Souping Up My Tele Squier For More Tonal Options

In my spare time, I tinker with my instruments so they give me more awesome results. This describes one of those mods.

I have a great playing 2-pickup Squier Telecaster (made in Korea). The 3-way switch is OK but I wanted to soup it up for more tonal options.

Last month, I replaced the stock control plate with one that I got on eBay designed for a standard Telecaster with two single-coil pickups. I searched for "upgrade fits your 2 pickup tele" to find it. The solderless installation made the upgrade easy. For me it just "dropped in." (see before-after picture)

It came with Bourns pots mounted to a printed circuit board with Treble Bleed to keep the brilliance from getting "muddier" as the volume is dialed back.

It has three mini toggle switches instead of the stock 3-way blade switch. Two of the switches are on-off-on and control each pickup by turning it Off or On (in either normal-phase or reverse phase.) The third (middle) on-on switch puts the pickups in either parallel or series circuit. The switch layout is simple and intuitive. The end result is an instrument that goes beyond the three stock pickup tones.

After the upgrade, I have six pickup tones. I still have the stock three sounds, but the extra three sounds are distinct and useful. Putting both pickups in series (and in-phase) gives me a strong jazz-like humbucker sounding tone, something that I could not get from my stock Telecaster. And hearing those additional two new intense and more intense out-of-phase country twang tones (switched in either parallel and series) gave me goosebumps. These are glass-shattering tones that can punch out windows at 30 paces.

I'm happy with the upgrade because it gives me three additional pickup tones.

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3...513f18~mv2.jpg

Congratulations! How do you make adjustments while you're playing? It would seem to me that the new controls are too small to just be able to tune them by ear. Maybe after getting some muscle memory...?

The series/parallel option is a great addition to a Tele. The out-of-phase is a interesting option. I find some tones are usable and some, not so much. I had a Jagmaster retired with a five position rotary switch that gave me B/B+N parallel/N/B+N series/B+N series out of phase. And I had push/pull pots to split each humbucker. Talk about tonal choices! the out of phase was probably my least used settings, but it was cool to have on those occasions where it fit the song.