How Hardware Affects Tone - Ask Zac 44

hello friends and welcome to another Ask
0:32
Zac I hope you are doing well
0:34
today we're going to talk about
0:36
telecaster tone and how hardware
0:38
and changes in hardware affects that
0:41
also
0:42
I'm going to talk a little bit about
0:44
Bill Hullett
0:45
who's the guy that played that lick that
0:48
i just played
0:50
uh that was from Radney Foster's just
0:52
call me lonesome that was written by
0:54
randy foster and
0:55
George Dukas so and while you're
0:58
thinking about it
0:59
if you've been enjoying the show please
1:01
subscribe
1:03
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1:06
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1:08
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1:10
and you can pick up a fun t-shirt like
1:12
this one that says it's a sickness
1:14
that's talking about this whole
1:16
obsession with guitars
1:18
or uh you know there's a tip jar there's
1:21
mugs all sorts of things but i
1:22
appreciate that
1:23
all right telecaster tone and how
1:26
hardware affects that
1:28
so uh as i said in my
1:33
why the telecaster is the best electric
1:35
guitar ever video
1:38
i learned a lot about telecasters from
1:40
brad paisley who
1:41
you know he and I were you know we're
1:43
still friends we were college
1:45
buddies back in the early 90s at Belmont
1:47
university
1:49
and we each had a couple of telecasters
1:54
and we would swap necks and hardware and
1:58
all sorts and
1:58
there were times where i had one of my
2:01
tele bodies with one of his necks on it
2:03
and stuff like that and we did all sorts
2:04
of crazy things because we were we were
2:06
trying to learn about guitar
2:08
tone and learning how much of the tone
2:11
would move as the
2:12
neck moved and you know as we you know
2:15
swapped necks it seemed like the tone
2:16
would kind of follow the neck
2:18
um you know
2:22
uh to a degree but then there's all
2:24
these other factors and and we started
2:26
learning about these things so
2:29
this is kind of an overview of my
2:32
understanding of telecaster hardware and
2:34
how
2:35
I feel it affects uh
2:38
the tone and so everyone has their own
2:41
idea of what
2:42
the ideal guitar tone is and and that's
2:45
great
2:46
so you know i know tone is subjective
2:48
but these are my thoughts
2:50
all right first we're going to talk
2:51
about bridges so
2:54
my favorite bridge is just this you know
2:58
vintage style you know ashtray
3:00
you know bridge I think you know this is
3:02
a dano caster so it has
3:04
dan strains you know version of that
3:06
that's
3:07
made by a company here in in Nashville
3:09
but um
3:11
the one that fender makes currently that
3:13
I picked up for
3:14
ten dollars for my jv telecaster back
3:16
there I think those are
3:18
fantastic you can go to uh you know to
3:22
bigger
3:22
bridges like you know this was a very
3:25
popular mod
3:28
in the late 70s and all through the 80s
3:31
it was very popular to put a
3:33
a heavy six saddle bridge to replace
3:38
you know an ashtray now first off you
3:41
can see there's a big size difference
3:43
and there's a huge weight difference
3:45
this weighs a couple
3:46
ounces and this weighs you know
3:49
sometimes depending on how thick the
3:51
plate is and how big the saddles are in
3:53
some of these they can weigh almost a
3:54
half a pound
3:55
so they can add a lot of weight now this
3:58
goto one
3:59
it is solid brass
4:02
that is chrome plated and
4:06
so what i feel that it does when you put
4:10
this type of bridge on a guitar
4:12
especially one that's had like an
4:14
ashtray type thing
4:16
is all of a sudden the guitar has more
4:18
shoulder to it
4:19
it becomes more modern sounding it has
4:22
more low end
4:23
it has more sustain uh it's
4:26
it's more assertive but it loses some of
4:30
the
4:30
uh you know kind of clangy doinky
4:33
qualities
4:35
that uh a telly has Pete Anderson
4:38
used this bridge a lot because he felt
4:40
like
4:41
he would lose twang to a degree but he
4:44
gained more of a steel guitar sound
4:47
and yeah and that and that's true uh
4:50
you know like Keith Richards uses this
4:52
type of bridge but an older one made by
4:54
Schechter but again it's
4:56
it's all brass and he would put those on
4:59
his guitars
5:00
and he liked the tone better so you'll
5:02
notice that when Keith plays a telly
5:04
which is what he plays most the time
5:06
uh if you notice it always has this kind
5:08
of bridge whether it's plated
5:10
you know chrome plated or whether it's
5:11
the raw brass
5:13
so these will give
5:17
