Almost… darn near a school bus. Ford Expedition. Wife, two kids + Mother In-law and usually an extra hoodlum or two… every freakin’ where we go… With gas at almost THREE bucks a gallon… yep. About ten fill ups would buy that Tele… 
D
I would recommend taking time to figure out what you specifically want in your Tele; there are several options to consider.
Maple fretboard vs. Rosewood
Single Coil vs. Humbucker vs. a combination of the two
Strings thru the body vs. bridge/saddle
Solid vs. Hollowbody (or is it Semi-Hollow??)
Made in America vs. Made In Mexico, Japan, Indonesia, Korea, China or Elsewhere
Etc.,
I recommend playing one in person and not ordering one online, sight unseen. I found that there were a lot of quality discrepancies from Tele to Tele to Tele. I don’t know if it’s a lack of quality control on the part of Fender or just plain laziness, but even the same models can have very pronounced differences.
The other thing to think about is a Tele copy by another manufacturer. There are some high quality copies, which some folks claim are better than Fenders. Tom Anderson guitars comes to mind, although the price range might be higher, but I’ve even seen some Peavey copies that weren’t bad on the low end. The Tele is a very popular body style, so there are a lot of manufacturers who make them.
I’d think my dream Tele would be…
Birdseye maple neck and fretboard. No markers. Just side dots.
Single coil p’ups. Both positions.
String through body. Tobacco Tri-burst.
Semi-hollow.
Don’t care where it’s made as long as it’s good quality and rings like a friggin’ BELL when strummed acoustically and sounds as vibrant plugged in.
If you run across one like that, send it to me and I’ll pay you just as SOON as I can…
D
Okay have narrowed my choice down to two models:
Deluxe Nashville Power or an American HS
Leaning more toward the nashville one even though it’s made in Mexico. Just looks verstile but I hate the pickguard.
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| Quote |
| Leaning more toward the nashville one even though it’s made in Mexico. Just looks verstile but I hate the pickguard. |
Really! Why did they have to ugly the thing up with that pickgaurd? Good choice though IMO. Should be a very versatile axe…
D
I don’t know why they did that Diogenes. I’ll have a look on ebay for replacement guards. Ya think the same as you here. This will be the one then.
Well tommorow I will pay out the mullah for a Nashville Power Tele.
Going Candy Apple Red with a Rosewood fretboard.
Tex-Mex Strat pickup sandwiched between two Tex-Mex Tele pickups and Fender/Fishman Power Bridge. Features five-way switching
It will take awhile to get it up here. Figured it was about time. Felt guilting until I found out the wife has about $5000 invested in her quilting hobby.
Time for a little “me” time. No more Mr Nice Guy, it’s all me for awhile.
Make sure you give them my shipping address!
KingFish
Quilting?!?! You can’t wank the solo to “The Wall” on a quilt! 
Congrats Stu. Give a review when you can eh?
D
| Quote (StuH @ May 09 2006,00:46) |
| Well tommorow I will pay out the mullah for a Nashville Power Tele. Going Candy Apple Red with a Rosewood fretboard. Tex-Mex Strat pickup sandwiched between two Tex-Mex Tele pickups and Fender/Fishman Power Bridge. Features five-way switching It will take awhile to get it up here. Figured it was about time. Felt guilting until I found out the wife has about $5000 invested in her quilting hobby. Time for a little “me” time. No more Mr Nice Guy, it’s all me for awhile. |
Hey Stu, it would be cool if you could post a picture of the new “baby.” I’ve been a Tele fan for a long time and would enjoy seeing your new acquisition.
I can relate to your comments about your wife’s quilting hobby. My wife crochets and we have yarn coming out the … assorted places.
It may look like a Klingon battle axe, but this is actually a Tele electronically (also notice the Tele bridge) that is especially designed to be played finger style while sitting down. The design was not driven primarily by aesthetics, but by ergonomics. I’m curious what you Tele lovers will think about the instrument when you hear the reasons for its peculiar appearance.
When my son, Shea, was in middle school he began to study classical guitar. One of the primary tenets of proper classical technique is that the fingers of the left hand should be arched so that just the tips of the fingers contact the strings (unless you are playing a barre chord). To help accomplish this while seated, the guitar is held so that the body of the guitar is at about a 45 degree angle to the axis of the guitarists body, the left knee of the guitarist is elevated (eg. by a footstool) and the upper bout of the guitar rests on the elevated leg. Typical electric guitars do not sit well in this position, so the guitarist tends to drop the guitar toward horizontal and it becomes difficult to maintain proper finger position. Because Shea also played the electric guitar, and sometimes wanted to play while seated this became a problem. So we designed and built this guitar to eliminate the problem. So almost everthing that looks weird about this guitar was designed to deal with this and other issues the derived from the first steps toward a solution.
