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60's style.
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05-14-2020 04:17 PM
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Originally Posted by Esport
It's been almost 10 years ago since I have had a new guitar and after my wifes severe illness and death five months ago and now two months of Corona virus isolation due to my own fragile immune system, I feel an urge to get something new going on at the guitar front. In short: GAS. Despite having played for more than 50 years, I have never had a Tele, so now I have a Squier CV Tele on the way from Thomann. It is thought as a basis for some mods.
First - and a must -, the straight bridge saddles will be replaced right away with slanted brass saddles making better compensation possible also with wound G strings. They are already ordered. If that turns out not to compensate well enough, the whole bridge plate will be replaced with one with six individual saddles.
Second - likely - another neck. These days I find modern Fender necks too narrow and skinny with too curved fingerboards for my taste. What I have in mind is a Warmoth fatback neck with 12" fingerboard radius and 1.75" nut with.
Third - maybe - a Biltoft CC Rider in the neck position (provided there's room for it in the neck PU cavity). But I'll see about that. Maybe the stock PU sounds good in its own right.Last edited by oldane; 05-19-2020 at 08:02 AM.
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Jeez Oldane.... so sorry to hear about your wife...... I wish you strength and good health. You really deserve a new guitar! Enjoy it in good health!
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Originally Posted by Little Jay
enjoy oldane..& stay safe
cheers
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Originally Posted by Little Jay
Last edited by citizenk74; 05-19-2020 at 11:06 AM.
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Originally Posted by oldane
I sincerely hope the music you play on this guitar will be s source of encouragement and strength in this siege of misfortune you've experienced.
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Originally Posted by TheProgJR
Tele neck size? Wilde L280TN or Dimarzio Area T. Both are dynamite for jazz, great enough to forget about full size buckers in a Tele. Fat, warm, clean, punchy. The Wildes are a little clearer and wide spectrum, the Dimarzios are more focused and mid-y. Really like 'em both.
And olddane, no words can express it adequately, best wishes for peace and healing to you.
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I wish you well, Oldane, and you have my condolences. I’d be lost without my wife. Peace and strength, my friend.
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Thank you for all the kind condolences. It once again shows that this forum is habitated by kind, considerate and mature people. I believe that makes this forum something uncommon and special. I can't say I feel lost after my wifes death as far as the practical matters concerns. The day to day household activity runs, I make warm meals every day, I keep the house clean and tidy etc. But after 35 years of marriage, I miss my wife a lot and it's very empty without her. On top of it, the Corona isolation put most of my semi-retirement work on halt so I have also missed some external structure in my days and weeks (psychologists sometimes, with a German expression, calls it "zeitgebers" - "time makers" - which is important for psychological wellbeing), so it has often felt a bit purposeless. Luckily the Corona epidemy is rapidly dwindling here in Denmark due to effective handling from the beginning, so we expect social life to become more normal in the coming few months. And luckily I have my grandchild who is now 8 months old. It certainly warms my grandpa heart to be with her even if it has to be at a 2 meter distance. Children develop so fast at that age and she learns something new every week. As it says in a 200 years old Danish psalm: "Sorrow and happiness follow each other. Fortune and misfortune walks side by side."
As for the Tele, it arrived yesterday and I spend the afternoon stringing it to my preference (12-52 Chromes) and setting it up. It will indeed need the compensating saddles I have on the way. The neck pickup sound good but not quite on the level of the two HCC PUs I have in two other guitars, so I have also ordered a black pickguard with a CC Rider from Pete Biltoft. I have ordered from him years ago and after all these years, he's still extremely service minded. He e-mailed me literally minutes after I placed the order with supplemental questions. He goes to lengths to ensure one gets what one needs, so he asked me to check the neck pickup for its polarity with a compass so he could wind the neck pickup with the correct polarity. I'm not much of a wildlife person and I don't have a compass, so I also needed to order a cheap one. I also figured I would replace the neck because I normally like fat and wide necks better than the slim and narrow Fender necks but to my surprise I felt at home on the neck it came with and didn't feel any cramps in my arthrotic hand when playing it. So for the time being I'll see how I get along with it. A neck replacement with a Warmoth neck would have been the most costly part of the modding. I'm quite amazed how much guitar you can get with these Squier CV's. I payed 2800DKr ~ 407US$ for mine including shipping. It needed a set up, but since I can do that myself and there is no way I can live with the 09 string set it came with, it was expected and not a problem.
EDIT MAY22:
I dug out my nut files this morning and fine tuned the nut slots (nut slots are almost always to high on new guitars, sometimes even on expensive ones). The neck plays as good as any neck in guitars that cost me 20 times more and it's still comfortable for me, so the planned Warmoth neck will be not be needed. I'm still avaiting the arrival of the compensated bridge saddles. With those, the intonation should be close to perfect - and if not, as I wrote, I'll get a Gotoh bridge with individual saddles for each string. But I expect them to be OK.
Teles do hum, so when the new pickguard with the CC-Rider pickup arrives and the guitar is taken apart, it will also be time for thorough shielding with copper foil.