a guitar in a telecaster a little bit
5:19
more authority
5:22
uh and it just it makes it a little
5:25
louder a little more sustained
5:27
uh one of my one of my friends Michael
5:29
Ross that is a writer for uh premiere
5:32
guitar and guitar player magazine
5:33
a great player and great writer
5:36
you know he and I were talking about
5:38
these bridges and he said
5:40
it's almost like you took a regular tele
5:43
and you put an rc booster on there
5:47
and yeah it immediately makes it sound
5:48
more modern a little bigger
5:50
and that's what this does except you
5:52
can't you know turn it off and
5:53
on um there are guitars that i like
5:56
these bridges on
5:57
and i have nothing against these bridges
6:00
uh
6:01
you know joe glazer used these all
6:03
through the 80s and 90s you know on all
6:05
those bender installs so
6:07
Ricky Skaggs and Steve Warner and
6:11
on and on and on Jimmy Olander they were
6:14
all
6:14
you know playing through these kind of
6:15
bridges and no one's saying that their
6:18
telecaster didn't sound twangy uh
6:21
now it's a it's a good bridge and that's
6:24
what i have on my uh
6:25
on my kabichi on my b bender because it
6:27
was one that joe didn't install
6:29
in the uh in the 90s and so it has this
6:31
kind of bridge
6:32
and Brent Mason's guitar has this bridge
6:34
on it and
6:36
yeah so it's uh it's a it's a good
6:39
bridge and sometimes it's what you want
6:41
you know sometimes you don't want the
6:43
doinkiness sometimes you want to have
6:45
you know more authority to the note to
6:48
the note
6:49
also another thing you can do is you can
6:52
stick with
6:53
this type of bridge but you can get one
6:55
that's made of thicker steel
6:57
and that will start to be kind of
6:59
splitting the difference
7:01
so you can get a little bit more
7:02
authority but without
7:05
you know full on going this way because
7:07
this way is also a little more
7:08
compressed sounding because all the
7:09
brass
7:11
so and the great thing about doing these
7:14
is you can do this without
7:15
modifying your guitar now of course
7:17
there are some American standards that
7:19
have a different
7:20
uh layout for the mounting holes in
7:23
which
7:24
of course you have to be careful about
7:25
getting the right bridge
7:27
that's one of the great things about
7:28
swapping bridges is that you can do it
7:31
and and just see what it does to the to
7:33
the sound and see you know whether you
7:35
like it or not
7:36
okay so let's get more uh
7:41
more down in the nitty-gritty and let's
7:43
talk about saddles
7:45
now this diamond caster has brass
7:46
saddles and I'm just going to talk about
7:48
brass
7:49
and steel only I'm not going to go into
7:52
aircraft aluminum
7:53
and all sorts of other esoteric
7:55
materials that have been used nothing
7:58
wrong with that
7:59
but you know steel and brass are really
8:02
the
8:02
the most you know common ones and uh
8:05
another two that i use the most i tend
8:08
to either use one or the other and i
8:09
don't think that one's better than the
8:11
other
8:12
depending on what's going on with the
8:13
guitar and what I want the guitar to
8:15
do I will I will change that out
8:20
so brass saddles will tend to make the
8:24
guitar
8:25
a little less bright and a little more
8:28
compressed
8:30
some people you know describe it as
8:32
being you know sweeter sounding
8:34
but it's really good for a guitar that
8:37
maybe has
8:38
you feel like it has a little too much
8:39
high end and you're not able to
8:43
you don't like the what happens when you
8:45
dial back the tone control on there and
8:46
you want to try something different and
8:48
again
8:48
saddles are not expensive and uh I've
8:52
really been enjoying the uh advanced
8:55
plating here in Nashville has been
8:57
making these
8:58
saddles they're they're grooved and
9:00
compensated and they have both steel
9:03
and brass they cost about 30 bucks
9:06
and uh they're sold by a company called
9:09
Philadelphia lutherie
9:11
and uh Dan strain uses them a lot on a
9:14
lot of the detainer casters this was
9:16
actually a set of all parts saddles but
9:18
I'm actually thinking about
9:20
trying those um you know the the grooved
9:22
ones because
9:23
what i don't like about these saddles is
9:26
when they're compensated and they're
9:27
angled the string ends up kind of moving
9:30
around
9:31
because of the fact that it's angled and
9:33
so it has
9:34
if it were straight it wouldn't move
9:37
around as much
9:38
but it just seems to do that and then
9:40
you can kind of notch it but then you
9:43
