NGD: Purple Tele!

[marqueemoon]

Son, everyone needs a Telecaster.

Yes indeed. Well done.

[sessylU]

Nice. One of the great things about Telecasters is that, even if they have aftermarket bridges and have usb-powered pickups (imagine explaining that concept to yourself, back when you started playing), they are still very much Telecasters. They can do so much, without giving up their teleness.

[Surfysonic]

Congrats, Mike! Be warned - Tele collecting can get addictive! Ask me how I know.

Next, you'll need a thinline, then one with humbuckers, a cabronita, then one with p90s...

[Bradley-Jazz]

Congrats, Mike! Be warned - Tele collecting can get addictive! Ask me how I know.

Next, you'll need a thinline, then one with humbuckers, a cabronita, then one with p90s...

Yes, this.

And a black guard, a rosewood board….

I have a Baja which probably has a similar neck to yours - very comfy indeed. Plus since I got that I built as partscasters a cabronita, a 62 slab board, and a sparkly blue thinline. I’d really like a WRHB custom or deluxe too, but have resisted to date.

[Maggieo]

Congrats, Mike! Be warned - Tele collecting can get addictive! Ask me how I know.

Next, you'll need a thinline, then one with humbuckers, a cabronita, then one with p90s...

I have no idea of what you speak.

[Embenny]

Yeah, I actually spent like 5 years (on and off) searching for a lightweight "offset telecaster" because I wanted the pickup/bridge/feel of a Tele, but was hoping to do it offset-style.

But regular "offset Teles" have so much empty space behind the bridge that they look funny to me, and the larger body means higher weight, so it seemed like a step in the wrong direction.

I do love the look of them with a proper vibrato:



But then you're out of the traditional tone and response of a Tele and just have a cool looking Jazzmaster with Tele pickups in it.

So I finally caved and accepted that the best way to get the tone and response of a Tele is...to buy a Tele. Shocking, I know. I've cracked the code known to all guitarists in the last 7 decades.

But at least this one's purple

And yeah, "USB-powered pickups" makes them sound like some sort of Line 6 modeling device, but they're great. They're real coils around real magnets, just made differently, and needing a preamp to boost the output. But if I handed this guitar to a random Telecaster player, they'd probably just make it do whatever they need a Telecaster to do without any fuss. So far it seems no more different from my single coil guitars than any given model of single coil can be. You could call the whiteguard voice "traditional" or "thin", and the blackguard voice "meaty" or "tubby" depending on what you like to hear from a single coil wind, but the great thing is that it's got both!

The other amazing thing that is entirely unsurorising us that it's got the most perfect taper on the volume and tone knobs, with absolutely no alteration to the tone. I do find that any combo of pot, pickup, and treble bleed circuit ends up changing the tone one way or the other as you roll down, and we all know that even great quality pots can have quirky tapers.

But this? Flawless. It makes me use the volume lnob way more. You'd think most people would tend to set up a rhythm tone on the Whiteguard voice and then use the extra mids and output of the Blackguard voice like an mild 808 style boost or whatever, but these pickups really decouple tone from output. You can set up your basic tone on the Blackguard with your volume down halfway, then add or subtract gain at will along with switching voices. Want to kick up the gain but with extra bite? Flip to Whiteguard and nudge the volume knob up.

I've had many "multi-voice" switching setups and none have been this simple to make sound good. Every position is truly useful, noiseless, and easy to access - literally nothing more than a single push-push button compared to the 70 year-old configuration.

My only problem is that this eliminates the need for another Tele. It does the spanky 60's thing. It does the throaty 50's thing. It does the "noiseless guitar you can grab when you don't want to worry about noise" thing.

A passive Esquire would be the only way to make it any simpler, but even then, I'd be shocked if it did anything that different - these pickups are only 200G of magnetic pull at the top of the poles, which is like 1/5th of a vintage alnico pickup, so it's already 80% of the way to the idea that strings resonate differently with the lack of neck pickup on an Esquire.

I mean, there's always '72 Thinlines and whatnot, but fundamentally those are just semihollows with humbuckers and I've kinda found my way into that world already.

So I think maybe this has finally cured the Tele GAS rather than kicked it off.

Ask me again in a year when I've built a blue sparkle Mascis-style and three thinlines, I suppose

What finally got me was the price. There are such few Offsets in Canada that deals are rare, and importing means shipping and taxes. Teles are a dime a dozen and I got this whole guitar cheaper than it would have cost to buy a bone-stock purple Classic Vibe from Anderton's once the exchange rate, duties, and shipping are factored in.

