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This question was submitted by Anonymous Which type of potentiometers came in stock with the 90s Telecaster plus guitars, like Jonny's? 250k or 500k? Thanks in advance. The first version Telecaster Plus guitars came with a 250k solid-shaft potentiometer for the volume control and a special TBX potentiometer for the tone control. The TBX pot is a very unusual kind of dual-gang pot designed specifically to be used as a tone control. On normal dual-gang pots, both halves work for the full sweep of the pot. But on the TBX pot, only the top pot is used for the first half of the sweep, and only the bottom pot is used for the second half. It also has a center-detent in the middle, so you can essentially turn it off. The way it’s wired allows it to work as a treble cut when turned down below the middle detent, working as a normal tone control. But when turned up past the middle detent it works as a bass cut, which can feel like a treble boost. Fender guitars in the 90s used the TBX version with a 1M bottom pot, a 250k top pot, plus a 82k resistor and a 0.022uF film cap. The current TBX “kit” sold by Fender uses all of the same values. The TBX kit is also much cheaper than most pickups, so if you have a slightly dark humbucker then it might be a better option than a pickup swap. Some folks have speculated that Jonny uses a coil split for his bridge humbucker, and that’s how he can get such a “cutting” distortion sound. The TBX tone control is probably the real reason he can add that extra cut to his sound, though it’s not an extreme difference. Coil splitting does give a brighter sound, but it’s also lower volume, which would reduce the amount of distortion available. Using the TBX to “add” treble avoids that loss of volume and distortion. That said, his picking position and the settings of his amp and distortion pedal have a much greater affect on his distortion tone than any specific TBX setting. A closeup of Jonny’s original Telecaster Plus, which was stolen in Denver on October 3, 1995. This screenshot is from Radiohead’s Jools Holland performance of The Bends, which is why Jonny is bending the high E-string to such an extreme. 3 days ago 4 notes

Quick answers to some common questions: Jonny only uses his Marshall Shredmaster distortion with his solid-state Fender Eighty-Five amplifier. The Eighty-Five is set for a flat clean tone without any reverb, and it’s mic’d with either a Shure SM57 or an Audix OM3 (both inexpensive dynamic mics).

Jonny only uses his BOSS overdrive and his time-based effects (delay, reverb, looping) with his tube Vox AC30 amplifiers. He generally uses the “Normal” channel on his 1998-ish Vox AC30TB, so only the “Volume” and “Tone Cut” controls are used – the “Treble” and “Bass” controls only affect the “Top Boost” channel. At shows it’s mic’d with either a Shure SM57 or Audio-Technica AT3060, though others are used in studio.



His setup uses a line selector to choose between those two options, and it’s configured to choose one or the other, not both amps at once. Due to the way it’s wired, the Shredmaster cannot be used with the AC30, and the BOSS overdrive cannot be used with the Eighty-Five. This may seem limiting at first, since Jonny can’t “stack” the two pedals, but it makes it much faster and easier for Jonny to switch between two very different sounds, as he does when switching from the verses to the main riff on Airbag , for example.

, for example. Jonny used a BOSS SD1 overdrive starting in late-1995, a year after The Bends was recorded, but prior to the recording of OK Computer in 1996. He switched to an OD3 overdrive in mid-2006. Both overdrive pedals were used during the recording of In Rainbows, though Jonny also used small vintage tube amps for overdrive on that album. The character of the OD3 can be heard most clearly in the outro solo on Identikit from A Moon Shaped Pool. Jonny with his pedalboards during tour rehearsals in April, 2006. His BOSS SD1 overdrive, Marshall Shredmaster distortion, and BOSS LS2 line selector can all be seen on the board on the left.

