Telecaster Sounds on A Strat

All right, so this is going to be really cool. I'm trying new things here. I have my phone here that's recording my guitar. So this is like the guitar angle down here. And then that's capturing what I'm doing. I have a new microphone, which is sweet. I got it for Christmas, along with the new, not really, I mean, it's new, but I've never had one before, a new mixer. And I'm screen capturing what I'm doing on my computer.

So this is going to be like a first real test for live streaming later on down the road. This video is going to be a little bit different than normal, because mainly I'm not going to edit much of this. I'll like edit in between each screen and each angle when appropriate. So like when I'm playing something like, you're going to see it from this camera, this guy right here.

And then when I'm editing stuff on the computer, you'll see my mouse move and I'll engage stuff so you know what I'm doing with the amp and pedal board. Other than that, this is really cool. I need to figure out a timer because I think you can only do like 30 minutes of screen grab. So like I need 10, 25.

Online alarm clock. How about that? How about 4, 10, and say 26 minutes, right? I have no idea how loud that's gonna be. It might be so loud.

But anyways, I also have my iPad hooked up so I can play like songs that I'm like trying to reference. So let's get started. What's up guys? Colt Wheeler here. Today I'm gonna try some new things that I just explained with the new gear, because I'm super excited about this. But what I'm trying to do, I love country music. I've always loved country music. I remember the first time I heard country music, it was with my mom in the car.

And it was, and this is like the first time I actually remember. My first concert apparently was Billy Ray Cyrus at Six Flags over Georgia. So don't tell my heart. But the first time I remember hearing a country song like altogether, I remember hearing it like perfectly. I was in the car and I really wanted Dunkin' Donuts.

And my mom said, "First we had to listen to this song." And it was Toby Keith, "How do you like me now?" And my mom loves Toby Keith. She's from Oklahoma. He's from Oklahoma. Just love Toby Keith. So that was the first time I really remember actually myself remembering other than rather than other people telling me stories of me remembering. First time I remember hearing country music. Anyways, long story short, I love country music. I've loved it since I was a kid.

I just started playing it like the past two or three years. Actually, about the same time that we found out that my son was being born, and he's going to be three in April, so about a little over three years ago. I've been starting to play country music. Clearly, you know country music is known for telecasters. This is not a Telecaster. This is a Stratocaster. Stratocasters and Telecasters don't sound the same.

That's the goal today. Can you figure out how to play that's the goal today? Can you figure out how to play classic chicken picking country music on a Stratocaster? So I have my Axe effect set up because you know I don't play in AMP. So I'm going to play through this Stratocaster into the Axe effects and create a chicken picking country twang sound that I think is going to be viable.

I'll use some sound samples to try to get it close and we'll go from there. It's not going to be edited or polished. There's not really good light. Who knows how good this is going to sound when it's all said and done. But that's the fun thing about this. Trial and error here. We're trying new things. So first we got started off with a class A 30 watt top list, which is basically a AC 130.

So let's hear what that sounds. Just clean everything up to 10. Sweet. So that's going to be our bass tone. So everything's basically at 5, you know 4.75, whatever. Everything's at 5.

Bright switch is on, because Top Boost, I'm not an expert, so if you are, let me know below. Pretty sure that Bright Boost means, or the top boost means that the bright switch is engaged, but I don't think ACU 30s have them, so you plug it into the top boost, which is brighter. Anyways, let's start crafting some tones.

So, typically, you know, country's twangy, right? So you want to get as close to the bridge as possible. That sounds pretty good. Let's get a little bit more trouble. I usually like to do six and a half. It's all going to depend on here.

So maybe it's really too much past six and a half. Maybe it is, and I can't hear. We're going to turn up the volume on my headphones, so hopefully it doesn't blow up my ears when the alarm goes off. If it does, that will be in the bloopers at the end. Anyways. All right, so that's your treble. Let's add a little bit of mids too, because mids are the most important part of any guitar sound.

I feel weird cranking everything up. Like, so it's necessary. You know, like this Telecaster pickups, that bass, it's weird, right? Because like, it's wider. It has a wider range. I think that's right.

Wider range than the single coil strap pickups. So it produces wider frequency range. I think that's right, right? So you want to almost grab everything. Let's see what the brightness does. It's a little too bright.

Actually, we fatten it up. We're like basically there, at least in my mind, right?

