buy a fender telecaster or mod cheapo tele?

six

six

New member
Hi there

I just played a fender american series tele a couple of hours ago and I really LOVED its tone.

The thing is, I got this cheapo tele rip off (Cheri), which isn't actually that bad... intonation, playability and basic tone is there - and it looks nice :D. the fender just has this extra bite surprisingly most apparent with the neck PU.

Now I wonder if I might get my cheapo tele to sound like (read "very close to") the fender by getting the right (probably same) PUs, or if the wood is too important.

It's not that I couldn't afford the fender. It's just, I don't like to spend a lot of money when I can get the same result cheaper. In addition, if I bought the fender I would throw away the cheapo tele because it would become useless.

Opinions, experiences?
 
I think everything is involved with the sound. The wood, pups, bridge material and construction, the fact that most Teles are string-through etc...
I think that the wood has a lots to do with how the guitar sounds. Do you know what kind of wood your current guitar has?

Peace!

~Shawn
 
Don't laugh... they made lots and lots of guitars in the 80s out of plywood!
When I was 16 (1985) I worked all summer to buy a lower end Kramer. I was so disappointed when I learned it was plywood.. :-(
I say, sell your current guitar on Ebay and buy yourself that Tele. That way, you know what you've got, and how it sounds, before you spend a ton of money on parts for your current guitar and possibly end up not getting what you want anyway. In the end, the Fender will have a better resale value, should you decide you didn't really like it as much as you thought you would.

Have fun!

~Shawn
 
true words.

you know, my main guitar is a jackson dinky, because most of the time I just got to have a humbucker and a whammy (which stays in tune and doesn't cut half of the sound). cheap ass. but it does exactly what I want a strat to do. it's fantastic in my eyes (ears)... actually not only in mine...

but my cheapo tele can't stand the comparison to this fender, really. good thing is: I could play the fender thru the same little amp I have at home. just a couple of minutes ago I played my cheapo tele. waaaaaaaaah. I quite liked it before today, but now... ... ... :p
 
six said:
true words.

you know, my main guitar is a jackson dinky, because most of the time I just got to have a humbucker and a whammy (which stays in tune and doesn't cut half of the sound). cheap ass. but it does exactly what I want a strat to do. it's fantastic in my eyes (ears)... actually not only in mine...

but my cheapo tele can't stand the comparison to this fender, really. good thing is: I could play the fender thru the same little amp I have at home. just a couple of minutes ago I played my cheapo tele. waaaaaaaaah. I quite liked it before today, but now... ... ... :p
Click to expand...

Well... here's another bit of advice. The dinky you have probably has jumbo frets on it... If you want jumbos on your american tele, you have to get the Highway One model. But, it's the least expensive USA tele you can buy! I personally can't go back to small frets after playing my Tele with big ones. Just something else to think about.

Peace!

~Shawn
 
there's something to be said for having the real thing. when my partner told me she was going to buy me a guitar for my birthday i started looking at the imitations and the copies of the guitars i thought were interesting. she said, why don't you get a real one? you won't be happy with a copy for very long. so i did and picked out a les paul. it's two years later and i'm still loving my guitar. it's worth it to get the real thing. copies are just that. copies. and unless the copy is actually made better than the original, they can never live up to the real thing.
 
eyema_believer said:
. If you want jumbos on your american tele, you have to get the Highway One model. But, it's the least expensive USA tele you can buy! I personally can't go back to small frets after playing my Tele with big ones. Just something else to think about.

Peace!

~Shawn
Click to expand...

In 2006 Fender put Medium Jumbos on all the MIMs. Not sure if theyre still doing it, but as of last year they were.

There is so much more to a real Tele than just the body style and PuP config. Look for a nice Hwy1 or MIM if the budgets tight.
 
Personally, I love the americans series telecasters. They just seem to give me the sound and feel that I like. I've tried to swap the american series pickups and no load tone pot into other tele's I've had, but they just didn't give the same rich sound and balanced string response no matter how much I adjusted them.

I would say go for the american series. You already like the sound, but once you get it set up to your liking, I'll bet that you'll fall in love with the neck as well.
 
Buy the Fender.

I started out, many years ago, with guitars that I bought from friends or at garage sales. I'd set them up, modify them, but eventually they didn't do the job.

Many of them didn't tune very well, even with quality tuners installed. Cheap whammies were a particular problem, along with flimsy bridges and inferior sounding pickups.

Eventually I got a '63 Gretsch Chet Atkins Country Gentleman and I thought, "how did I ever put up with that junk?"

Now all my Fender clones are gone,with their plywood bodies and difficult to adjust necks, along with the Ventura electrics with the peculiar bridges; my electric is a Gibson gold top LP (see avatar) and all my basses are Fenders.

The modified cheapos are all long gone....

And, did I mention, I sold the Gretsch for $3K? You won't do that with a junker, no matter how lovingly you modified it.
 
I will play the devil's advocate. Part of the issue in customizing a cheap guitar is that people often buy the cheapest parts to upgrade with. The quality of many import guitars now is astounding. If you buy better parts than are on the Fender and customize the budget guitar, you will end up with a unique instrument that fits your needs exactly. I bought an American Standard Tele in the early 90's for $700. It was a good guitar. 2 years later I bought a Fernandes Thinline copy for $500 and it became my number one guitar. Today, you can get a decent import for a just over $100. Insane.
 
When it comes to re-sale, guitars are just like Harleys. You'll never recover the cost of upgrades. No one will care how much you spent on upgrades, buyers pretty much just look at make, model and year. I love my American Tele, and if the day comes when I don't(which I doubt), I know I'll get a fair price for it.
 
Another point, that I have learned over many years of dealing with inexpensive instruments: while you will run across the occasional ugly duckling that turns into a beautiful swan, more likely you'll find that corners are cut in places you would rather they were not.

It's not just the junky hardware and external stuff that can be easily replaced, it's also the quality of the wood (or plywood, which is often tone-dead and heavy), the finish, and the adjustability that's missing. Nothing like an otherwise nice Squier II Precision with a bowed neck on which someone had spent a tremendous amount of energy cross-threading the truss rod nut (one of my little darlin's -- I loved the sound, but once I traded it in on a Classic '50s Precision, all my troubles disappeared).

You can spend endless hours dressing frets that still don't have the right feel, in tweaking the neck, only to tweak it again a few days later, and again and again, or in trying to adapt to pickups that get in the way of your hand or whatnot.

Me, I gave it up. No more junkers, and, if I pay more, I'll get at least as much out of them when I sell.

Naturally, there are always exceptions, like the Ventura flattop I bought for $35 in 1971 that now sports a custom bear-claw spruce top, and sings like nothing else...but that was my first guitar, with a lot of sentimental value.
 
I did some research and found out that "Cheri" or "Chevy" were actually VERY good guitars that would at least stand the comparison to Fender... except for the pick-ups.
Maybe it's really just the neck PU that has the "wrong" sound for me... not even bad, just not the way it could be.
Against your advices ( :D ), I ordered a pair of DiMarzios... affordable. If it doesn't help (which I really do not believe), I'll start looking for mexicans and hwy 1s... although I tried a lot of mim and hwy 1 strats when I was looking for a "working horse" - and they all sucked. :eek:
 
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