My Dyne made me buy a tele

[elvis]

Ever since I bought my Dyne it's been demanding a tele. They're a match made in heaven, with plenty of punch and clarity.

I had tried to ignore it, but my amp has been causing me some very disturbing dreams in retribution. I finally broke down about an hour ago and picked up a 2005 American Deluxe tele. I had hoped that would appease it, but I feel a sudden need for a Les Paul...

 

[YellowJacket]

My Godin LG also sounds great with my Electra Dyne as does my Lester. Teles also sound GREAT with this amp, I can totally appreciate that purchase!

 

[Heritage Softail]

Congrats on your great tele purchase.

It is a legendary guitar type. Supposedly the most recorded guitar. I believe led Zep II was done with one. For some reason it got associated with country more than rock. But with the variety of pups out there, you can get the tele stability and clarity for all music types. John 5 was bringing the fat nasty groove in The Beautiful People with a tele.

I only have one tele, as yours is, an American deluxe. Great guitar.

 

[gag halfrunt]

Congrats! I bet the tele sounds incredible through the ED.

 

[elvis]

Yes, it sounds really great. It's not my first tele (5th, actually), but it is my first deluxe. I really love the 4-way switching. The pups in series have a great rock tone and power.

It does lose a little character through my 4x10, though I also switched to 0.010s, so I might have lost some glassiness there. I will probably try a 27" 1x12.

 

[YellowJacket]

The 27" 1 x 12 is now called the Royal Atlantic 27" Extension cab but it is still the same cab and just as awesome!

 

[screamingdaisy]

ED loves single coils. Although in my case, it's a P90 Les Paul.

 

[elvis]

I've been REALLY struggling with my tele into the Dyne. It seemed to sound so much BETTER at the store. I blamed the heavier gauge strings, I re-set up the tele, I changed speaker cabinet, I wondered if the key really was the combo vs. head.

At the same time, I have been putting up with an annoying hum from my pedal setup into the Dyne. It was something I was going to "get around to" dealing with, and wasn't bad enough to stop me from using it.

I had avoided dealing with it because it's a very complicated setup using an RG-16, a GCX and a bunch of pedal FX. I spent hours wiring it, and did a beautiful job. I let myself believe that since it's all "true bypass" via the GCX, it's not affecting the tone.

Last night I hit the end of my patience and pulled all the wires out. Once I was playing straight into the Dyne, it was AMAZING. Totally different tone. Way more of the tele tone.

I need to be way more meticulous when adding FX. Back to square 1...

 

[elvis]

ps...

The tele is AMAZING through the Dyne. Especially when cranked.

 

[screamingdaisy]

I need to be way more meticulous when adding FX. Back to square 1...

This is one of the reasons I rarely use effects, and when I do use them it's typically fairly minimal (I use a delay in the FX loop, and I have a wah that I use when playing certain covers).

 

[elvis]

Yeah, I'm really the kind of player who relies on pedals to adjust tone and volume, rather than the guitar's volume knob. So I have 2 overdrives in front just to get mildly different coloration that the amp could easily produce without the pedals.

I do love modulation, so the phasor and flanger have to stay. And wah.

I have delay in the loop, but that isn't giving me any problems.

The hum issues are likely due to the compressor and fuzz, both of which are AC line-powered. Probably I could get away without the compressor, though it really helps even out the volume when switching between humbuckers and coil-taps. The fuzz is beautiful, but not required, strictly speaking.

Mostly I love the automation. I love that I can be on VLO with OD, delay and phasor and hit one button to be on Clean with compression.

 

[YellowJacket]

Putting pedals in front of a 'Dyne is like putting heinz ketchup on a perfectly cured, grilled, AAA steak. It won't taste bad but why would you WANT to do that? :lol: :lol:

 

[elvis]

Well, sometimes I want horseradish on my steak. The trick is to get it wired so that I don't have any residual seasonings when I just want the steak.

 

[YellowJacket]

Methinks you need to shield the pickup cavities and the controls on your guitar. This should significantly reduce noise and hum.

Also, boo-urns to fx.

 

[elvis]

Thanks for the tips. However, definitely not the guitar. It's unbelievably quiet. It was all ground loops.

As of this morning, I have been running one box at a time. First major issue: Pedalboard. Tuner and wah in front of amp, through an Ebtech HE-2. Delay in loop, through a Nady HE (Ebtech copy).

The pedals are fine, no significant effect on tone. The HE-2 in front of the preamp had a huge effect on tone. Buffering in front of each of the HE2 sends helped a lot. Taking it out of the chain entirely was even better.

Same with NADY.

The reason I had them was to prevent ground loops, and give me an easy way to plug the pedal board into the rack. I think a patch bay will be a better solution. I did put the Ebtech into the FX send, and it is fine, no effect on tone. Clearly it's better than the Nady. But isolation transformers do change impedance, so in front of the preamp is probably not a great idea.

Now to add some effects, this time one at a time...

 

[elvis]

Ground loop between the amp and GCX. Didn't expect that...

 

[elvis]

RTFM wins the day! Using the GCX Front-panel guitar input grounds the GCX chassis. Substantially reduced noise.

Got the tele tone back, got the gain back, got rid of most of the hum. Remaining hum is from the pedal supply. Maybe a project for tomorrow...