhance the high end and the Input EQ to help with the attack in the mids.
 
You can use a tele for anything. Country i would start with clean fenders, ac20,
Clean marshall jcm800 or plexi (yes!) etc.

Also take a mid gain amp and cut input trim in half, see how you like it.
 
Grab a Band-Commander and appropriate cab, throw a tube spring in front of it, plug in and you are done.
 
I recorded this awhile back with the 5F8 tweed twin model. Preset link in the description. But to be honest the "country" sound is a lot more about technique than anything else, especially the chicken pickin thing. Tele and compressor into pretty much any edge of breakup amp will do the job.

 
OrganicZed said:
I'm by no means an expert on country music. I just thought it odd to say that FAS has basically no presence in the country music scene and has never shown interest in it when an artist of that success was at one time an endorser.
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Yes, and he’s not anymore, which is a reversion to basically no presence.
 
Artist list definitely leans rock/metal/prog, but there's also several names that can throw down some serious country chops (ask Larry Mitchell or John Mayer if they can jam)...

I wonder if the main reason you don't see more interest from country artists has anything to do with less of a logistic hurdle. Instead of lugging around a bunch of heavy heads & 412 cabs, they often get their sound from a 1x10 combo and a straightforward (albeit "boutique") pedalboard. Trading that in for a rack & FRFR, IEMs, whatever, isn't offering much of a weight/space savings until you're talking about some of the larger names who have road crews anyhow.

I think reliability and consistency of tone would be a better argument toward those guys, but man, maybe it's just my experience... country & blues guys I've come across are the absolute fucking worst at hearing "mojo" from certain amps/pedals. They want their beer stained tweed BECAUSE of the beer stains.
 
Keith White said:
Hey everyone. I just bought my first American standard telecaster. I know the telecasters are very sound specific so can someone guide me to the best tele.. country style presets. Either factory or Austin buddy Also which amp models are best for classic tele sounds. I want to learn how to play some of these extraordinary country licks I’ve been hearing
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Hey Keith! @Keith White

You can use a Tele bridge pickup with almost any vintage Marshall humbucker bridge preset and it should work pretty great - a little clearer than a humbucker but still great rhythm tone, records well. I also like the Tele bridge with the the Bogner Blue XTC Vintage style with boost on.

For clean to crunchy/grindy rhythm (like Stones), a good Tele sounds great with a '59 Tweed Bassman or Tweed Deluxe or Twin. Also a BlackFace Deluxe (more country-ish for clean compressed chicken picking'-) as well as the Fender Brown amps.

Put a little clean boost in front of the amp to lift your pickups to fatten the tone -- Like a Microboost drive at default with Gain on 2 to 3.3.

Some players swear by a Tele into Vox/AC 20 Morgans/Divided by 13.

All these amps are in LiveGold (use Scenes 5-8 for s coils) and also the Naked Amps TonePacks, and there are a few Tele specific ones in naked Amps (Blackface Deluxe)

I also think Tele into the Robben Ford Dumble for both clean and dirty tones is cool. That should get ya started!
 
Keith White said:
I know the telecasters are very sound specific so can someone guide me to the best tele.. country style presets.
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This is the fun part for me. They are so specific that their character shines through every other preset. That addictive tele sting just cuts right through even when presets weren't intended to bring that out. I've been using a tele as my number 1 for almost two years now, and my favorites are AC-30, Bandmaster, and the Matchless. I've also had some success with the trainwreck stuff.

Really tho, my tele through anything is just too fun
 
austinbuddy said:
Hey Keith! @Keith White

You can use a Tele bridge pickup with almost any vintage Marshall humbucker bridge preset and it should work pretty great - a little clearer than a humbucker but still great rhythm tone, records well. I also like the Tele bridge with the the Bogner Blue XTC Vintage style with boost on.

For clean to crunchy/grindy rhythm (like Stones), a good Tele sounds great with a '59 Tweed Bassman or Tweed Deluxe or Twin. Also a BlackFace Deluxe (more country-ish for clean compressed chicken picking'-) as well as the Fender Brown amps.

Put a little clean boost in front of the amp to lift your pickups to fatten the tone -- Like a Microboost drive at default with Gain on 2 to 3.3.

Some players swear by a Tele into Vox/AC 20 Morgans/Divided by 13.

All these amps are in LiveGold (use Scenes 5-8 for s coils) and also the Naked Amps TonePacks, and there are a few Tele specific ones in naked Amps (Blackface Deluxe)

I also think Tele into the Robben Ford Dumble for both clean and dirty tones is cool. That should get ya started!
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I'd also add that some Teles can be bright, and rolling that tone knob back 8 is useful to smooth tones out.... and the Stone's Keith Richards rolls his Tele volume down to about 8 as well on all those great Stones riffs in Open G, and lets the cranked amp do the work/dials in just the amount of gain he needs that way...
 
austinbuddy said:
Hey Keith! @Keith White

You can use a Tele bridge pickup with almost any vintage Marshall humbucker bridge preset and it should work pretty great - a little clearer than a humbucker but still great rhythm tone, records well. I also like the Tele bridge with the the Bogner Blue XTC Vintage style with boost on.

For clean to crunchy/grindy rhythm (like Stones), a good Tele sounds great with a '59 Tweed Bassman or Tweed Deluxe or Twin. Also a BlackFace Deluxe (more country-ish for clean compressed chicken picking'-) as well as the Fender Brown amps.

Put a little clean boost in front of the amp to lift your pickups to fatten the tone -- Like a Microboost drive at default with Gain on 2 to 3.3.

Some players swear by a Tele into Vox/AC 20 Morgans/Divided by 13.

All these amps are in LiveGold (use Scenes 5-8 for s coils) and also the Naked Amps TonePacks, and there are a few Tele specific ones in naked Amps (Blackface Deluxe)

I also think Tele into the Robben Ford Dumble for both clean and dirty tones is cool. That should get ya started!
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This is all excellent advice. I'd try not to get too hung up on having the best of something (preset, IR, tele tone, etc) just because context and taste make it impossible for there to be a best- but start here, and fwiw, I've got some of the @austinbuddy stuff, and it's great. Lots of usable stuff ready to go.
 
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