2 weeks ago 29 notes

This question was submitted by Anonymous Hello , im the person who asked you about getting my first guitar , just a small follow up ,, i saw one of you posts before mentioning that the fretboard is important for the tone ( Do you know if I can get somewhere Fender Telecaster Plus?) it's this post (im not able to link it for some reason )but you advised me the opposite , so i think i misunderstood , do you mean the fretboard doesn't matter but the neck wood type does right (sound wise) ? We’ve done a lot of research and blind testing over the past seven years since the original post. There’s a lot of myths around guitar, and many times things that are true for acoustic guitars are assumed to be true for electrics without any testing. Today, our stance is that the neck and fretboard of an electric guitar basically only affects how it feels to play, not the plugged-in tone. Of course, how it feels is important, and there’s nothing wrong with going out of your way to get a solid maple neck for the smooth feel – it’s just important to acknowledge why. Hope that clears things up! 3 weeks ago 3 notes

This question was submitted by Anonymous so i'm new to the guitar for a bit , i used my friend's squier bullet strat for a bit just to get a feel for a guitar but now i wanna get my own guitar and i'm planning to get something of the affinity series , what would be the closest one to sound like jonny's ? the affinity tele doesn't have humbuckers t and there's squier jazzmaster HH that seems to be closer to his sound because as i've found looking around your blog is jonny's neck pickup is closer to a humbucker but it has laurel wood You’re quite right, the Jazzmaster HH would sound a lot closer to Jonny’s guitars than the Affinity Tele or the other Affinity guitars with single coils. There’s also the Affinity Starcaster, but it seems to have the same pickups as the Jazzmaster HH, so the higher price would be largely for aesthetics.* Fingerboard material has basically no effect on the plugged-in sound of an electric guitar. The main difference between maple and laurel is how it feels to play, with maple being “smoother” (due to the finish applied to it) and laurel having a “softer” feel. But for a first guitar, you should seriously consider buying a used instrument, perhaps the Squier Contemporary Tele HH, Squier Classic Vibe ‘70s Tele Deluxe, or Squier Classic Vibe Starcaster. Of course, price isn’t a guarantee of quality, and I’m sure some Affinity guitars are better than the more expensive Classic Vibe guitars. Still, there’s a fair chance you’ll get a slightly better used guitar for a similar price, especially if you can try it in person to confirm. Another factor to consider is whether a Squier really is the best option. Squier and Epiphone can sell a lot of guitars just on the designs and branding of Fenders and Gibsons respectively. To compete, other brands in the same price range like Ibanez and Yamaha often offer better quality. But there are really no guarantees in this price range, so if you can, try all of these guitars to see which one you like best in person. Good luck! *The solid center block of semi-hollow guitars like the Starcaster prevent the body from resonating like true hollow-bodies, so they actually behave more like solid-body guitars. They sound louder unplugged than solid-bodies due to reflections from the glued-on hollow sides, but those reflections have little effect on the plugged-in sound, which is why semi-hollows avoid the feedback issues plaguing hollow-bodies. 3 weeks ago 1 note

Major Correction to Nigel’s Page For many years, Nigel’s page included gear used on Zero 7’s 2006 album The Garden. While additional recording for that album was done at Nigel’s “The Hospital” studio, most of the album was recorded at Henry Binns’ home studio in Glastonbury, called the “Roundhouse” (not to be confused with the Roundhouse venue in London where Radiohead and Jonny Greenwood have performed). As such, a lot of gear that we thought belonged to Nigel was totally unrelated to Nigel, and instead was part of Binns’ studio. You can now see that list of gear on this page. But it’s worth noting that Nigel and Binns have similar taste in gear, which is unsurpring since they’ve been friends since they shared classes at the William Ellis School in London. Both are frequent users of Acoustic Energy AE1 monitors, Neumann U47 and Shure SM57 mics, Urei 1176 compressors, and the Protools DAW. The list of gear at Binn’s home studio was originally listed in interview with Sam Hardaker of Zero 7 from Electronic Musician magazine. The original article is gone, but you can read an archived version here. Fixing this correction made us realize that Nigel’s page is missing a lot of information about the mics used for his From The Basement recordings, aside from the well-known vocal mics. We’d greatly appreciate any submissions identifying the instrument mics used for those sessions.

