Recent discussion in another thread (about what's a good "next" guitar) were interesting. Part of the discussion devolved into two sides contesting the versatility of the lowly telecaster-style guitar. A tele-clone is my main axe, and I've not been unhappy with what I'm able to do with it, so I'm naturally biased against the naysayers.
I would instead make the argument (in a friendly fashion, of course) that using a telecaster-style guitar, and a pedal or two, one can get a wide variety of tones from the instrument.As evidence to support my argument, I present:
What is it? A variety of clips of both solo and rhythmic parts, played while alternating the guitar's pickup selection and the inclusion or bypass of a distortion pedal. The amp is the "UK 80's" simulation of a Vox AD30VT (early 2000's-generation modeling amp, 10" speaker), with gain set about 35% of the way up, and on-board EQ settings with treble slightly above 50%, mids slightly above that, and bass down around 25%. The signal chain was:
- guitar
- into a Digitech RP255, with the following settings:
- EQ on all the time (small bass cut, moderate mid boost, and small treble boost)
- simulated distortion effect (model of Boss DS-1, gain 30% up, tone 60% up, and level 35% up)
- into the amp (settings described above)
- into the mic(*), placed right on the grille at the point where the dustcap meets the speaker cone
The distortion pedal sim was toggled between each section of playing; first you hear the neck pickups, without and with distortion, the both pickups without/with distortion, etc.
To me, it sounds like there are enough tones to cover a lot of ground. Some discussion in the other thread revolved around the idea that tele's can do only "twang", but only one section of the audio (around 1'50"; the solo line with the neck pickup and the distortion pedal sim disengaged) sounds twangy to me.
Discuss...
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* headset mic on something like this, though I'm not sure of the exact model:
