Mexican Tele

[VirtualSamana]

I am thinking of buying a MIM standard Tele. Ultimately I would like to get two types of sounds out of this guitar. 1. A warmish bluesy lead sound. 2. A clean rhythm sound. I have a feeling I am going to need to replace atleast one of the stock pickups to achieve this. Since I don’t know much about guitars I need some direction. Is there a way to do this? Which pickups would you recommend. I would like to emulate some of the tones of the Beatles, Radiohead, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and Jeff Buckley…doable? Sorry if this question is too general but I need a place to start.

 

[amiableOne]

I have a MIM Tele. (the power Nashville one). I love the thing. I keep it in alt. tunings and use it mostly for slide. It is a very versatile guitar. You can certainly get a good clean rhythm sound. A warm blues sound...humm...you might want to look at changing pickups. I've heard that the quality varies a lot on the MIM Fenders, so check 'em out if you can before buying.

 

[muzeman]

I have a MIM Tele also.

When I bought it I played all the Tele's and Strats they had,both US and Mexican.
This one sounded better by far!

I would definatly go in and play them,let your ears be the judge.
You can really save some money if you get a good one.

Pete

 

[Krystof01]

Here's what I've done to my Mexican tele;

-Replaced the nut to graphite.
-Replaced the tuners.
-Did a complete fret job (took out those small fender frets and put jumbo dunlop wire instead).
-Inserted carefully a 22nd fret like there should be (I think there are 22 on the american standards).

Replaced the pick-ups with a seymour duncan hot stack in the bridge (this pickup may be one you should look at. it has that tele tone but with some extra mids which give it a more rock/blues taste. it's also quiet (eliminated hum) and has the output more of a humbucker than a single coil).

In the neck I replaced the pickup with a seymour duncan alnico pro II humbucker which works very nicely. Couple these with 500k pots and some extra switches for more diversity and you have one nice guitar.