All right, so let's find something that we can use as a reference. I was playing Hotwired. Maybe do that.

Hotwired is by Brett Mason. If you saw my last video, go check it out right here. It's a super fast, awesome chicken picking killer song. He is a monster. Let's hear it real quick.

I wasn't playing it nearly as fast, but you know this is almost like too bright. Like I never thought I'd say like a strat was too bright in a telly, but I just rolled down the tone.

It's probably really bad. Get rid of that. So like that's almost it, right?

At least on this amp, right? At least on the Vox AC 30 top boost in the AxeFX. If you have a Vox AC30, this would probably be pretty close. Obviously, my master is cranked to 10, as you can see right here. Probably can't do that in real life. Because it would be way too loud, or at least you can't do it at home.

So let's say wow. That's kind of the same, right? Okay. So what is that?

Negative eight. Let's just pretend levels, because this is a computer versus, you know what I'm saying, right?

Like The level difference and the master volume difference aren't really real life the same, but you get the same idea. Like, tweak your knobs a little bit. The point being is that I think a strat can get twangy like a telecaster. But I did have a, but I did have a different notion.

But I did have a change of mind now that I'm doing this versus when I first came in here, like if you look at one of my other patches, it's way too bright. Like super, super bright, way too bright, like will rip your head off. Might work like in a live setting. But in your bedroom, you're like, "Ah, no wonder your ears probably get used to it after like 10 minutes." And it's like, "Oh, this sounds a lot better than when I first started." Telecasters, not as trebly as I thought it was.

I guess treble and twang are bright, right? 'Cause like Telecasters are always known to cut through the mix. I was playing a show with my girlfriend, now fiance, and the other guitars, I was playing a, I was playing this guitar actually, the Stratocaster, and the other guitar player was playing a Les Paul, and he's like, "Why can't I hear myself in the mix?" And, you know, like, that's the thing about Flashband.

It's a learning process for, like, literally everybody. 'Cause you have a month to play with brand new people, learn brand new songs you probably never heard of or played before, and then play them on stage together. So, this guy's like, "Why can I not hear myself in the mix?" 'Cause usually like in a month's span when you're not a professional musician and you're like practicing once a week and you really don't know what you're doing. Not that you really don't know what you're doing, but you have a month. This isn't your full-time gig.

You have a nine to five, you might have family afterwards. The last thing you're thinking about is EQ. So his buddy's like, "Here, grab this." So he grabs the Telecaster, instantly cut through. Now you can't hear me. But that's not the point. The point is, I thought telecasters did that because of the trebles, but I think it's more in the mid. And a lot of you are probably like, well, you're an idiot. Maybe that's the case. I don't know. But I think a Telecaster is more mid guitar.

'Cause I mean, mid is the dominant range of guitars, right? So it makes sense that telecasters dominate the mids more so than any other guitar, which makes sense why you gotta crank the mids on this Telecaster and in my mind, bumping the treble all the way up and then cutting the tone on the bridge pickup down kind of gets a little telecaster area.

If you agree that this sounds like a telecaster right now, give me a thumbs up, smash the like button. Subscribe if you haven't, 'cause you know that's a thing. Yeah, this is actually sounding pretty good. So with every great country song, the next important thing is delay.

And if you notice here, I set it up like most country players would that are playing like down on lower Broadway or like at a bar or, you know, not a professional gig. Basically all their pedals in front of the amp, right? So like your compressor, your compression, your delay, your drive, and your reverb are all before the amp. It changes it if your amp has an effects loop. If you want to run it that way, it's more prevalent in rock and like heavier distorted amps.

But for country, you can put everything in before. Anyways, let's add some delay because a slight delay is a staple of country music and not 500 milliseconds because that is way too much. Feedback.

Actually, we want 100% feedback, but I don't know how we just went from like A to B here. Mix is what I was looking for.

All right, so instead of digital, let's go to analog mono just because stereo sounds better, but for case and purposes, you might just have like a simple delay pedal stomp box, right?

So let's just keep it simple. Sweet. So I mean It's gonna be really embarrassing but I need to tune up real quick. Pause. One eternity later. There's probably somebody out there like watching this video who has like perfect pitch and he's probably like, ah, tune your guitar, tune your guitar.