1 month ago 5 notes

This question was submitted by Anonymous Why is there always a technician helping jonny to cut the signal of his guitar before recording the loop for weird fishes? Can't he just mute it with his volume pedal? Jonny’s volume pedal only controls the volume of his guitar going to his Fender Eighty-Five amp. But the output of Jonny’s looper is connected to his Vox AC30 amp, so it is unaffected by the setting of his volume pedal. The exception to this was on Radiohead’s 2012 tour, when Jonny brought two volume pedals, one for each amp. See Jonny’s effects page for more info how his pedals are arranged. 2 months ago 7 notes

Is it worth modifying a Standard Telecaster to fit humbuckers? Note: we don’t do affiliate marketing or sponsorships, so we don’t get any money if you buy any of the gear mentioned in this article. If you do buy something because of us, we don’t ask that you donate to us, but why not donate to a good cause? If you can afford another pedal, you can afford to do that.

Recently we’ve gotten various Jonny-related questions about Telecaster pickups configurations and about converting a Telecaster Standard into a Telecaster Plus using the Lace loaded pickguard. Before giving advice on how to modify a Tele, it seems worth asking whether it’s worth it. The first consideration is that both pickups of the Telecaster Plus V1, Jonny’s main guitar with Radiohead, are voiced as humbuckers, while both pickups on a standard Telecaster are true single coils. Despite its shape, Lace claims that the Blue pickup (found in the neck of a Tele Plus V1) has a “warmer 50’s humbucking sound in a single coil configuration” (Lace). Additionally, in recent years Jonny has used a range of guitars, from his stolen-and-reacquired 90s Tele Plus to Thom’s old Tele with a Gibson PAF, from his 70s Starcaster to a 2014 Modern Player Starcaster reissue, from his 70s Les Paul Standard to various Les Pauls rented on tour in support of Junun. These guitars use a wide range of pickups (including CuNiFe Wide Range pickups in the case of the 1970s Starcaster), but they all use humbuckers. So you should really ask whether it makes sense to buy a single coil guitar for it’s look/shape and then modify it, when Jonny seems happy with the sound of any humbuckered Fender. A photo of Jonny playing Thom’s “Tele3″ at a performance with the London Contemporary Orchestra in Budapest on October 17, 2015. The guitar is a heavily-modified 70s Telecaster Standard featuring a ‘57 Gibson PAF in the bridge, an unknown humbucker in the neck, and artwork by Thom.

Humbuckers, including the pickups in the Lace Tele Plus JG loaded pickguard, will not fit on a standard Telecaster guitar, which is routed (i.e. has space in the wood of the body cut out) for single coil pickups. And even standard (Stratocaster-sized) single coils won’t fit in the neck position of a Standard Tele, since it only has space for the smaller chrome Tele neck pickup. The loaded pickugard will only work with certain (not all) Telecasters which already have humbuckers. Examples of Teles which would fit the loaded pickguard include the Fender Player Telecaster HH and the now discontinued Fender Modern Player Telecaster Plus. Both have 22 frets, like the original Tele Plus and unlike most standard Teles. Ironically, the stock pickups of the Player Tele HH will be closer to the sounds Jonny likes than the stock pickups the Modern Player Plus, despite the name. The single coil neck pickup of the Modern Player Plus will sound like a standard Telecaster, unlike the Lace Sensor Blue neck pickup of the original Tele Plus V1 which is voiced like a humbucker. The Player Tele HH is also relatively inexpensive and comes in sunburst finish, so in general it seems like the best option if you really want the traditional Telecaster look/shape but with humbucker pickups. You may decide you don’t even need to swap out the pickups at all. If you care less about the appearance, there many versions of the Telecaster Deluxe (favored by Thom in the 90s) and the Telecaster Thinline (‘72 version), all of which are fitted with humbuckers. You won’t be able to use the pickguard from the Lace loaded set, but you’re probably better off buying the pickups individually anyway (compared to buying the pickups individually, you’re essentially spending $30 USD on a black piece of plastic). Although in construction the “Wide Range” humbuckers in Fender reissues like the Deluxe Tele are closer to Gibson PAF pickups than to the original pickups they claim to replicate (they use bar magnets instead of CuNiFe pole piece magnets), they clearly sound good enough to Jonny since he used a 2014 reissue Starcaster for performances in Budapest and Italy. Jonny playing a 2014 Fender Modern Player Starcaster reissue in Fermo, Italy in October, 2019. Screenshot from his interview with Tutta un'Altra Musica.

