I don't know if this has been mentioned yet (I am a little bit busy so can't read the whole thread) but on my Japanese Jaguar re-issue I had the same problem with the bridge. This was solved by shimming the neck and raise the bridge. It now plays fantastically but the twang off the bottom e has now gone, a small price to pay.

The pick-ups howl because, in keeping with the authenticity of the re-issue, the pickups are to the same spec as the original and are not designed for high levels of volume. However, if you set up far enough away from your amp then you shouldn't have too much of a problem. You could also get the pickup coils dipped but it may result in the sound becoming dull. If you can afford it stick in a couple of hot jag seymor duncan pickups.

gio wrote:

bent_christian wrote:They are humbucker. I don't know if they are four conducor or not, you would need this to split the coils. Even then, a split humbucker does not sound exactly like a true single coil pickup. I suppose you could get a custom pick guard made and routed for singles, that would be a pain in the ass though. These guards are not readily available by aftermarket suppliers. There are many types and sounds to humbuckers. What is it that you didn't like?

I find humbuckers thicker and muddier, particularly with distortion and on the E and A strings. But then, every guitar with humbuckers I've owned has been a crap-to-middlin'-crap guitar, so that could be the source of my bias. For some reason I thought the tele pickups were different... maybe because of the screw pattern on the cover plate.

The Tele Customs have humbuckers. Most others (stock) come with a single in the bridge and neck. I would not give up on humbuckers just yet. There are many varieties and tones out there. I pretty much only use Seymour Duncans. That is not to say that every other mfg. is crap- not so. I just know what I like, and they gots what I like. They are also very consistant QC wise. I almost always replace stock pickups. Duncans are pretty cheap second hand ($30-50 a piece), and it is the easiest way to improve tone IMO. The pots in the guitar are also a factor to consider. If you use 250k pots with most all humbuckers, your tone will always be muddy- make sure they are 500k, that's what I like. If you want some tips, I'd be glad to share with you what I know about caps, pots, and pickups. You can PM me or just post.

There's a difference between Telecaster Customs and Telecaster Deluxes.

Some versions of the 70's Telecaster Customs had a humbucker in the neck position and a single-coil set at a weird angle in the bridge position.

A lovely example can be seen here:
http://www.oldenburger-music-station.de/telecust73.htm

I could be wrong but I think all Telecaster Deluxes had the 2 humbuckers.

It seems to me that a Tele Custom with a humbucker and a single-coil would be a really nice guitar to have.

if you're thinking of going the tele route, someone up above said g&l...i can't agree more...a good friend of mine has a cream g&l tele with jumbo frets, it's one of the best sounding electric guitars i've ever heard.

cheers

Right on.

In my experience, G&L > Fender every time. Both Strat-style and Tele-style.

G&Ls are fantastic instruments.

Angus Jung wrote:Right on.

In my experience, G&L > Fender every time. Both Strat-style and Tele-style.

G&Ls are fantastic instruments.

Hell yes.

I have an ASAT Special; the finest electric guitar that I have ever played.

Even though it's translucent green.

Or maybe because...

At the rick of sounding like a shill, unless you have $4000 to spend, anyone looking at Fender Telecasters should be buying a G&L ASAT. They are superior in every way.

There are ASAT Specials on ebay for under $500 regularly. Do yourself a favor.

preach on, brother vockins

I'm sure a lot of you know this, but the "L" in G&L stands for Leo. As in, Leo Fender.

Leo Fender co-founded G&L after selling Fender to CBS in the mid 60's (in between, he worked for Music Man, whose guitars and amps are also highly underrated).

Just in case people think of G&L as a Fender rip-off or something.

If we've convinced even one of you to ignore the brainwash of labels and buy a G&L over a Fender...well, it won't really mean anything. But you'll be happy if you're the one who bought the G&L.

I only played a G&L once, and it was quite nice. Kind of an ugly looking guitar, but it sounded great and was built like a rock.

MusicMan is quality stuff as well, except LF got a little crazy for a while and started trying to build amp-like circuits into his guitars, resulting in these super-heavy amp-in-a-box guitars with tons of switches and dials and stuff. Sounds like something Toomanyhelicopters is going to do one of these days...