Fender Telecaster volume and tone

The knobs

Volume

Master volume for both pickups. Turning it down damps the resonant peak before the level drops much.

Tone

Master tone. Turned down, the cap sits across whichever pickups are on and the peak moves down.

Switch positions

Neck

The neck pickup alone.

Both

Neck and bridge in parallel, through the same volume and tone.

Bridge

The bridge pickup alone.

Parts

Neck

The neck pickup’s own voltage, from the string moving in the magnet’s field near the neck. Each pickup’s response is measured against this voltage.

Coil R

5.94 kΩ, The neck pickup coil’s resistance, measured on a vintage-style Strat single coil (5.94 kΩ DC, 2.96 H at 1 kHz).

Coil L

2.96 H, The neck pickup coil’s inductance, measured on a vintage-style Strat single coil (5.94 kΩ DC, 2.96 H at 1 kHz).

Winding C

120 pF, The capacitance between the neck coil’s turns, across its output. A typical figure, not a measurement.

Bridge

The bridge pickup’s own voltage, from the string moving in the magnet’s field near the bridge. Each pickup’s response is measured against this voltage.

Coil R

5.94 kΩ, The bridge pickup coil’s resistance, measured on a vintage-style Strat single coil (5.94 kΩ DC, 2.96 H at 1 kHz).

Coil L

2.96 H, The bridge pickup coil’s inductance, measured on a vintage-style Strat single coil (5.94 kΩ DC, 2.96 H at 1 kHz).

Winding C

120 pF, The capacitance between the bridge coil’s turns, across its output. A typical figure, not a measurement.

Volume

250 kΩ, Master volume, 250 kΩ audio taper.

Tone

250 kΩ, Master tone, 250 kΩ audio taper, used as a variable resistor in series with the tone cap. It hangs off the volume pot’s input.

Tone cap

47 nF, Tone cap. Fender has used everything from 22 nF to 100 nF over the years.

Bleed cap

1 nF, Treble bleed cap across the volume pot’s top half. It keeps the treble as the volume comes down.

Bleed R

150 kΩ, Sits in parallel with the bleed cap so the treble lift doesn’t get too big at low volume settings.

Pickups and load

Each pickup is a voltage behind its coil. Both use the same measured single-coil values. A real Tele’s bridge pickup is usually wound hotter, so change its coil values to compare. The 1950s switch wiring, with no blend position, isn’t modeled. With two pickups on, each one loads the other through its coil. Without the string model, the graph adds them as if their voltages were equal and in phase. On a real string each harmonic reaches the two pickups at a different strength and sign, and that’s what makes the in-between positions sound the way they do. The string model uses a 25.5 in scale, with the pickups measured from the bridge saddle at about neck 6.3 in, bridge 2 in under the low E to 1.5 in under the high E (measured by Swell Amplification, approximate). The bridge pickup is slanted, with its treble end closer to the saddles. Harmonic n reaches a pickup x from the saddle scaled by sin(nπx/L), with L the string length, so a pickup near a node barely picks that harmonic up, and two pickups can cancel it. The string is ideal and each pickup is a point under it (a real pickup’s wider window softens the top harmonics). The slant is assumed to be even across the strings, with no saddle intonation. The treble bleed option puts 1 nF in parallel with 150 kΩ across the top half of each volume pot. Other values are common too, and you can change both. The cable is about 15 feet (450 pF) into a 1 MΩ amp input.