Sorry, dude, I just did. If you have perfect pitch, you're probably still going to be mad at me for it. But whatever. It's Friday night. I'm all jacked up on Mountain Dew and let's keep on going. All right, so see how it makes a very subtle slapback difference though?

Versus, you don't want the mix too high. But you want like it to be known that it's there. So you know how I said I put everything before the amp in the cab? Let's just pretend your amp has built-in reverb because most amps do, and you're probably doing this well, I can't remember.

I don't think, actually, I don't think a I don't think AC 130 has built-in reverb. Let's see though. Built in reverb. Whoa. Sorry.

Actually, now that I think about it, I can really think about it. I don't think it does. Yeah. Oh, look at that. It does. OK.

So we're going to pretend like your AMP has reverb built in. So we'd have a, I guess, medium spring because it's an AC 30 sits a bigger one, right? So medium works. All right. So clearly, that's way too long.

Reverb needs to make a touch of reverb for Country Guitar, because you already have the delay going, right?

Keep the licks in the mix low on this, which is like the right.

So like the mix is kind of like the intensity, I think. Obviously, I can't really adjust the size, or I can adjust the size of the actual spring. You probably can't unless you have an X-FX, or a camper, or a digital reverb. Anyways, if you're using the reverb of an AMP, you can't make it longer or shorter because it's a physical object. Anyways, let's test this via Brett Mason.

So if it gets a little dark because of the delay and the reverb, guess what? You got like three or four notches on your next bridge tone knob that you can Oh, that's sweet.

Yeah, if I can only play. If I can only play. So that's why we sorted out with the tone knob down, right? One, because it sounded a lot better.

Two, I turned it down more than I needed to, but now that I added the delay in the reverb, you almost wanted to add a little bit more brightness and a little bit more treble in there because it got a little muddy. Now we're getting like country spanking, you know. You know, if I could play.

That sounds like a Telecaster. Sort of. I mean, it sounds like a fake Telecaster, right?

So I mean, like I know Telecaster is like the most simple, probably the cheapest guitars you can probably make nowadays. But if you don't have a Telecaster and you really want to play country music, you kind of have a way now to play it and you have a stratocaster. Maybe part two of this is me playing it on like a Humbucker guitar with split coils. If you want to see that one, give me a thumbs up. Leave a comment below.

Now, if my fiance is still watching this, let it be known I still need a Telecaster. I don't have a Telecaster. Just because I can make it sound like a Telecaster doesn't mean I don't still need a Telecaster. You guitar guys out there know this, but you know anyways.

The treble, the treble, the tremolo arm, whammy bar, whatever you want to call it, adds a lot of tension. So when you bend strings, which is very prominent in country music, bending is a little bit harder on strats, at least for the kind of acrobatic.

I'm not saying it's impossible. I just have to work on it and know that that feedback's coming on a stratocaster versus a telecaster because you are fighting those springs. Reason number two to get a Telecaster. One, it sounds like a Telecaster, but also you don't have to fight Whammy Bar Springs. So anyways, moving on. Moving on.

Every good chicken picking country blazing song needs compression because, you know, that's just compression. That's a really bad example. Compression, when you're playing soft, country music is very dynamic. It's very rhythmic, and it's very percussive. So you're going to have soft notes along oh, wow, that's loud. All right, let's stop that. Let's stop this then and resume.

12 seconds later. Where did we leave off? Sorry, the alarm went off. And I can't believe we're already 30 minutes, 25 minutes. I can't remember how long I stopped the recording or the alarm for into the recording, so it's not over 30 minutes because the screen grab only goes for 30 minutes, so somewhere around there. I thought this video was going to be less than 30 minutes, but here we are. So compression. Country music is very percussive.

It has a lot of soft notes. It has a lot of loud notes mixed in between. So compression takes those softer notes, makes them a little bit louder, and the louder notes a little bit softer, so about the same level, so you still hear them audibly the same, or relatively the same loudness, perceived loudness.

So that's why like the very fast like Brent Mason runs or Brad Paisley, you know when they play that fast and you play with your fingers and a pick when you hybrid chicken picking. Not everything is going to be you know the same force used on a pick, which what a lot of rock music and jazz music relies on those dynamics.

When you're doing that speed blazing fast chicken pick and stuff, you kind of want it all to be the same loudness. So that's where the compression comes into play. So let's see. Change the compression to a pedal compression, right, because we're pretending this is a pedal board. And I like to do like 80-hundred, so a little bit of it comes through, right? So it's not like all compression, but it's a little bit of the regular signal too.

