:D :D :D
Does anyone else get that "I'm busting for pee, I really should go... oh just one more lick/riff before I put it down"?? I had that for over an hour once I'd restrung and done an initial pickup height set up - I could not put it down.
I'm not sure how to describe the "new telecaster" except with a strange "it does exactly what I wanted, though what I wanted isn't quite like I was imagining..."
The Flat 50 bridge is just obviously stonking right off the bat. No "geting used to it" involved at all. It's got all the bite and twang of the stock Baja, but it's sort of "thicker". I'd suspect most Baja owners would immediately go "phew! I was so right to do this" if they replaced their bridge with this. The Flat 50 seems just, "more". And as usual with BKPs, the guitar suddenly seems to respond to your fingers a whole lot more than it did...
Initially, I was struggling with the neck pickup. First of all in balancing it with the bridge. And then... it seemed a bit muddy (!! wot a BKP?!!). I did a LOT of fiddling with pickup heights, mainly because of this perceived muddiness, and what I've settled on I'll leave for at least a few days.
I've ended up lowering the bridge from where I would have set it, to balance the neck nicely (and to give me the best both-in-parallel on position 2). Once I'd done that, and started playing rather than trying to tell whether it was better/worse/wotever, I suddenly realised that, right across the board, this guitar is sounding far more like I expect/imagine a "real" telecaster to sound like in my hands than it did a couple of hours ago. The neck isn't muddy at all - there's just more bottom end to both pickups than the stock ones had.
Ever since I got it home, I've had a nagging doubt that my Baja maybe isn't quite as good as other people's. It was very articulate, but always seemed to sound thinner than I thought a telecaster should. When I worked it really hard with the fingers it would do the job, but it didn't seem quite gutsy enough. But when I visited the tele forum, they were all saying "classic tele sound, blah", so I thought maybe what I'd imagined wasn't "classic tele" after all. Still I had these doubts. But now with the Blackguards it does sound like I'd imagined "classic tele", and it does what I wanted with less effort. I think it could easily jump ahead of my muled Tokai love rock, and join my strat and explorer in the rotating "favourite guitar" contest now.
For those considering BKPs on a Baja - think about your neck pickup, do you want the tone it has now? Because, if I'm right, the Blackguard neck sounds a lot more classic tele neck than you've got used to, there's a lot more "boinggg" to it! I suspect that if I'd asked Tim what to do, and told him how much I liked the stock neck, he might have suggested something else to go with the Flat 50 bridge (someone told me a while back that the Yardbird neck is very sweet, for example) - but in the long run, for what I wanted, I think it might have been a mistake if I'd gone that route. After my initial surprise - and remember I've only played it for an hour or so after setting it up - this set does what I was hoping: good all-round "old-fashioned" sort of telecaster, it barks and it bites, it twangs and does those country steel type noises. AND, something I've just realised while typing - thinking of that "boinggg" - for several weeks a while back I tried to get that tremeloed reverb tele sound (Twin Peaks soundtrack sort of thing), I couldn't get it convincingly - this bassier neck will do it, I'm sure, I'll give it a bash over weekend if I can stop playing blues...
OK, briefly, to finish, the combination positions -
2: (Parallel, in phase) very tasty, much better for me than the stock pups, but very dependant on the pup height balances. I can see how many old tele players only use this and the bridge position now... I suspect that the bassier neck is what has made this position so much better for me.
2: (Parallel, out of phase) more body to it now, not so much loss in volume, I would use it more now - but I do have a strat anyway...
4: (Series, in phase) WOWWW! This was a real eye-opener. Now I see what all the fuss is about, with the stock pups I was not that impressed.
4: (Series, out of phase) Personally, I still don't like it.
So, Andrew's 4 way switch stays, S1 stays until it breaks, and then we replace it with a standard pot!
My overall impression is that I picked the right set - with amp tweaking I can play anything with this guitar now, including metal (old skool) on that bridge pup!! Originally, months ago, I thought Country Boys would be the tele pups I'd get, but when I read about the Blackguards, and how the pups on the early Fenders were far from weedy, tame things, I knew where I had to go - even if it might mean learning to use them!.
It almost feels like my Baja has grown up, reached puberty, and it's voice has broken into very pleasant baritone/tenor with an exceptionally wide range - it can still reach the high notes but can sing the bass parts convincingly as well (except her name is Alice... :lol:)
Sorry if this was over-long, but I don't have the where-with-all to do clips at the moment, so I felt I had to get something down... hope it helps others - but remember it's only very first impressions, I'll have a lot better idea about it after the weekend and I've worn the strings out... :D