notching it can be kind of problematic
9:45
so
9:46
anyway uh yeah so brass
9:50
is if you want to kind of tame
9:53
a guitar kind of smooth it out give it a
9:55
little more compression
9:57
steel on the other hand
10:00
which I also really like uh steel
10:04
kind of livens up the guitar and it kind
10:07
of has this upper mid
10:08
spike to it and you'll you know and
10:11
that's and it's a much more lively
10:13
saddle and again
10:14
some people don't like those some people
10:16
you know think they're too bright
10:18
to me it you know kind of depends on the
10:20
guitar so again you know I'll try
10:23
different saddles
10:26
it's kind of hard not to mention this
10:29
right now so I'm going to and i could do
10:30
a whole episode just on pickups
10:33
but I'm just I'm just going to give a
10:35
little overview on pickups and that's
10:37
you know flat pull piece you know
10:39
pickups where the where the
10:41
magnets are are you know flush with the
10:43
top of the
10:44
you know the bobbin they tend to sound
10:47
more even and so you're going to get
10:52
if if you want to have the darkest you
10:54
know kind of
10:55
smoothest telecaster you want a flat
10:58
pull pickup
10:59
with brass saddles now that's going to
11:02
tend to have the smoothest sound
11:05
if you want to have the most lively
11:07
sound get a staggered pole bridge pickup
11:10
and have steel saddles
11:11
and that will be a very dynamic sounding
11:14
guitar
11:16
so that's an another thing that you know
11:18
you can certainly do is swap out you
11:20
know in between
11:21
you know you know a flat pole or a
11:24
staggered pole pickup
11:26
so again you know there there's so many
11:29
things you can do with these because
11:31
these are
11:31
you know they're parts they're parts
11:34
guitars
11:35
you know whether it's an actual fender
11:36
or this dano caster or whatever i mean
11:39
they're a bunch of parts and uh and you
11:42
can change these things and it's like
11:44
it's like being able to change the
11:45
recipe
11:46
and uh yeah and it's great in that you
11:49
can change out bridges you can change
11:51
out
11:51
saddles and stuff it's interesting in
11:54
that like dan
11:55
strain who made this guitar he
11:58
actually is not a big fan of black
12:00
guards in general
12:01
he prefers uh you know mid 50s teles or
12:05
60s teles he
12:07
likes steel saddles and he likes a
12:09
staggered pole
12:10
you know bridge pickup and uh because he
12:14
likes that liveliness and of course
12:16
he comes from more of a you know a rock
12:19
and pop and kind of jangly
12:20
you know rock you know background you
12:22
know because he he and his wife were
12:24
in a band that was that was signed to a
12:26
major label
12:28
and he also he's done a bunch of record
12:30
production and stuff like that
12:32
and so you know he knows what he wants
12:35
from a guitar
12:36
and that's what he wants from it so now
12:38
he makes great black guards and people
12:39
like him but
12:40
it's funny that that's not his
12:41
preference and yet you'll see other
12:43
people that you know all they want is
12:45
you know a flat pole pickup and
12:47
and they'll put brass saddles on
12:49
everything i've seen tons of guys that
12:50
have taken
12:51
60s teles with the you know with steel
12:54
saddles and they've put
12:56
brass ones on there and that's fine
12:59
okay another thing that's not thought
13:01
about a lot
13:02
is how much tuners actually
13:06
change the tone so uh
13:09
you know and and what it really changes
13:12
the tone
13:13
is it's changing the mass and the weight
13:16
of the headstock
13:17
so of course you know vintage type
13:20
tuners
13:21
like this these clues and type you know
13:24
it's
13:24
it's a very lightweight tuner and it
13:28
doesn't add a lot of weight to the
13:29
headstock
13:30
and it allows a certain type of
13:32
resonance well
13:34
as soon as you start adding weight
13:37
especially if you put like
13:38
something heavy like a shallower tuning
13:41
machine on there
13:42
you're going to change the way the
13:44
guitar
13:45
sounds and it sustains and as you tend
13:48
to put more
13:49
mass on the guitar bigger bridges
13:52
heavier
13:53
tuning machines it tends to
13:56
skew things to where it becomes more
13:58
about the fundamental of the note
14:00
and less about the area harmonic so the
14:03
lighter weight
14:04
tuning machines like the clusin type and
14:07
the little bridge the lightweight bridge
14:09
you tend to get more harmonics and other
14:11
things going on
14:14
and if you put heavy machine heads and a
14:16
heavy bridge you get
