Telecaster Love Thread, No Archtops Allowed

[neatomic]

ditto on levys straps..canadian co..make straps that many of the guitar companies rebrand under their own names...

my fave- looks super cool with a tele...




cheers

[Hammertone]

Hooray for Levy's!

Good people, well-liked in the industry, huge product line.
What's not to like?

I have this very strap, with an additional thin leather extension piece:
Attachment 33522

[lammie200]

Franklin also makes nice straps. You might want to keep in mind that both Levy and Franklin make quite a variety of straps with different widths, different or no padding, suede or smooth backing, etc. Everything are factors in the success or failure of a strap IMHO.

[neatomic]

yeah fender still sells 2 versions of it..a cheapo, and a better "Vintage" one..but the levy's is 10x better quality...very sturdy leather..rickenbacker and gretsch have both rebranded this vintage skinny levy's...comes in about 1/2 dozen colors..even though its skinny, the shoulder pad offsets guitar weight (within reason!) hah

looks cool on a hofner violin bass too!!


cheers

[Cnote]

Didn't have much to do this eve, so thought id post a few of my teles for you guys to checkout! Ive got a few more that I will post later. Hope you like em.

[Greentone]

Cnote ,

Very nice. That's a twang rodeo.

[jazzbow]

I will be wiring up the Tele that Hammertone sold me later this week--thanks HT.

GT, I've had the Bill Lawrence 5 way wiring mod with a tone choke which was great. The tone choke on the neck pickup made for a nice rhythm tone with a perceived drop in output (but in reality less bass frequencies).


A tangled mess that looked neater on paper....


See what I mean...


But with a recent addition of a Seymour Duncan AlNiCo II bridge pickup I opted for the 4 way switch mod


The 'beefier tone' option is wow with my VV CC Rider. The tone control on my version is wired to the 'hot' wire coming into the volume (vintage wiring). The whole sweep really changes the flavour.
This gets the Jazzbow Gold Star.

[Greentone]

Nice guitar. Looks like a copy of the Hohner guitar that Prince used to play, no?

[jazzbow]

The sad thing is that I would buy an iTele.

Man, they have missed a trick!

Fender already do an Apple Tele, a Candy Apple Red Tele

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I'm a "oh, I have a bridge pick up?" Tele player. I should solder the selector in the neck position and be done with it.

[neatomic]

I'm a "oh, I have a bridge pick up?" Tele player. I should solder the selector in the neck position and be done with it.

bridge pickup definitely has a use on the standard tele... it allows you to switch to the middle position to buck some hum in between songs.


haha

cheers

[mr. beaumont]

I've actually been using the bridge pickup more often lately. Early midlife crisis, I suppose.

[jazzbow]

I had the 5 way but now have the 4 way mod (see previous post).

Although I liked the 5 way the 4 way has a more usable extra choice of both p'ups combined a a humbucker.

[neatomic]

only bridge tele pup i like is the original..non-staggered/flat polepieces..gives an almost lap steel guitar tone...think jimmy bryant...a little more thunk than brittle



cheers

[Greentone]

Neatomic,

THAT'S a heck of a pickup. Who wouldn't prefer that to anything else? The only exception, it seems to me, is if you are expressly going for a Steve Cropper/Don Rich/Roy Nichols vibe. You need a late-50s/early-60s bridge pickup for that.

You are correct, however, that Leo Fender was attempting to translate the steel guitar sound over to the electric Spanish guitar. He succeeded masterfully. G.E. Smith really got Fender to go for this with the bridge pickup mounted directly into the body, rather than suspended from the bridge plate on his Signature series Telecaster. I only wish he hadn't gone for the steel guitar neck position markers, etc.

[jazzbow]

So I was off on a Tele hunt. I spent a day in Manchester and managed to get to 3 guitar/music shops to see if I could find a Tele that was..

• Better sounding
• Set up well off of the shelf
• Good value

I found a second hand butterscotch Affinity for £100. The maple neck was okay if a bit unrefined, it played well but the pickups were underwhelming.

Then a Squier Thinline Vintage Vibe at a shade under £400. The non-tinted maple neck felt like plastic, the string action was awful and plugged in it was just as awful. Sorry, but it was just plain awful.

Then a curve ball came my way.

Let me just put you in the picture. My humble Squier Tele sports a Vintage Vibe Charlie Christian neck and a SD AlNiCo II bridge p/u. So this is the bench mark sound in my head.

I came across a Maton T-Bird £1700.


Nice


Lollar CC neck and bridge p/up


Thinline body


Uber flat fat neck 12" radius.

So I was quite taken by the looks and spec.

After messing about with it I discovered a few important things.

I couldn't gel with the neck. In the first position all is well, nice string spacing, but get up to Bb and I found it difficult to wrap my thumb over onto the fingerboard. I would have to re-think all my lazy chord shapes if I were to have this guitar.
The big shock I found was the pickups. The bridge was really overpowering the neck p/up. The CC pickup was nice, I quite liked it but it just didn't go with the bridge (IMO).
It was like velvet glove and bitch slap (DC's new crime fighting duo). Lol.

Of all the guitars I tried I wouldn't buy any of them.

A good day out though.

So here it is,


proof that once you get a good Tele never let her go!

[Boston Joe]

I was just listening to a rehearsal recording. My playing is crap, but my tone is great (The Tele with the 9-T, though an MXR Carbon Copy delay, into a Polytone Idunnowhat. It's the leader's amp and lives at the practice space.)

Don't know how anybody could object to it as a jazz tone.

[christianm77]

This is a tele+American Sound + AER Alpha

Sounds legit to me. Sometimes I'm not in the mood to lug my Princeton.

OTOH, Tele + MXR Carbon Copy + Princeton is also Mega for Bill Frisell type noises.

[Greentone]

I was just listening to a rehearsal recording. My playing is crap, but my tone is great (The Tele with the 9-T, though an MXR Carbon Copy delay, into a Polytone Idunnowhat. It's the leader's amp and lives at the practice space.)

Don't know how anybody could object to it as a jazz tone.

I think that a Telecaster played through a Polytone amp gets a good jazz tone, too.

[Gretschman66]

Even though I've played mostly arch-tops for the past ten years or so, I still love my Tele.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I seem to remember there was a model change for the Highway 1 around 2005, including a switch from "jumbo" to "super jumbo" frets. In any case, see if you like the fret wire, whatever size it is.

[ET Music]

I love Telecasters and have a rare 1991 Telecaster Plus Deluxe with the Lace Sensors, Wilkinson roller nut, locking Schaller tuners and tremelo bridge. I purchased it new and it was my first professional level instrument. I saw one go up on Ebay the other day and its listed for $2750! So Im gonna keep mine for a while.

I also have 2 G&L Tribute series ASAT Teles. Very nice guitars for the money. I am going to sell the black one for about $300 if anyone is interested.

[Groover1999]

A Baja classic, I ponder this. Maybe it would be better to begin with, than an expensive american made guitar? I just had this idea, since I´m getting a guitar why not get a good one, not overkill, but something with a great tune..

And many people praise the Baja MIM for it´s balance in affordability and quality

[Rob MacKillop]

The ones I've tried have thick, round necks, big meaty things. I don't know if all Baja's are like that.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

The ones I've tried have thick, round necks, big meaty things. I don't know if all Baja's are like that.

The 50's and 60's Baja models have little in common. The 50's neck is chunky, not the 60's.