I learned some lessons today..

[strtdv]

I'd been getting frustrated with the tone from my tele for a while. I'd changed the pickups over the summer for Bareknuckle Blackguards, and I really liked the pickups, but there was always something about the mids on the bridge pickup that sounded over-compressed or something compared to my strat, and I could never put my finger on it.

 

I tried tweaking my amp different ways, but no matter what I could never get rid of this over-compressed quality.

 

I finally cracked it today.

 

I lowered the pickup height of the bridge pickup about 1-1.5 mm and the sound is just what I want. It's become much more "open" sounding than it was before, like my strat.

The output level better matches the neck pickup too now, and it handles overdrive and distortion much better than it did before.

I can't believe I didn't try this before

 

 

I'd always thought it was kind of like an unwritten rule that you put your bridge pickup on your tele higher than you would on a strat.

 

 

So the two lessons I learned were: I like my pickups a little on the low side, and dont be afraid to do something different if there's something in your sound you're not happy about.