The first part of the design problem was to get the guitar to sit naturally at a 45 degree angle. This is the reason for the big curving cut along the back of the guitar. The upper horn of the lower bout rests on top of the right thigh, and lower bout wraps around the leg to steady the guitar. This configuration has the added advantage of minimizing the height that the guitarist has to reach with his left hand, minimizing strain on the shoulder. It also reduces the flex in the right wrist which is also good ergonomically.
You might notice that the tone and volume control are close together and near the bridge. In this position they can both be operated without taking the right hand away from th strings. The pickup selector has been moved away from the pickups, but is still easy to reach (you can barely see it in the photo just below the tone knob). One of my personal pet peaves is for pickup selectors to be positioned where you can hit them if you are strumming and get a bit carried away.
The violin style cutouts on the sides are to reduce weight. (The body is very dense rock maple for sustain). The longish horn on the upper bout is there to provide balance when the guitar is played standing, with a strap to support it. The attachment buttons for the guitar strap are on the guitar’s back, so that the straps are flat against the guitarists chest when the guitar is hanging down.
So probably only the real hard-core guitar types will have made it this far. Sorry for being long winded, but I’ve not had many opportunities to describe the green monster to folks who might be interested. What do you think?
Looks like an Ibanez neck on a strat body with tele pickups.
Not my kind of guitar. To much flash for me.
I guess I’m oldschool
Yep. Stuh, from a looks point of view, I’d agree. The weird thing is that in this case form follows function, and the looks are an accident. Looks too much like a Goth toy. I actually wish that it had looked like something else. But what about the ergonomics? Probably only matters if you are REALLY old school, i.e. hard nosed classical technique…
That’s a very interesting guitar. I think the goth comment is accurate. Looks like something Tim Burton would have used in one of the Batman movies.
So, KSBD…
Interesting looking is the term my mom used to use when she wanted to introduce me to some homely young lady. Probably fits pretty well here.
But it plays well, and it sounds like a Tele. What else do ya need?
But wait whats that spider web stuff on the Tele on your logo/ID thing? That goes well with a Tim Burton special. Now I feel better about the looks.
| Quote (tspringer @ May 09 2006,23:01) |
| So, KSBD… Interesting looking is the term my mom used to use when she wanted to introduce me to some homely young lady. Probably fits pretty well here. But it plays well, and it sounds like a Tele. What else do ya need? But wait whats that spider web stuff on the Tele on your logo/ID thing? That goes well with a Tim Burton special. Now I feel better about the looks. |
When I said it was interesting, I wasn’t necessarily talking about the looks.
Another guitar I’ve seen that’s an indirect offshoot of the Telecaster concept is the Jay Turser Lyrebird (the reviews at Harmony-Central say it sounds like a Tele). It has 27 frets which could have its advantages.
In the end who cares what it looks like? I am totally impressed with your pursuit of functionality - and it is very interesting that function determined this particular form. Not at all like standard teles - whech, as a fender lover, I have to admit are pretty boring visually. Actually, electric guitarists are pretty much sticks-in-the-mud when it comes to styles, aren’t we?
You need to patent it pronto.
I definitely agree that guitarists are pretty conservative when it comes to design. But I think I understand why. I believe that it comes from the fact that we really don’t fully understand what makes one guitar sound better than another, and because what sounds good to one person doesn’t always appeal to another. So when we hear something we like, that someone else is playing (or has), we want to duplicate that. We simply can’t choose based on design principles alone. What is that really makes a Tele sound like a Tele? Mostly it’s the electronics, but other factors can modify the tone color subtley. So what happens if the body has long horns? Does it resonate differently? Does that effect the sound? Probably. Would you ever buy a mail order guitar without playing it first? I sure wouldn’t. But from an ergonomic point of view, this conservativism leads to some poor design features being retained endlessly. Why do guitar manufacturers persist in locating the pickup selector where a rhythm guitarist is likely to bump the setting to the bridge pickup accidentally? Why are the tone and volume controls so far apart?
Of course if you are going to drop hundreds or even thousands of dollars on an instrument you do want it to be pretty.
Well here’s a question T. I can see how this would prevent bad finger positioning habbits but what about the body depth. Thicker goin to thinner, would that not affect form aswell?
It’s interesting here though when we talk about purists and conservatives. When I was explaining to the wife what I looked for on a guitar, I told her it was 90% sound and 90% looks.
| Quote (ksdb @ May 10 2006,00:02) |
| [quote=tspringer,May 09 2006,23:01]So, KSBD… …the Jay Turser Lyrebird (the reviews at Harmony-Central say it sounds like a Tele). It has 27 frets which could have its advantages. |
I hate those UFO contoured bodies. Those Line 6 guitars and some of the Ibanez models just pure vomit to me, looks wise.