On Friday night my bandmates in Brontosaurus Chorus and I jumped into our trusty driver come sound engineers brand-new second-hand tour bus/van and headed to a pub called The Hobbit in Southampton to peddle our Indie Pop wares. The gig went as well as could be expected my only complaint being the lack of an audience but when you play in a band doing original material in a town that hasn't really heard of you this is considered the Norm.What excited me most was that two days previously my friend Nick replaced the stock pickups in my '62 Reissue Telecaster with a set of Bare Knuckle 'The Boss' pickups. The blurb on the box promised 'Classic Tele sound with extra weight in the mid range for driving rhythm and cutting lead' and it wasn't wrong. Earlier in the day I set up all my pedals and amp the same as how I usually have them at a gig so that I could get used to the new sound and dynamic response of my guitar. I feared that I may have chosen a set of pickups with too high an output for my tastes despite the fact that it was a higher output that I so desired but I was frightened that I would loose the vintage characteristics that made my Tele a Tele.
In the end it turns out there was no need for it, when clean the dynamics and response had improved no end although to my ears the overall sound of the instrument seemed darker, which was probably to do with the more distinguished mids and fatter low end. The real icing on the cake came when I kicked on my overdrive (for the record I'm currently using a Boss SD-1 and a Pro-Co Rat II but I'm currently in the market for both a new overdrive and a distortion unit so all suggestions are welcome!) and found that the lacklustre sound that once plagued me was no more and instead the overdrive was not only thicker and richer but the tonal characteristics of my pickups shone through much more than before. Satisfied I packed up my gear and headed off to the gig.
After the gig I chatted with our sound engineer Joe about whether or not he noticed any difference and he said that the sound seemed instantly more open and full but he also noticed a lot more top end cut that lent itself to the mix. In my band I have a string section a keyboard and a trumpet to compete with so I can never be quite as loud as I would like but now with my new pickups I can be a little bit more confident that I'll be heard playing at a slightly lower volume than usual.
So, am I one step closer in my never ending quest for the ultimate guitar tone? Probably, but the search for that perfect guitar sound is an eternal one and the next step for me is to replace my overdrive pedal and I'm currently thinking that a Fulltone Full Drive II MOSFET is the way to go.
The photo in this post was taken by my friend Di and used with her permission, you can see more of her photos at her Flickr.
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