Oh, I wish I had a rosewood Telecaster

[ChrisN]

Originally Posted by Rodger

Good question. The Rosewood Anderson does not have the classic bite/twang of a Fender Tele. It's a great rhythm guitar, but I don't like it for lead work. I got it because I've been a big Beatles fan my whole life and loved George's rosewood Tele in the "Let it Be" movie.

I have a '52 Tele Reissue I bought new in 1983. That one has the classic Tele sound.

Full disclosure, I reserved one of the limited edition Harrison Rosewood Telecasters from Musicians Friend yesterday. It won't be available till November though. I'll A/B them then.

That all makes sense, so thanks for that, and thanks for the second-hand GAS fumes coming off of your anticipated acquisition - I'll be looking forward to the A/B.

Appropos of nothing in particular, but as a newb I wanted the tele shape w/o the bite/twang unless I sought it, so ended up with a G&L Asat Special with their jumbo MFD pickups (wound fairly hot) with full Fender scale that seemed to me less focused so as to give me more variety/versatility, and I'm happy with it. When you want that tele twang, though, nothing less than the Real Thing will deliver.

[DHart]

Originally Posted by ChrisN

...I wanted the tele shape w/o the bite/twang unless I sought it, so ended up with a G&L Asat Special with their jumbo MFD pickups (wound fairly hot) with full Fender scale that seemed to me less focused so as to give me more variety/versatility, and I'm happy with it.

Right there with you, Chris! The ASAT Special is a great guitar.

I had to "roll my own" to get just the combination that I wanted: very comfortable (contoured body); well-balanced, rich, full tone (Classic '57 Gibson hum bucker and Fat Lion custom single coil); great versatility; rosewood fret board; good balance and light-weight for playing while sitting (most of my playing is done this way).

So, I started with a Fender American Standard contoured Tele body in my favorite color (a deep, blood-red), then selected the specific Fender neck, third party & custom pickups, premium electronic wiring, pots, and switch that met my needs and put it all together. (Body and neck came separately from Stratosphere parts. Great resource!)

I couldn't be happier with the result! It was well worth the time and effort to specify, source parts, and assemble the guitar. And it came out better (for me) than any off-the-shelf Tele I could have found.



On occasion, I go with a Fender maple neck, just for the fun of it.

[ChrisN]

Originally Posted by DHart

Right there with you, Chris! The ASAT Special is a great guitar.

I had to "roll my own" to get just the combination that I wanted: very comfortable (contoured body); well-balanced, rich, full tone (Classic '57 Gibson hum bucker and Fat Lion custom single coil); great versatility; rosewood fret board; good balance and light-weight for playing while sitting (most of my playing is done this way).

So, I started with a Fender American Standard contoured Tele body in my favorite color (a deep, blood-red), then selected the specific Fender neck, third party & custom pickups, premium electronic wiring, pots, and switch that met my needs and put it all together. (Body and neck came separately from Stratosphere parts. Great resource!)

I couldn't be happier with the result! It was well worth the time and effort to specify, source parts, and assemble the guitar. And it came out better (for me) than any off-the-shelf Tele I could have found.



On occasion, I go with a Fender maple neck, just for the fun of it.

Thread may be headed for the guardrail, but that a beautiful guitar. You and I are scarily on the same page, guitar-wise. I lacked the saavy to roll my own, so did what I could. I've not heard of Stratosphere (great name), so will check them out.

I thought long/hard about G&L's Bluesboy (similar to yours, pickup-wise), but at this point in my limited experience wanted to keep a hard line between the "humbucker" guitars (shorter scale, per above), and the single coil guitars (longer scale). I was concerned from what I'd heard that the longer scale wouldn't allow for the full humbucker experience. I'm pretty sure you'll tell me there's no compromise whatsoever with the humbucker in the longer scale configuration, and I'm now prepared to believe it's so, but such was my thinking late last year when I was in single-coil mode. The G&L is my only single coil (for now), and I'm enjoying it. I'm going to set up a separate effects bank on the Mustang amp because the two pickup types don't easily share effects.

[DHart]

Originally Posted by ChrisN

Thread may be headed for the guardrail.

Yeah, we probably don't even want to begin with customized Strats, here.

AS far as scale length and humbucker vs. single coils, there is no right, nor wrong. Humbuckers sound great in Strats and Teles, so do P90s, and Filter’Trons.