Rewire of "Hammer of the Honky Tonk Gods"....

Dan Erlewine is talking to Bil Kirchen in the latest Stew Mac vid and that got me thinking that it's about time I swopped round the controls on one of my Fender Telecaster's to be able to do some pedal steel volume swells like Bill....

If you have never heard of Bill Kirchen....shame on you....

Go over to his site billkirchen.com and click on Media and listen to some class telecaster tones while your reading my bollocks....
 

First off I had to route out the control caverty on my Mexican Telecaster....

Nothing is ever easy....

But I do like soldering up copper shielding....

So now the body will happily take the new control positions, time to do some rewiring....

The wiring on a telecaster is super simple....you can not go wrong....

I've said it before but I'll say it again....the best way to clean up a pot base is to cut the old solder off with a sharp blade, not with heat and a solder pump....too much heat will kill a pot the same as too much heat will kill a capacitor. While we are talking caps....I've used a .022 cap but a .047 cap will do just as good....the .022 is good if you never roll off all the top frequencies, its all about how much travel you like in your pot before you get to mud....if you like fast roll off go for the .047 cap, or if a slower roll off appeals a .022 cap fitted will let you control the bite of your tele more.

For the best twang I sand the bottoms of my tele bridges to make sure they are perfectly flat. I then stick three strips of copper tape on the very back end of the bridge. This helps to push the front of the bridge into the body as you screw it down. As you tighten the mounting screws the front of the bridge can lift up and away from the body causing micro-phonics to run away into feedback. You will always get micro-phonics with this kind of telecaster bridge, its part of the guitars charm but too much can be a problem....I also fill the bridge cavity with soft thin foam to push the base of the pickup into the mounting screw threads and keep things from vibrating....

While Bill Kirchen makes pedal steel swells look really easy, take it from me the volume control is still in the wrong position for all but massive handed guitarists. The pickup switch becomes too close to the tone pot when its in the neck position and gets in the way....Leo got it 98% right....

After all this hassle, time will tell if I keep the tele like this....lol....it does look kinda cool like this....k.j.

Comfortex Acoustics....

I found a company on Amazon selling foam acoustic tiles very cheaply and I have always wanted to acoustically treat my music room but the cost always put me off. After reading a couple of reviews these tiles seemed to be very good and couple of hundred pounds compared to a couple of thousand told me it was time to do it....

Comfortex Acoustics have just started making a range of acoustic treatment tiles for the home market rather than the pro market. They come in bulk in large boxes....

I did a very quick estimate and ordered 4 bass traps "£40 + postage for 2 traps per box", 2 boxes of  large tiles "£40 + postage for 30 tiles per box" and 2 boxes of small tiles "£20 + postage for 24 tiles per box"....It all came to £240....Bargin....

I was going to stick the tiles up like Maplewood Studio has them in their video but had a problem....I bought 25 meters of Velcro from a company called Easy Time UK but when my order never arrived they were less than helpful....because I am impatient I decided to make up some frames and stick the tiles to them using little adhesive pads and hang them from picture hooks....

The frames are made up from blind slats that I had removed from some IKEA blinds that were too long and stuck them all together with NoNails glue. I used some aluminum tape to keep them from moving while the glue was drying...."remember I said I have no patients"

To be very honest I'm blown away with these tiles from Comfortex Acoustics, before I had the tiles my sound was a bit blurry really and I had put that down to my speakers. I have only used the 4 bass traps and one box of the large tiles and the sound in my room has become amazing. The bottom end has tightened up and the stereo image and become very sharp and detailed. I was going to use the small tiles on my ceiling but apart from maybe a small group of them above my desk don't really need them.

Everything you can see in these photos cost £140 and the difference it has made on the sound in my room has been nothing short of amazing. These acoustic tiles have been without doubt the best things I have ever bought....even when you consider I bought twice as many as I really needed....

I was going to stick my tiles up like Maplewood's drum room

Hope this helps....Amazon refunded my money for the Velcro....so I'm a very happy bunny. k.j.