That sounded pretty country here, right?

That's very, very Brent Mason. Brent Mason. Very, very Brent Mason. I think we're close. I mean, I would use this on a regular basis. I feel like I'm playing the same licks over and over again.

That's what time it is on Friday, January. Whoa, my Fitbit is completely off January 3rd, in case you were wondering.

So it's close. It's pretty, pretty close for right.

What do you think? I mean, I think we're basically there.

Like, obviously, there are things that make it a little bit more twangy, pick closer to the bridge.

What I have noticed about the Stratocaster of the Telecaster is that this volume pod is awfully close to like where I would normally, like on a Telecaster, I can rest my whole hand firmly across all the strings, just like this, and then not get in the way. But this volume knob, that's a big, big issue for me, right?

So I'm not able to like like I was talking about earlier, how like percussive the instrument is, and country guitar, how percussive guitar is in country music, that requires a lot of like, you know, palm muting. And it's hard to mute all six strings with your palm when this tone pot is so close. We're like on like a telecaster, like the tone pot's like way down here, right?

So you actually have to like reach for it versus it being, you know, right here, which is kind of good for the, you know, the nice swells, like the I don't ever really practice that. But you get the idea. It's nice for volume swells. You can do that with a volume pedal if you had a Telecaster. Just another reason why you need a Telecaster. But if you want to play country music and all you have is Stratocaster, you still can.

You've got to find ways around it. So how I've done it is not palm you as much, more muting with your picking hand. So there's that. But you know it sounds country. I mean, come on.

That's like, that's good.

Mama would be proud. That's country.

All right, so now we have classic country. Like, you know, modern country has a lot of drive in it.

Ooh, that actually sounds pretty good. RC booster. Obviously, Timmy. Timmy is a very popular one in Nashville. So like I think it needed to be said that unlike rock and metal, in country music, you're not trying to make your volume louder or your level louder.

You're just trying to change the tone. And you know it depends on how you it really depends on how you view guitar pedals. Particularly what's your goal? Are you having a small 5 watt amp that you really want to crank with the pedal, or are you just using it for tone purposes?

For a country, it's very important that it's just tone, that you keep a very level signal throughout the whole process, except for like adding in like an RC booster to boost your signal for like those solo moments so you can stand out a little bit from the rest of the band. But you know we're just going for tone here. So try to keep all of your levels the same. So like when you click on your distortion pedal, like it changes the tone, but not like the volume, right?

So that's kind of what you really want. You just want it to sound great. And I think we have something good going on right here. We have a really good thing going on right now. I promise I'm going to cut all those off. So like adding the Timmy. So we added the Timmy, but I don't like to use compression with drive.

I don't know why, I just don't. So like without drive. It's got a little bit, you know, a little bit more beef to it. Not much, but it's subtle. Especially like when you're trying to bend like these lower, lower down on the neck, that's when you really feel the tension.

If you don't have a Telecaster because you can't retract this, try next time you go to the guitar store. But if you have like a Les Paul, like an Epiphone Les Paul, try bending at the second fret on the A string versus bending on your stratocaster.

Assuming you have the same gauge strings, you will notice, one, because of the scale length, but also because of the spring tension, it is so much easier on a Les Paul depend that yeah there's lower frets. Reason number three to get a Telecaster. But you can still do it on a strat with super strength.

So yeah, there you have it. Simple amp reverb, preferably built-in. If not, you know, spring reverb emulator if you have a pedal. A little slap back delay, some compression, and a little slight overdrive. I mean, like that's country sound.

You're there. I mean, is it a Telecaster? No. People are going to say, are you playing country music on a Stratocaster? Well, yeah, this guy, Colt Wheeler, taught me how to do it. Most people will say, "Well, why don't you get a Telecaster?" Well, you know, modern country is all over the place. There's a lot of rock and roll. There's a lot of jazz incorporated. There's a lot of bluegrass. So like, it's mainly in the amp and mainly in the way that, you know, you hybrid pick because you got a hybrid pick.

You know, you pick, pluck, pluck, or pick, pluck with your fingers. Country music is more about like what notes you play and when you accent and what you don't, and those grace notes, those ghost notes. It's more about how you play than the gear. But Telecasters make it easier. But with modern music, especially, you know, what's going on with the CMA top 40s and stuff, it's all over the place.

