Guitarists: what gives the Telecaster it "twang"?

[Curt914]

Have had a Peavey Tele copy for many years, my wife bought it for me.
Use it to play scales etc. on, with its maple neck, really easy to see whats going on.

Anyway, never did plug it in to an amp till this past weekend.

I knew about the Tele twang, but was blown away with just how "twangy" this thing really is. I don't hear that twang out of the guitar when playing it without an amp. Is the twang sound due totally to the pickups? Or does the body of the
guitar have an effect also? For whats its worth, this is a pretty dense and heavy guitar, at least in my experience(which is minimal).

Thought the braintrust here on Pelican would know.

Thanks

Curt

[craigster59]

It's the ghost of "Hank"...

[nostatic]

pickups and the wiring

[Sonic dB]

Its unique Scale Length.

From a web page:

"What The Heck Is Scale Length?

To be precise, the scale length of a guitar is the vibrating length of its strings, ie, the distance from the center of the saddle to the nut. The scale length dictates the placement of frets on a guitar’s fingerboard, with the 12th fret falling at the exact middle of the scale.

Perhaps the two best known scale lengths (the ones often referred to when attempting to describe a guitar’s “feel”) are those of Fender’s Stratocaster – which has a 25 1/2“ scale – and Gibson’s Les Paul – which is officially listed as 24 3/4”, but is said to be closer to 24 5/8“.

Why Is Scale Length Important?

Besides being one of the most important deciding factors in an electric guitar’s overall tone, scale length plays a huge part in the inherent ”feel“ of an instrument.

A longer scale, like that of a Strat or Tele, helps to produce crisp, almost bell-like tones, but also makes for tighter strings, and a harder feel beneath the fingers. In fact, many guitarist who primarily play Stratocasters find the shorter scale of the Les Paul to feel sloppy in comparison – a little too loose.

Of course, many other guitar players – myself included – prefer the softer feel, and slightly muddier tone that a Les Paul’s shorter scale length produces. To my ears the warmth and roundness of a Les Paul just sounds more organic, and the tension of the strings is well suited to my playing style. "

another link with info http://www.novaxguitars.com/Pages/Techarticle_frame.html

My blue Tele is my favorite.

[craigster59]

Well, yeah but it still might be a bit of the ghost of Hank...

The Telecaster is known for its bright, cutting tone. One of the secrets to the Telecaster's sound centers on the bridge pickup, which is wound more than the neck pickup and hence has a much higher output, sometimes having twice the inductance of the neck pickup. At the same time, a capacitor is fitted between the slider of the volume control and the output, allowing treble sounds to bleed through while the mid and lower ranges are dampened. A slanting bridge pickup enhances the guitar's treble tone. The solid body allows the guitar to deliver a clean amplified version of the strings' tone. This was an improvement on previous electric guitar designs, whose hollow bodies made them prone to unwanted feedback, and which sometimes suffered from a muddy, indistinct sound. These design elements allowed musicians to emulate steel guitar sounds, making it particularly useful in country music. Such emulation can be enhanced by use of a B-Bender (B-string bending device co-introduced by country picker Clarence White), enabling a smooth change of pitch for a single string within a chord.

[Sonic dB]

no offense or disrespect to anyone else's take...., but the Tele sound is not really due the pickups....it is the body construction and scale length of the Tele that gives it its unique sound.

For example, I have had several different pickups on my 92 Tele Deluxe Plus and it always sounds like a Tele. Currently I have EMG Active pickups, single coil neck and humbucker bridge on it... took it to a Fender guy a couple years ago for a refret and his daughter walked in after hearing it from the other room and said "now that's a great sounding Tele!"

Its the body, scale length that gives the guitar its tone...the pickups merely enhance the tone either way, but never completely take it away...

this is well known in Fender Tele circles & Leo Fender was very conscious of this when he went from the Broadcaster/Telecaster design to the first Stratocaster.... his modifications to the Tele included reducing the scale length for different tone, allowing for higher playing on the neck due by adding a lower cutaway to the Strat and also contouring the Strat to the body a little better....

