Scott Henderson Discussion

[Tommy]

Hey, Scott! I watched you last October in Skoplje, traveled whole day from Serbia to get there... unfortunately I got stuck at the border and caught barely half of the show. I remember you were not in the mood to hang out with the fans after the show 'cause you had to take a flight to Moscow early morning or something... Nevermind. It was a breathtaking experience, and your sound was HUGE. More mid-forward than on your recordings... (well, that's how sound guy interpreted it anyway). "Mysterious Traveller" will always stand special in my memory as one of the best experiences I've ever had as a concert goer.
Anyway, I wanted to ask you for a tip: if I remember correctly, I know that at some point you had a tele that was wired in such a fashion that the tone pot affected only bridge pickup. Is it possible with a regular tele 3-way switch? I am new to telecaster coming from a strat with 2nd tone pot wired to bridge, and I'm really having hard time balancing bridge and neck pickups...

[Scott Henderson]

Thanks - glad you enjoyed the gig! I'm not a Tele expert, but since there's only one tone knob, you can wire it to work on both pickups (that's what I do) or remove it from the neck pickup so it only works on the bridge. The problem there is with no tone pot at all, the neck pickup could sound too bright and harsh. That's all I know - maybe someone else on the group knows some Tele tricks.

[dizzy]

Someone showed me a cool tele trick. It didn't have to do with wiring.
Flip the metal plate that the tone and volume and pickup selector is on so the tone and volume knobs are by your hand and the selector is far away. Then you can do volume swells easier.

[Wiznik]

Hi,
I use a lot of Tele, and I have used some different solutions...
You can use a 4-ways switches with a position for the neck pickup without tone
and a second one for the neck pickup with.
Hope that helps.

[Yusstyna]

I plays a Suhr Tele and it's my main guitar. I have the tone wired to the bridge pick up. I adjust the amp settings on the neck pickup so it's just right because of course you don't have any further control over it. Then with the tone knob I adjust the brightness of the bridge pickup rolling it way down so that it matches nicely with the neck. This works great for me.

The only downside is that in the middle position the tone knob is bypassed and both pickups are on full whack and let me tell you, that's a bright tone! I use it for funky rhythms but I do have to turn the guitar down a bit so it's not piercing people's (and my) ear drums.

I haven't figured out a way to wire the tone knob so that it's active on the bridge pickup in the middle position as well. I think that would be a great solution. I've heard that it's only possible with a super switch but don't know if that's true.

Maybe Scott or anyone else here knows how to wire a tele so that the tone works on the bridge pickup and isn't bypassed in the middle position.

Thanks!

[Tommy]

Thanks everyone for responses! I forgot to mention that I installed a humbucker in the neck position, and since it is fairly dark (the guitar is still wired with 250k pots) I wouldn't mind it being a bit brighter without tone control. I also have no use for the tone control in the middle position. What bothers me is that every time I switch to bridge pickup I have to roll down the tone pot, and roll it up again when I switch to neck/both. That's why I was wondering would it be possible to wire the 3-way switch so the tone pot affects only bridge position.
Also @dizzy - thanks for the tip, probably gonna do it at some point.

[Travis]

Unfortunately, I think the only way to get the bridge pickup with the tone control solely on the bridge pickup would be to install a Superswitch of some type.

I say "unfortunately" for 2 reasons: 1.) They are a pain to wire and physically fit into a Tele control cavity. You definitely need some know-how to come up with a custom wiring and b.) I have never installed a Superswitch that sounded better than a traditional switch. Particularly in a Tele with "Jimmy Herring 5 way wiring", it absolutely ruined the tone of the pickups by themselves and the additional pickup options the 5-way offered were far less exciting than the traditional switch's 3 way sounds. I had the same disappointing results with the 4 way Superswitch as well. I don't know why this is, but I'm gonna go with "Hendrix didn't have a Superswitch so..."

I think a lot of what you are hearing in the drastic changes in tone has to do with the loading of the pickups. A humbucker with a 250k volume pot even without a tone control will probably be drastically darker than a Tele Bridge pickup when switched between the two. I would try a few things if I were presented with your problem from simplest to hardest.

1. Change the tone control wiring from "Fender" to "Gibson" wiring. This involves moving one wire from the input lug of the volume pot to the wiper (or middle) lug of the volume pot. It changes the interaction between the tone and volume pots to be a little less drastic, as well as it minimizing some of the dulling from turning a volume pot down on the guitar. I like my Teles wired this way. It seems to even out the drastic differences in the pickups selections.

2. Install a 500k volume pot and attach a 470k-510k resistor from the hot wire of the bridge pickup to ground. This makes it so you can use a traditional 3 way Tele switch but have the correct volume pot loading for the neck and bridge pickups when they are used independently. It's also a handy trick for getting the loading right on HSS Strats with a traditional 5-way.

3. Install a push-pull (or push-push, mini toggle, etc.) DPDT to change the neck pickup from series to parallel. This will brighten the neck pickup and give it more of a single coil quality. You might find that you like the sound of it and it might balance with the bridge pickup a little better if the bridge pickup is really bright.

4. Install a Superswitch. This would be my absolute last option, personally, but the other options are much less tedious and may give you the results you want. And more importantly, if they don't they are pretty easy to reverse.

[Yusstyna]

Thanks for the insight!

Isn’t there a way to “hardwire” the tone pot directly to the bridge pickup omitting the switch so that it works only on that specific pickup whenever it’s engaged?

Thanks!

[Travis]