A set of these pickups, a Wilkinson bridge, and a Classic 50's neck run just over $1k after tax in my province, but the Tele market is so saturated that the seller didn't think they warranted a higher asking price. I've seen people reselling the stock purple Andertons Jaguars and Jazzmasters locally for more.

This Tele isn't a "desert island" guitar like my '62 Jaguar, but if I found myself needing to liquidate every guitar I own for financial reasons, I couldn't imagine a better single guitar to cut down to. Inexpensive, noiseless, versatile, attractive, and great-playing. It's got fewer quirks than any of my Offsets, but it just works, which I suppose is what I've heard every single Tele person say a million times and dismissed just as many times. Who'd have thunk?

[BTL]

That's quite an endorsement! Also, the perspective on the Fishman pickups is very welcome. For me, they're a solution to a problem I've never had, but it's great (if not terribly surprising) to hear they do what they do exceptionally well. Congrats!

[Jonesie]

So I finally caved and accepted that the best way to get the tone and response of a Tele is...to buy a Tele. Shocking, I know. I've cracked the code known to all guitarists in the last 7 decades

I went through a similar thing but with Les Pauls and Marshalls. I was recording an album with forum-member SteveJamsEcono and we kept on trying to make Fender + Vox or Fender + Fender setups work for the sound we were going for, and then we plugged a Les Paul into a Super Lead into a 4x12, and just both looked at each other like "We're the biggest idiots in the world. Of course this is the sound."

[Maggieo]

I reckon if Greg Koch was involved in the making of those Fishman PUPs, they've got to be good. Glad to hear they are.

[marqueemoon]

I’m curious if that combo USB and 1/4” jack is available as an aftermarket part.

Looks like Fender Acoustasonics use the same one.

The USB would need to be a pass through to be useful to me though. Can’t tell if the Fishman pcb plugs in or is soldered in.

[Embenny]

I reckon if Greg Koch was involved in the making of those Fishman PUPs, they've got to be good. Glad to hear they are.

This is the best comparison I've been able to find. Two Custom Shop Teles vs his signature Reverend (with his signature pickups) in both modes.

The only problem with it is that it compares them to the Reverend with all knobs dimed. Being active pickups, they can ignore cable capacitance and achieve more high end when fully open. If you knock down the tone knob the tiniest bit, you shave off the extra glassiness.

I find that problem with most active pickup demos. Even on a Stingray bass, they'll often go "treble all the way down, treble flat, and treble all the way up" when the better tone can often be "treble backed off slightly."

In this case, it could lead someone to think the Fishman pickups are inherently brighter than the CS pickups, when it's more a matter of, "they can get a little brighter in case you want that."

I’m curious if that combo USB and 1/4” jack is available as an aftermarket part.

Looks like Fender Acoustasonics use the same one.

The USB would need to be a pass through to be useful to me though. Can’t tell if the Fishman pcb plugs in or is soldered in.

It looks like it plugs into the board. If you want to see the installation process, this is actually a video by the guy I bought the Tele from, installing them in this very Tele.

[Surfysonic]

I reckon if Greg Koch was involved in the making of those Fishman PUPs, they've got to be good. Glad to hear they are.

This is the best comparison I've been able to find. Two Custom Shop Teles vs his signature Reverend (with his signature pickups) in both modes.

The only problem with it is that it compares them to the Reverend with all knobs dimed. Being active pickups, they can ignore cable capacitance and achieve more high end when fully open. If you knock down the tone knob the tiniest bit, you shave off the extra glassiness.

I find that problem with most active pickup demos. Even on a Stingray bass, they'll often go "treble all the way down, treble flat, and treble all the way up" when the better tone can often be "treble backed off slightly."

In this case, it could lead someone to think the Fishman pickups are inherently brighter than the CS pickups, when it's more a matter of, "they can get a little brighter in case you want that."

I’m curious if that combo USB and 1/4” jack is available as an aftermarket part.

Looks like Fender Acoustasonics use the same one.

The USB would need to be a pass through to be useful to me though. Can’t tell if the Fishman pcb plugs in or is soldered in.

It looks like it plugs into the board. If you want to see the installation process, this is actually a video by the guy I bought the Tele from, installing them in this very Tele.

Ha! Very cool. I enjoy Landon's vids.