Henri Grünbauer
GUITARS
Fender Telecaster Custom late 1972
When Henri reacts to a Picture Paul Reus uploaded of his Guitar, the Guitarists have an interesting chat about the condition of their Guitars. It reveals a lot of details on the Black Telecaster Custom.
Henri: aren’t You fed up yet with those bridge saddles?
Paul: Hi Henri, I leave the Guitar in it’s original shape. It is amazing how it stays in tune so well all the time. I have no doubt You made changes to yours?
Henri: yes I did. First I exchanged de bridge plate with a six-way messing ‘Ashtray’. But for years I have a six-way tremolo-unit on the Guitar. the Pickup is screwed into the Body. The sound has changed a bit. It is heavier but still, the sharpness of the Telecaster comes through. I read somewhere people bend the intonationscrews on the original telecaster bridge to avoid too much difference in height. The saddles are a bit out of place but the guitar would be better intonated then. Maybe it helps. Of course I like the vintage Telecaster sounds!
Paul: Could You show us a picture of your tele with all the modifications?
Henri: (uploads a Picture of his Guitar) The neck has been refretted at the end of the eighties and the micro tilt construction has been stabilised with the use of some sort of wire netting which grabs the wood of the body and neck at the joint.The neck pickup is a hand wound 1987 ‘Black Rose’ Stratocaster type of pickup to match the pre-1961 original Telecaster Bridge pickup. The mid Pickup is japanese. I made sure the coil has tight windings. It can be put in or out of phase with the other two pickups which are out of phase with each other by the way. This gives a total of 7 (or 8 if You count the phase reversed sound of the pickup on it’s own) different combinations with the 5 way switch and the phase reversal push/pull pot. The tone control only works on position 2,3 and 4. The first of the controls is the master volume control, followed by Tone and volume for the mid pickup. The capacitor comes from a 50s Framus Guitar. The Tremolo is a Washburn Shift 2001 Wunderbar. After 1988 I haven’t made any mods on the Tele. Just some improvements on the soldering. The utter tuningpeg I had to replace, it took quite some effort to get the right one. When Fender was taken over by CBS they changed the tuning pegs, replacements pegs were almost always pre-CBS. The routing of the body was all covered with graphite painting, making it a very ‘silent’ Guitar. Originally it had a DiMarzio Pre BS Telie pickup in the Bridge, which sounded terrible. The first owner, Paul Polan already had moved the volume control to the position my master volume is in to this day. That’s about it. One more thing: the 5 way switch works the other way round to my preference.
Paul: This isn’t a minor modification, Henri. When one comes to having a look at it, it shows the scratch plate covers the complete front of the Guitar, I never saw that with any Tele before. On my Tele the neck pickup is attached to the scratch plate. The Tremolo provides a nice effect to your playing. The mid pickup will no doubt be put in or out of phase by one of the potentiometers (I presume the one in the middle)
Henri: That’s right, it is the middle control. which is a tone control by the way. The last one is a volume preset control for the mid pickup. The scratch plate is triplex wood, painted black.
Above the Melody Blue Sage Nomad, an early 80's obscure Italian Telecaster based Guitar which has al lot of extra's like Comfort Contoured Body and a very nice neck. The Bridge pickup is a Bill Lawrence L500 split coil. Henri: : "I use it mostly in single coil mode. This is a much better pickup than the original Shadow pickup. There was no rhythm pickup. A speaker was placed underneath the strings (where on acoustics you'll find the sound hole) wired to an awful sounding preamp. The idea was quite revolutionairy and I had some fun with it in the old days, like instant feedback. However I forgot about the Guitar because there were more problems like a not really well fitting bridge. Half way the '90s I did some modding replacing the Speaker and pre-amp with an original Tele Rhythm pickup. I fixed the Bridge and constructed the Red Pickguard." On the picture on the right we see de Blue Sage with the original messing scratch plate removed and the speaker still in the Guitar. This speaker ended op in the Vox escort which had it's original speaker blown up. The Nomad is actually a very rare Guitar and there is little information available. One source on the internet comes up giving pictures of a similar Guitar in it's original shape, the only difference being the Color. Henri: "This Guitar was used during the final gigs with the Kerozinekikkers and I did some recording on it. Two instrumentals "Triggerin' & Riffin'" and "Another Windy Day" were done on this Guitar." The picture shows the comfortable neck making fast passages a joy to play and one would love to hear the rich clear tone of the Bill Lawrence L500 in single coil mode as well as the singing tone when the Tele rhythm pick up is used for Lead on it's own.
Above a single pick up Fender Telecaster or Esquire Blonde/Black Pickguard and a Telecaster Blonde/White Pickguard and Dimarzio SDS1 neck p.u. ('74) below A 1963 Fender Mustang with added mini humbucking (from an old Framus Guitar) pu in mid position. A Fender Telecaster Thinline 1979 with wide range humbuckers. The Tele/esquire was sold at some point. Henri: "The Thinline and the Mustang along with some other Guitars belonging to friends of mine got stolen by a Luthier who, as I found out some months later, was a heroine addict."
Then there is the Epiphone Sheraton II from around the millennium. A very good -looking and -sounding Guitar. Based on the Gibson ES 335 model this Guitar is top of the line of the series for Epiphone. At the point of writing this we know Gibson sadly Bankrupted. The Sheraton lost it's scratchplate, but apart from that remains in it's original state. The 1974 Ibanez Les Paul Custom was also modified, the gold-plated pickup cover from the bridge pickup was removed and the bobbin closest to the bridge was replaced with a Stratocaster pickup. It was in series with the other bobbin but, as Henri found out later, out of Phase! This provided a very sharp and trebly signal which worked very well with the Jen Jumbo Fuzz switched on. A little bit later an on/of switch for the original bobbin was added, resulting in the possibility of having the Strat pickup on it's own. In about 1978 Henri didn't use the Jumbo Fuzz any longer and replaced the Bridge pickup with a Mighty-Mite high output split coil humbucker. This was at a time when gain-stage amps weren't available yet. In the end the Les Paul had two Peavey T15 single coils, giving it a sort of P90 type of sound. The Guitar was burned in a fire at a friends apartment shortly afterwards. For the Fender Telecasters Henri experimented with Bill Lawrence pickups. He had 2x L250 in neck and mid position and L250T in the bridge position on the Black Telly. Henri also had an L 500 split coil humbucker, which He had tried out on almost all Guitars. it ended up at the Melody Blue Sage in the bridge position. Henri used it quite a lot in single coil mode, sometimes with some added bottom end coming from the tele rhythm pickup in the neck position.
To the right: the Fender Telecaster Custom MK3, The Washburn Fretless Bass and the Epiphone Sheraton II (Korea august 2002) Below: the Ibanez Les Paul pre-lawsuit headstock Below right: The Telecaster equipped with a Strat/Mustang Pickup combination in neck position, An Ibanez super 70 humbucker in the middle position and presumably a Bill Lawrence L250T in de Bridge position.