Jason Aldean's folks, his two guitar players play PRS's and Gibsons. Albert Lee has a Music Man signature thing with Johnny Highland. They play Music Man, not a Telecaster. Brent Mason has a very famous Telecaster that's silver, but he used to have a PRS, kind of a strat style, or more like a 513 familiar with PRS's signature model, right?

So it's all about the mindset, what you're playing, what notes you're playing, how you're playing, that staccato, very percussive plucking sound with your fingers, you know, like show down here like that. That's the country sound. While I'm thinking of it Sorry, I'm sick. While I'm thinking of it, let's go back to like 70s.

Phasers, particularly ooh, already there, 90 phasers. Think of like, you know, 70s. That's already dialed in, because we already did the work, right? So an MXR 90 is like the perfect phaser for country music.

If you want to play especially like Waylon Jennings, right?

You know, like the I mean, if you had a small pedal board and you only can fit four pedals on there, compression, drive, a phaser, and like a small delay with like tap tempo to use as like a slap back.

And then you can use like any amp you want. Preferably a Vox or a Fender amp, AC30 or a deluxe reverb, you could probably play any country game with those four pedals. I did it via a computer because I have an XFX because there's a long, long backstory. I made a video about it, but there's a long backstory about why I have the axe effects. It's more than just country music. I also play in the metal band.

I also like jazz, fusion, and jam bands, and I'm all over the place. So AxeFX is many amps in one, but my main love is country, and you can get away with it with just a simple amp that you can get at any guitar center, and four pedals. Wow, this video is already close to I'm going to say 40 minutes long. I'm guessing here. If you're still here watching this video at 40 minutes, let me know who your favorite guitar player is down in the comments below, and then add the face with the tongue sticking out.

So I know you've made it this long. You like the colon and the P or whatever. Anyways, I should probably get off here. It's been 45 minutes ish. But anyways, I can now say I can play country music on a Stratocaster. Is it all the way there? No, it's not all the way there. It's almost there. I would say it's like 80% there. And I've been practicing for like three hours tonight, so maybe my hearing's gone.

But let me know in the comments below if you think it sounds like it because I hope this video is helpful. Whether you find your way because you're wondering if the Axe effects can do clean tones, which sounds good to me. If you're using your Apple pods, it might not sound that great. I don't know. Are they good? I don't know if they sound good or not. But on my headphones plugged directly into a mixer, they sound great.

So if you're using laptop speakers, you might say, that doesn't sound like it, but you know whatever. I digress.

Anyways, I digress. I think it sounds pretty country to me, pretty spanking, pretty.

I played very much the same riffs all night, but I mean, they're good indicators of if it sounds country or not. Let me know your thoughts below. Hope you enjoyed this. I think this rig worked out for me. New microphone, the mixing board.

That camera going, my main camera. The phone recording the good old guitar and the screen capture, I didn't do a screen capture of the second part. I apologize. I'm just now realizing that I didn't screen capture the second part. I mean, all we really did was add a phaser, I think, in the second part. Oh, 20 minutes over a phaser and talking.

Anyways, I'll do a screen capture of just what the screen looks like right now, right? So you get an idea of what I did for the phaser. Anyways, I hope you found this video helpful. Anyways, I hope you found this video useful. Check out some of the other videos. Let me know. I think I want to do these videos more often with this kind of like setup.

This is more of a trial run for me, but also trial run from getting a country sound. Also, hopefully you found value of it. You can now play country music with your Stratocaster. If you have a Stratocaster and you don't have a Telecaster. If you have a Telecaster, use a Telecaster. Anyways, check out the links below. There's nothing really down there. I mean, there's like affiliate links, but like, I don't really talk about anything. Access is awesome. There's a three out now.

Use twos. Use twos are awesome. I read a Facebook post today that guy had a two, he upgraded to three. There are more options on the three, more tonal capabilities in terms of like CPU powder. But he doesn't think it sounds any better. So if you're interested, go check those things out. Like I said, links below if you are interested. There's my website, my social media and stuff down there.

Anyways, I hope you Anyways, I hope you enjoy the video. Yeah. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Cool weekend for me coming up. Check out my social media. You'll find out why. Anyways, hope you enjoyed the video. And until next time, let the music play.