To use the Lace Tele Plus loaded pickguard with a standard Telecaster, you’ll need to route the body to fit a humbucker. You’ll also need a new Hardtail-style bridge, and there will be a visible hole in the body between the humbucker and the bridge. A better option is to purchase the pickups individually, and to purchase a Telecaster-style bridge plate designed to fit a humbucker. That’s exactly what Plank (the band’s guitar tech) did in the 90s when he converted an American Standard Telecaster into a Telecaster Plus V1 to use as Jonny’s backup (see “Tele2” on Jonny’s page). That sort of bridge plate is also what Plank used when he added a bridge humbucker to Thom’s Tele3. But even if you do get that bridge plate, you’ll still need to route the guitar to fit the humbucker – the larger bridge just covers the hole. Unless you already own routing equipment, or you want to start modifying guitars more heavily in the future, the combined cost of the new bridge plate and tools (or paying a tech, often just as expensive) mean that it doesn’t make much sense to do this compared to buying a guitar that’s pre-routed for humbuckers. One can see the Telecaster-style humbucker bridge plate on Jonny’s 90s American Standard Telecaster in this screenshot from Radiohead’s performance of Exit Music at the Eurockéennes de Belfort festival on July 4, 1997.

3 months ago 8 notes

This question was submitted by Anonymous I'm thinking of buying the squier affinity pj bass pack which comes with the fender rumble 15 amp. Now I know colin uses ampeg amps but do you think I could sound close to him by adjusting the knobs on that amp? Amplifier settings aside, a 1x8″ speaker cabinet will not sound like an 8x10″ speaker cabinet. But why would you need it to sound like an Ampeg? It’s meant to be a practice amp, and for practicing it should be suitable. That said, be careful when purchasing combo packs like that. If at all possible, visit a music store and try multiple basses (preferably with a friend/teacher with experience) to make sure you get one that plays well. It’s easy to get a larger amp down the road, and you’ll still be able to use the small amp for practicing at home. But a bass that plays poorly can cause problems in your technique that you won’t have the knowledge to notice (like using too much force to overcompensate for a bad string setup). 3 months ago 2 notes

This question was submitted by Anonymous I was listening to the Henry Rollins Show version of Cymbal Rush and Jonny's French Connection sounds different to me in the final part of the song, as if there's a harmonizer or some similar device. Am I crazy? You’re right to be surprised at hearing harmonies from a French Connection, although it would be possible by tuning a second oscillator at the desired interval. But the real explanation is that it’s not a French Connection at all! Rather, it’s a 1980s “student model” ondes Martenot, which uses digital additive synthesis (unlike other ondes Martenot). You can more clearly hear the differences between the French Connection and 80s Martenot in Jonny’s interview with Caroline Martel from the documentary Wavemakers. Jonny has used the 80s Martenot for all of his one-off performances of Cymbal Rush with Thom, and you can read more about it here. It’s also worth noting that, for the Henry Rollins performance, Jonny has a pedalboard by his feet including an Akai Headrush E1, which he uses for looping in the middle section of the song. You can see how Jonny uses the looper much more clearly in this video of the 2017 Macerata performance. Jonny in the midst of crafting a first inversion D# minor chord on his 80s ondes Martenot. One can see his French Connection with its associated modular cabinet (since it can’t create sounds on its own) in the background. 3 months ago 7 notes