Pure Fender Strats or Teles, non modified come equipped with pickups tailored to the specific guitar to enhance their respective tones....so in that light, a Tele pickup will enhance its normal sound.... taking pickups away, in modifications, will result in the guitar's native tone coming through no matter what pickup you have in there.

[on2wheels52]

I've sold hundreds of used guitars but don't play myself. I've had players tell me they can listen to a recording and tell what guitar was used. My listening skills aren't that well developed. Thanks for the guitar knowledge.
Jim

[nostatic]

Originally Posted by Sonic dB

no offense or disrespect to anyone else's take...., but the Tele sound is not really due the pickups....it is the body construction and scale length of the Tele that gives it its unique sound. .

No offense taken because you're wrong

Scale length is the same between a tele and a strat. And they sound different. I also had a Tele Deluxe back in '77. A tele body and neck with humbuckers. Did not sound like a Tele. I have a strat with Fralin pickups with a steel pole bridge and wired so that the second tone rolls in the third pickup. That approximates a tele sound pretty good.

It is a combination of the pickups and the switch wiring.

[Sonic dB]

then we agree to disagree
it is mostly due to scale length but has some differences
in body construction and the bolt on back of neck where the neck
meets the body. All those things affect tone.

One thing that we probably do agree on is that Scale Length
makes a huge diffence in how Fenders' differ in sound from Les Pauls.
that is also well known in the guitar community

[nostatic]

I suppose, but you will admit that a tele and strat have 25.5" scale length, right? So your argument now boils down to the difference between a strat body and a tele body, right?

[Nathans_Dad]

You're both wrong. Everyone knows there is a Twangomaster 5000 twangsorter installed in every Tele...

[Sonic dB]

it is mostly due to scale length but has some differences
in body construction and the bolt on back of neck where the neck
meets the body. All those things affect tone. All these things are well
documented in Fender history and you can probably find a good explantion
of it out there on the net. The links I posted above contain much of this info.

One thing that we probably do agree on is that Scale Length
makes a huge diffence in how Fenders' differ in sound from Les Pauls.
that is also well known in the guitar community

[craigster59]

I don't know, my "ghost of Hank" theory is seeming pretty plausible now...

[Sonic dB]

one other thing....if it were simply a pickup issue... then one could swap pickups between any stock strat and stock tele and switch tones? that is not the case at all....

[Sonic dB]

Twangomaster 5000 twangsorter

is that available as a mod? where can i order one of those?

[nostatic]

but there is no scale length difference between the tele and strat, so that isn't a factor. Body construction is near identical - bolt on neck and solid body. The only difference is the second cutout on the strat and slight variation in the routing. I know the history of Fenders fairly well. As far as I can tell the tele "twang" *compared to a strat* is in the electronics. Period.

Fender vs. Gibson does involve scale length and construction (Gibson being shorter as you mentioned along with set neck rather than bolt on). In addition, the fretboard material has an influence, with maple giving more spank than rosewood.

[nostatic]

Originally Posted by Sonic dB

one other thing....if it were simply a pickup issue... then one could swap pickups between any stock strat and stock tele and switch tones? that is not the case at all....

pickups, switch, and wiring. I never said just the pickups.

[craigster59]

Maybe this will solve the mystery..

http://www.excellentleads.com/Telecaster.html

[nostatic]

and as I said, with a Fralin steel pole bridge pickup and a blender tone, I can get a passable tele tone

http://www.fralinpickups.com/images/blendschem2.jpg

[Sonic dB]

It is not a pure pickup or pure wiring issue. The OP is talking about a Peavey Tele copy anyway...so it obviously would not have geniune Tele pickups. All I can tell you is what I have read many many times over in studying Fender history as well as my own ownership of several Fender guitars, including my Tele which has undergone several pickup (and wiring) changes yet always retained its core sound.

I will do the reseach and post something later....