-
i recently bought a used parts tele for $850. It has a USACG 12" radius rosewood on maple neck, ash body, seymour firebird in the neck and standard tele pickup in the bridge (i forget the brand). Sounds great for any kind of music. Weighs less than 7lbs.
used parts teles are a great deal. The original buyer spent over $1250 putting this together.
-
09-07-2017 07:28 AM
-
Well there are those that don't sell and just lay there in plain sight for all to see with their +£2000 prices ... and then there are those that are priced good, but these sell quickly. It takes some patience and off course it is easy for me to lay low as I already have a great tele and a great hollowbody, so there is no urgency.
Originally Posted by Spir4L
But you already found a couple of nice ones. I like the two "overpriced" ones at 1800£ and would probably make an offer of say 1500£.
-
Have a look at Fender's new Professional Series (replaced the American Standard Series). I recently bought a new Strat and am pretty blown away. I'm sure their Teles are awesome as well, although I had an American Standard that was amazing. I used it to help finance the Strat and kept my MIM Tele which is really no different from the MIA.
-
I do too but fender's quality has gone so downhill and you'd have to pay custom shop prices to get something comparable to this guitar. Fenders finishes are thick plastic and choke the sound IMO. A good parts tele made from musicraft, warmoth or USACG parts will blow away any fender IMO... Originally Posted by Spir4L
And buy used so someone else takes the hit.
-
I'm using a neck from a Squier Vintage Modified Cabronita on a body I had made by Marc Rutters. I have a Gibson T-Top in the neck and a Rick in the bridge, Mann Vibrato and I just did a Tung Oil finish on the body.
The Squier Vintage Modified Cabronita necks are slim which I like because I don't have large hands. The necks are fast, smooth, easily adjustable and feel pretty solid.
The original guitar body came with Fender's Filtertron? pups which one could always sub with something from TV Jones or Duncan. I used a heat gun on the pickups to drain some of the wax and it opened up the sound (more jangle) a bit.
They sell for around $300 +/- used but I picked mine up new from MF when they were dumping them for $199 and sold the body for $140.
As Jack said, you can find deals on parts casters. For an inexpensive neck made in Indonesia it's a great deal. And if it didn't play well I wouldn't have kept it.
-
Peavey omniac is 95% tele-clone in looks (upper bout is slightly cutaway) if you are concerned about appearance
-
That's interesting, since for a while now I've been saying this may be one of the best periods of Fender's history. I'm just not real sure that a nitro finish on a solid-body makes more than a very marginal difference in tone. I believe Tom Anderson has always used a poly finish on all his guitars. I'm always open to being convinced otherwise though. Originally Posted by jzucker
-
One issue I find with partscasters is that the previous owner/modder/assembler was often chasing a specific tone idea, and often that tone does not match my jazz idea. Here in Kansas, that tone idea usually focuses on a bright twangy bridge pickup sound for country music.
Last weekend I brought home a beautiful 2004 American series telecaster (NGD post pending!)
Totally straight-ahead guitar -- plays and sounds great.
Lots of used USA teles available for under $1,000. MIM & Squier options are plentiful too, and much cheaper (especially used!)
-
Most any good quality Tele will sound great as a jazz guitar. I've owned many brands and personally prefer US made G&L's for their high end quality and value.
Check out their Bluesboy model. It comes either as a semi-hollow or solid body. Having tried both, its a toss up which is better. Some find the semi-hollow model a bit neck heavy. I ended up with this solid body Korina model, and swapped out the Seth Lover neck pickup for a SD Phat Cat. The PCat gives a better balance between the neck and bridge p'up tone in my view. Wonderful tones...and a veritable Swiss Army Knife of a gigging guitar.
-
it's not just the type of finish but the thickness that's important. G&L and fender use very thick finishes. I dunno if it's folklore or not but the thin finish clones like nash seem to blow away what fender is doing on even the custom shop guitars from my experience. And i'm not necessarily a nash fan...
Originally Posted by El Fundo
That's interesting, since for a while now I've been saying this may be one of the best periods of Fender's history. I'm just not real sure that a nitro finish on a solid-body makes more than a very marginal difference in tone. I believe Tom Anderson has always used a poly finish on all his guitars. I'm always open to being convinced otherwise though.
-
I would recommend putting together a Warmoth Tele. You can spec it exactly as you like it without any compromises, the prices are ok and the quality is great. They are easy to put together. I have two left hands and still can do it readily.
-
+1 on Warmoth. You can get EXACTLY what you want. Very little work if you buy a pre-finished body and neck. Not as cheap as a MIC Tele clone, but you will never complain about fit or finish on these. In fact, not really cheap at all, but real quality. Fit the pickup you want on it. Chambered Koa with a fat neck? Yup. Radical nuclear burst on a figured flame top with a Classic '57 and scalloped fretboard? Yup. Solid rosewood neck (why?) with a three pickup rout and a hard "V" neck profile? Yup.
-
the only drawback on building your own is that you will likely need a pro fret level to get the action low with no buzzing. At least, everyone I have seen needs that including the one I recently picked up.