VERDICT: These Squier CV's are really execellent value for the money. They play more than OK out of the box and if one is prepared to spend a little time and (not much) money one can set them up to perfection. At the price they sell for, it's the labor heavy setup work which leaves room for a little improvement here and there, not the materials, but you can't get it all for that little money. Now, I have ordered a CC-Rider from Pete Biltoft, but actually the guitar plays fine with the stock PUs, so the CC-rider is certainly not needed, just nice to have and looks cool. If we exclude it from the equation, it means that the guitar has cost me ~ US$407 including shipping + US$20 for the bridge saddles = total US$ 427 + some work. Highly recommended, especially for people who can do a little setup work themselves. They should also be the perfect starting point for tinkerers and modders.
Last edited by oldane; 05-22-2020 at 06:40 AM.
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I'm thinking seriously about getting the Squire CV 50's whenever they get back in stock which suppose to be around the first of June. I don't play out just very seldom so it'll be mainly just for home use. I mostly play my acoustics and mandolin around the house. Just hoping the pickups will suit me but whats the worse that can happen $$...I have a AR372CE that I may try to sell to someone who might actually use it. I keep the wants but really no needs except a new toy. I recently sold a 93 tele that never suited me although I never changed pickups only added a compensated brass saddle. Hopefully the CV 50 will be good to go because I sure like a tele
Last edited by BFrench; 05-23-2020 at 03:26 PM. Reason: spelling
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Originally Posted by BFrench
The necks on the CV's are rather slim and narrow (for all I know Fender doesn't offer necks wider than 1 11/16" and Squier neck are narrower than that). If you are used to fat and/or wide necks it may not be for you. Try before you buy or be sure you can return it just in case. However, despite the seemingly obvious, for me who has fatter and wider necks on my other guitars, the neck feels comfortable and there is enough shoulder to ensure a stable anchoring of my thumb but your mileage may vary. If you want a Tele with a fat and/or wide neck, ordering one from Warmoth or USACG is an option, though a custom neck will cost you more than the guitar.
Sone cheap mods worth cosidering is replacement of the straight bridge saddles with compensating ones and installing a treble bleed capacitator at the volume pot (a loss of treble is audible when rolling off volume). Shielding the cavities is always a useful "mod" on a Tele which hums quite a bit. Lube the tuners with a thick oil - they are dead dry and stiff out of the box.
As for using a Squier CV for gigs - or not: If my sample is representative, then a well set up Squier CV is indeed good enough for profesional gigging and they sound and plays as good as (and in some cases better) than what one finds in socalled "professional" instruments that costs many times more. Like I said earlier, a setup is always beneficial (including filing down the nut slots a bit) but as we have heard so often, that is also the case with for example much more expensive Gibson guitars. The only thing is that it says Squier and not Fender on the headstock and that may have some brand name snobs frown. And no, one can't scrape off the Squier decal - it's applied before the poyurethane finish.
That said, the more expensive Fender Teles do have refinements a Squier CV doesn't have such as (maybe) better pickups and harness, rolled fingerboard edges, contoured bodies, better tuners, bridges with individual one-string saddles etc. However, these refinements are things that may be nice to have, but they are not needed. CVs are excellent utility guitars and utility is after all what the Tele was all about as Leo Fender envisioned it, so the CV may well be closer to Leos original ideas than a present day custom shop or "artist model".Last edited by oldane; 05-26-2020 at 04:01 AM.
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Originally Posted by BFrench
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Tele with a Fender delight.
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And this
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And this too
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I put a Fender '62 reissue pickup in the bridge and then a Seymour Duncan Vintage Stack in the neck position, which is a disguised humbucker hidden under the standard Tele chrome neck pickup cover. I couldn't stand to change the classic look of the pickups at all. I also added Graphtec string savers saddles. Warm, clean full mid-tones.
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some favorites
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from Terry Clarke:
"My brother was a guitarist and tried to find the right guitar so he could get the Ed Bickert sound. We’re in Vancouver watching him on television, and my brother is a rock n’ roll guitar player and went out and got a Gibson ES 175, he got a Stratocaster, a Jazzmaster – he got every “master” guitar he could find and different amps to get the Ed Bickert sound. Flash forward 1969 and my brother moves to Toronto, he was a radio announcer and as soon as he gets here, he goes down to George’s Spaghetti House to finally get to see Ed Bickert live. He walks in and sees him playing that piece of shit Telecaster and that horrible amp and getting that damn sound he gets. Ken quit the guitar the next day. I think the amp had two little arms and it leaned back."
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Originally Posted by medblues
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Originally Posted by citizenk74
cheers
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So.. any thoughts on these? Korina offset MIJ "Telecaster". OK.. not really a tele other than the headstock, but I kind of like it.
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Watched this episode of “Ask Zac” (not me, someone else who is actually talented), and I couldn’t not share it
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squier paranormal series coming summer 2020
cheers
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Curious if anyone has tried one of these. I’m intrigued and very close to ordering one...
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Originally Posted by neatomic
RIP Nick Gravenites
Today, 05:48 PM in The Players