i want a telecaster! any input appreciated.

  • Thread starter Thread starter zer0sig
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Although I have the stock pickup back in it now, I had a Seymore Duncan stacked humbucking in the bridge position and while not as fat as a PAF, it wasn't bad at all.
 
Track Rat said:
Although I have the stock pickup back in it now, I had a Seymore Duncan stacked humbucking in the bridge position and while not as fat as a PAF, it wasn't bad at all.
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You talking about your Tele with the natural finish?
 
I have been looking for a American Standard with a Natural finish and a Maple Neck for quite awhile now.. I can't quite hit the price of a new one so the search goes on...
 
Track Rat said:
My main axe is a 71 Tele (a real one). By far the best electric guitar I've ever owned. I can tune at the beginning of the night, play all night long, use it to swing my way out of a bar fight, just wipe the blood off of it and it's still in tune. The intonation on this thing is PERFECT. A friend of mine liked the guitar a lot so he bought a new MIM Tele. It's not even close to mine in any sense. As in all things, YMMV, but I'd be looking for a used American made Tele.
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Your guitar sounds like a dream.

While I won't doubt that your guitar is cherry and that an Ame St. is preferrable, the MIMs aren't terrible either ( I know you are not necessarily implying this either). With just a little judgement and selection, a VERY GOOD instrument can be found in the MIM line for the price. For an investment of $330 new, I have, dollar for dollar, the best instrument I've yet owned (scads of drumsets over the years, 5 guitars, 2 basses).

If I had the extra dough laying around at the time, I MIGHT have gotten an Ame St. Tele, but my experience was this:

After hours of sitting in various stores playing various specimens of Ame. St and MIM teles, I just couldn't hear/feel enough difference to justify twice the price. Perhaps my ears are not refined enough and I am just not expert enough, but the differences, while not being negligible, just didn't present a sound argument to spend a little over 2x the money.

To each his own, but I just wanted to chime in that good value can be found in the "Standard" line.

J-
 
wow! thanks for all the input, guys! haven't made it by for about a week, and i didn't even know what i'd missed. i was pretty impressed with the MIM standard i played-this was at guitar satan, so the age of the strings probably had something to do with it. if i can tighten up those tuners, than i'm happy to stay stock. as far as the pickups go, i like the look of the regular old pickup setup, but i guess i may have to do some mucking around before i find a bridge pickup replacement in that size that is pretty hot. i'm awaiting a response from a guy i know in one of my favorite bands (haste) who plays a tele and has a fairly heavy sound.
 
...teles are a good thing...tone a tad brittle for my tastes, but I probably will buy one for the palette one day anyhow...
 
Track Rat said:
My main axe is a 71 Tele (a real one). By far the best electric guitar I've ever owned. I can tune at the beginning of the night, play all night long, use it to swing my way out of a bar fight, just wipe the blood off of it and it's still in tune. The intonation on this thing is PERFECT.
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Sounds exactly like my 1970 Tele that I sold a couple years ago for some stupid reason.... kicks self.
 
I had a Squier Fat Tele and replaced the bridge pickup with a Bill Lawrence 290TLE. It played great but then I got the jones'ing for a double-HB guitar and sold it. If I buy another one (thinking about it), I'll probably go for the MIM Fender Teles. I recommend the Bill Lawrence pups (the real ones), even though the wait time is about 6 weeks, you can't beat them for quality/price.
 
watch ebay for that G&L... I have heard good things about the tribute series, but the USA made models should really hold their value and you can get some great deals on them on ebay if you are patient.

I just got a ASAT for $700.

It took about 2 months of bidding and waiting, but I finally got it within my budget.

Jim
 
You should really take a look at two other options besides Fender.

1) Schecter (the USA ones) http://www.schecterguitars.com/prods.htm
Schecter is a Calfornia Company (Tom Anderson worked there in the eighties) that makes a model called the "PT" in a variety of configurations. The "PT" unofficially refers to Pete Townsend, who played a variety of Schecter tele's during the Kenny Jones era of the Who (79-83 or whenever). I have a early eighties PT (I'd like to think that Tom worked on it, but probably not) with coil split humbuckers that plays so nice it makes up for the UGLY Pink sparkle finish. The Humbuckers are very hot, I have to crank the volume down a fair bit whn I record clean sounds with it. Schecter still makes this dual humbucker model both in an American model and a less expensive Import version which I'm told is a pretty good quality.

I also just picked up a newer ('98 or so) Schecter USA "S" series Tele. (Like you I was looking for a Fender Tele of some sort on ebay for a few months) The "S" series is Schecter's "naturals" series. No heavy finish, just oil rubbed. I picked it up on a lark, which pissed off the wife, but I was really pleased at the beauty of the sound, even unplugged, when there's no heavy stuff on the wood. These "S" teles come with a standard two pickup setup, with fairly hot pickups that can be "cut" by a push pull tone knob. "Cutting" them basically drops the output to more resemble a traditional vintage tele twangy sound. This is a good idea for single coil flexibility, and my guitar guy says it is a pretty easy custom job to do to any guitar.
Anyway, I love this guitar, I basically haven't played anything else since I got it about five months ago.

Along that vein, check out Naked Guitars www.nakedguitar.com

This was something I was going to investigate before I found my newest Schecter, they basically will build you a custom Ash body guitar, tele or strat style, with whatever pickups you want, for about 600 to 700 bucks. Their big thing is no varnish. They just do an oil rub finish on all of their guitars. Again, now having owned one with just wood and oil, I heartly recommend it, the sound is very pure and sweet, even unplugged.

Nothing against Fenders, but unless you're able to spend $1,800 or more for a custom shop job, you're really not getting "the best of their love" for lack of a less cheesy analogy. With some of these smaller companies, they just try harder

Hope this helped.
 
i guess i'm going to have to wait and see what i can fetch for my explorer and work from there.

woverend, i LOVE wood-and-oil on guitars. i would redo most fender factory necks with just tung oil (and have on my musicmaster bass)-it just feels right to me, and i prefer the look to something supershiny.

thanks for all the suggestions, guys-will definately follow up if something catches my eye.
 
this combo is awesome

i had a mexi fender strat with the fender locking tuners stayed in tune real well, heres my combination for strats aside from th trem it ought to work the same ....LSR roller nut ,fender locking tuners, and it's american so it has the wide saddles like String Saver makes, i had it setup to low action and 10's this baby never goes out no matter how much i jump on th trem bar i attribute most of it to th LSR nut if you don't know what it is its a nut from fender that has ball bearings instead of string grooves so no friction at all i was never much of a fender man till i added all these mods ,oh almost forgot i put a Duncan Hot Rails in the bridge so i don't even have to go from it to my les paul unless i want too ,it screams like a raped ape and grunts like a mating pig .....later
 
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