14:18
more fundamental and this telecaster
14:20
becomes more of a hammer
14:22
but that's what that's what ray flack
14:25
did with his 68 telly
14:26
he played on all those you know ricky
14:28
skaggs things they had you know
14:29
shallower machine heads and a
14:31
big goto bridge that's what Keith
14:33
Richard has done he's got spurtzl
14:35
machine heads
14:36
uh brent mason he's got spurtzl machine
14:39
heads in the goto bridge
14:41
uh yeah there's tons of guys that have
14:43
used that to good effect
14:45
um i do prefer the klusen type machine
14:49
heads
14:49
um that's not to say a guitar is not
14:51
going to sound good if it has heavy
14:53
machine heads on it
14:54
but that's that's my preference i like
14:57
lightweight
14:59
tuners and i like a lightweight you know
15:01
bridge and then i like to either use
15:03
brass or steel just depending on
15:06
what you know what direction i want to
15:08
go in with the guitar
15:10
so anyway so that's kind of my
15:14
overview i think at some point i'll
15:16
probably do one on guitar woods
15:18
you know the woods that are used for the
15:20
body and the neck
15:22
uh but that'll that'll be uh another
15:24
episode
15:25
so the lick i played at the beginning
15:27
was played by
15:28
bill hullett and bill hullett
15:31
uh is referred to as mr telecaster by
15:35
joe glazer and he was probably the first
15:38
guy in Nashville to really be
15:40
serious about black guards and what was
15:44
going on
15:45
not that peop not that there weren't
15:46
some guys that had played them in
15:47
Nashville before that but he was the
15:48
first one to really
15:49
understand what was going on with black
15:52
guards
15:53
and he had a real 51 no caster that he
15:56
that he played with and that was his
15:58
main guitar for many many many many
16:00
years
16:01
and and he kind of brought that
16:04
understanding to joe glazer
16:06
and other people here in Nashville
16:08
understand what what the big deal was
16:10
about black guards
16:12
and just for that reason alone you know
16:14
he deserves our respect
16:16
but then he he is and was a great player
16:19
and uh i had the pleasure of meeting him
16:22
unfortunately he was at Reggie young's
16:23
memorial service but i
16:25
i met bill and it was a it was a very
16:28
very kind man and uh he has a great
16:32
playing style
16:33
you know tend to use either blackface or
16:35
tweed fender amps
16:37
and he had his 51 no caster that he
16:40
strung with ernie ball nine through 42s
16:44
and uh and he did all these cool licks
16:47
and i think one of the greatest
16:48
compliments
16:48
bill ever got was kind of a a strange
16:51
one from Pete Anderson
16:52
and that's it Pete Anderson heard that
16:55
lick the opening look that i played for
16:56
just call me lonesome
16:58
and he thought that he he played that
17:00
and
17:01
at the end of the day that's kind of the
17:02
greatest compliment you can you can give
17:04
as you think someone played something
17:07
like yourself
17:08
so uh yeah i just think that's a great
17:11
great lick you know it's in the key of e
17:13
and you have that
17:21
[Music]
17:25
it's just it's just a cool look
17:27
especially this part though
17:32
[Music]
17:38
and i it almost sounds like he's instead
17:40
of sliding up it almost sounds like
17:42
he's going
17:46
which that's really cool
17:51
so that's a really really cool look and
17:54
i'm going to do
17:55
make sure and check out i'll put a link
17:57
to my website
17:59
and i'll have some more information on
18:00
bill hullet and some some
18:02
like a spotify you know a couple of
18:04
tracks he's played on and such and
18:06
maybe some more information about him
18:08
just you know his 51 no caster was
18:10
bought by
18:11
nacho and nacho made him a copy of that
18:14
guitar
18:15
and uh and uh you know bill was
18:18
certainly helpful in uh
18:19
writing helping nacho learn about black
18:22
guards and wrote one of the forwards to
18:24
the black guard book and everything
18:26
one other lick from that song which i
18:28
think that just called me lonesome is
18:29
kind of a great textbook
18:31
uh over the of the five chord
18:35
uh over that b he does this
18:37
[Music]
18:41
and I've just used that like I've used
18:43
that all over the place and I just think
18:44
that's great because you're just playing
18:49
[Music]
18:51
so there you have it hope you've enjoyed
18:54
today's episode talking about telecaster
18:56
tone and hardware and a bit about the
18:58
great bill hallett hope you'll check him
19:00
out
19:00
and i'll see you next time bye