I have noticed recently that I have not been playing my Telecaster quite as much as I used to. As such an iconic guitar, I started to wonder why. A few days ago I picked it up, and just didn't feel inspired by it enough to write, learn something new, or even want to play it, which was weird to me.
As it stands now, the Tele is a basic guitar. I replaced the original pickups with Seymour Duncan Vintage Stacks a while back, and that made the guitar much better than it was originally. I now have a great, full sound. But something still seemed to be missing. I decided to make some big changes with the guitar.
The future changes will consist of all new hardware, a new neck pickup, and a No-Load Tone Pot. The "No-Load Tone Pot" is a replacement potentiometer, that when turned all the way up, creates a direct connection from the volume knob to the output jack of the guitar. In theory, this allows there to be much less resistance, and allow you to get the full tone of the pickups, with no coloration of the tone.
After about 2 minutes, I had the tone pots swapped out. I quickly realized that the No-Load Tone Pot was an amazing addition to the guitar. There is still a ton of control over tone of the guitar, but when turned all the way up, there is more treble, and a bit more clarity. The difference is subtle, but the change is very welcomed. Playing around with it a bit, I am starting to love the guitar again.
Here is a clip of what the tone pot sounds like when it is turned all the way up. The added treble is a great sound to me, and I am very excited to make the other changes to this guitar.