Roto Rose

Had fun with this TL-Rose(wood) today. Played some heavy music with it & those Seymour Duncans took in high levels of distortion really well. They were not conceived to be demure to begin with.

Before actually playing took place, I took this down to Beez's for parts replacements. This was a terribly corroded tone pot that was beyond saving.

The capacitor was also affected. I simply do not understand why this guitar, stored in the same place & under the same conditions, is more susceptible to corrosion than the others. The logical deduction here is that something from inside the control cavity is causing all this to happen. It might just be the case of the body wood harbouring excess, albeit in trace amounts, of moisture & that it's continuing to dry at the expense of the susceptible metal parts.

Finally, a fresh set of Rotosound strings to make things happen. For the record, the Duncans in there are: Hot Stack (B) / Vintage Stack (N). I had to lower the bridge pickup in excess of the recommended settings as its simply too hot for the neck counterpart; the volume difference was very obvious.

Rosy re-string

This has to be my shred Tele; action is super low on this one. I'm actually making full use of the smaller, shorter frets which allow for a lower action. The overall satin finish on this one also spurs me to play faster. I bought this at Davis GMC when there were many Japanese Fender models in store. Good to know that they are bringing in more of such Fenders soon. 

If you take a closer look, I've swapped out the original M-type string retainer for this rounded, modern version. The former pushed the strings way down, strings are touching the headstock bit just after the nut. This helped with the elevation issue & it's more responsive to tuning as well.

Unexpected combo but what a pair! These Seymour Duncan pickups simply compliment each other. Despite being labelled as a Vintage Stack, the neck pickup can keep up with the bridge Hot Stack in terms of drive & distortion. Also, these stack models don't wimp out in terms of clarity which is essential for me. 

La Bella strings this time & they are good strings indeed. Note that these feature coloured ball ends & not to me mistaken for D'Addarios.

Fender TL Rose: Duncanized

This familiar pose- yes, it's Beez at work. Brought my Fender TL Rose to him today.

I got these fixed in:

• Neck: Seymour Duncan Vintage Stack
• Bridge: Seymour Duncan Hot Stack

I can't quite live with vintage (output) pickups. That's the primary reason the default pickups made way for these Duncans. However, I was bent on keeping the tones in the neck below scorching hot. I realized that I might want to keep things a little 'vintage' (whatever that means) this time round hence the Vintage Stack in there. Whatever 'vintage' tones it needs to churn out, there's a high probability that it would be fed into lots of distortion so it has to hum-free.

So this marks the 2nd Japanese Telecaster in my possession to sport Seymour Duncan pickups instead of their default ones. I'm happier this way, I don't don't play much clean tones anyway so my needs are first & foremost. It had been a rewarding Saturday :-)