50 Winters Later: A Tribute to Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper

In this column, I’d like to focus on one of the fundamental guitar tones, the sound of a Fender Telecaster plugged into a vintage Fender amplifier. I’m most interested in the sound of a Telecaster’s bridge pickup and the bridge/middle position. For me, these are immediately recognizable. I like how the relatively hot-wound pickups and the metal bridge construction make single notes sound strong and stingy while chords and licks involving multiple strings are “creamy” and saturated.

Let’s start with a simple live stage scenario with a single guitar amp. Let’s assume the venue and stage is large enough for us to crank the amp. I’d like to nominate the Fender Vibrolux Reverb as a great Telecaster match. The strong mids from the Telecaster’s bridge pickup pair nicely with the scooped Fender black-panel tone from the two 10" speakers. At 35-watts, it’ll deliver both firm lows and enough sparkle to cut through, which is critical for the mid position to not sound muddy. It’s essential that we can set the volume high enough to achieve beautiful dynamics, compression, sag, and hairy, distorted tones when we hit the strings hard. Depending on the treble response from the speakers, guitar string gauge, pickup-style, and proximity to the strings, I carefully decide if the amp’s bright switch needs to be enabled. By disabling it, I can turn up the treble knob and get more upper mids, which is essential for clear rhythm chords. For solos and lead guitar parts, I sometimes use a delay and an OD pedal that adds a little more volume, treble, and dirt.