-
That is true - Warmoth guitars will need a fret leveling and a pro setup. They are open about it, it's ok. I just factor that extra 100$ or so into the budget and consider it part of the process. Last time I paid 71€ in Europe to make a good guitar go to great. That is a good deal. New Gibsons, in all likelihood need that too :-)
-
Originally Posted by El Fundo
That's interesting, since for a while now I've been saying this may be one of the best periods of Fender's history. I'm just not real sure that a nitro finish on a solid-body makes more than a very marginal difference in tone. I believe Tom Anderson has always used a poly finish on all his guitars. I'm always open to being convinced otherwise though.
I agree with you, regarding Fender MIA and MIM. Only the Korea/Indonesia/China instruments have any QC issues at all. The MIA and MIM are top notch.
As for poly vs nitro, that's a long debate... the consensus seems to be leaning towards "don't matter", at least regarding solidbody guitars. But'll you'll always have guys who think the "older way is better", just because it's old school lol. The WOOD is MUCH MUCH more important than poly vs nitro, or how thick the finish is.
-
Originally Posted by ruger9
and if people listen to the John Suhr interview (long, it's in four parts) they probably wouldn't spend the money on Fender Custom Shop not worth the bump in price. I like the MIM Fenders, they can spray nitro and the bodies and necks are basically the same, at one point were the same. I alway take my guitars to my repair person for a setup so spending extra on MIA or Custom Shop isn't worth the money for me. I also have a Warmoth chambered body and Fender Baja Tele neck that is my Jazz tele I love.
That's part of the great thing about Tele's is their simplicity, and with a big aftermarket of parts you can change things till it's exactly what you want.
-
My Fender classic vibe telecaster '50s guitar played great right out of the box; looks and sounds great too. That purchase was the best value I've ever got out of a guitar purchase.
-
If you go partcaster they are really value for money instruments, IF bought used. A 1200$ new warmoth tele can be found for 400-500$ used. At that price, they are not that difficult to resell if you so decide
-
I have a made in Japan '62 Custom Telecaster (I think the model code is TL-62 if I recall correctly) - mine is candy apple red, a very nicely made guitar. Only thing that I have changed is the pickups; I have fitted Bill Lawrence Micro-coils. That being said, there really wasn't anything wrong with the original pickups. Sounds absolutely brilliant for any style of music. Currently have 11-47 TI Swing strings on it and it practically plays itself.
-
Hello,
I own a 52 reissue (current version) and i would recommend it. The neck pickup is very smooth and full. It sounds well on jazz standards (obviously with a modern edge) and it works very well for clean-sound frisellian loops or with a bit of drive on a more modern repertoire. The bridge pickup is powerful and twangy, and sounds very sharp with overdrive. It has great sustain. I like its looks too. I chose it against a used 52 custom shop, mostly for budget reasons, but i don't regret that too much. For around 1500$ (i paid mine less than 1500€ new in France) this is a nice and very professional guitar.
Good luck with your search.Last edited by cmaclet; 09-08-2017 at 09:51 AM.
-
FWIW, I don't think you can beat the regular model Telecaster with a switch as a jazz guitar. I have used everything from a '57 Esquire to various model Teles from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s for this purpose. I employed a Thinline for awhile. It was neither better nor worse than the plain vanilla version. Color, weight, etc, seemed never to matter much. Again, FWIW, the best I have played were a light as a feather 60s "regular" Tele, about a 10lb black Tele with blonde neck, and a pretty heavy early-90s '52 reissue. So much variation in looks and weight, so _little_ variation in Tele greatness and utility for jazz.
Oh, yes. I used to perform with a MIJ blonde/blonde Tele with two Joe Barden pickups that was also absolutely great.
Can't go wrong with a Telecaster.
-
I too think that MIJ Fenders Teles are every bit as good (if not better) as MIA ones. Originally Posted by entresz
I have a TL52 TX, that is a '52 Tele (with bigsby so it;s called BTX) and Custom Shop Texas Specials.
Those CS Texas specials are really good, btw, neck pu especially, very fat yet still single coil tele.
Very carefully made, versatile and responsive instrument, imo.
Weak point : with such nice pickups they could have put a higher quality switch. I works good though, but it's not a CRL/OAK quality for sure.
I don't know much about CIJ ones, and don't know either if a used MIJ is an easy find on that side of the Pacific, but here in Japan there are many great deals around 400-500 bucks.
-
Since MIJ Teles is the current direction of this thread, I'll toss in another amazing specimen...Fender Richie Kotzen Signature Tele.
It has the fattest neck profile of any guitar I've ever played, has a belly cut, forearm cut (ala Strat), flame maple top and hot DiMarzio p'ups. Custom shop quality all around!
And yes, it does jazz very, very well. The only downside is that it does not have a tone control. So I had a stacked tone pot installed onto the volume pot. Perfect (for me!).
-
Is the Richie Kotzen fatter than a Mechanicland/Monty ballpark neck? Those are pretty much 1" all the way down.
-
Sorry, GTone, never even heard of that make. The Kotzen is the only guitar that takes me a few minutes of play to get used to the chunk. But after that it feels perfectly natural...and tons of fun to play. Originally Posted by Greentone
Reply With Quote
Speaker choice for old jazz?
Today, 12:46 AM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos