OffsetGuitars.com

1) AVRI Telecaster Custom



2) My good old American Standard:



Arguments in favor of the AVRI:

1) It kind of needs it more.
2) It'll look fucking sharp.
3) The upgrades are slightly more appropriate for this one.
4) It might make me play it more than the American Standard finally.

Arguments in favor of the American Standard:

1) I tend to prefer playing it more.
2) It also needs a visual upgrade and it will make it very unique guitar on top of it being great.

The upgrades in either case will be new Kinman pickups and a paisley aluminum pickguard (purple on the American Standard and black paisley on the AVRI). Maybe some other bullshit.

You decide! I'm on the fence. How about by Sunday at midnight the votes win. Well, let's say when I wake up Monday morning.

And they will both be upgraded in time, it's just which one goes first.

Please post a pic of the “paisley aluminum pickguard.”

Also, I should mention, I've bought from this pick guard maker before, and have confidence.

Also I should mention that the black paisley guard on the black Telecaster would look fucking sharp also.

Also I should mention that one or both of these could sell out pretty quickly, especially if one of you motherfuckers goes looking for it because of this thread and buys it, so it could all be moot.

That being said, they'll make more, so if you really want to know.

That custom is classy looking. I'd say both! Purple guard for the standard, black guard for the custom. Maybe buy both guards, and then wait on the electronics?

Shadoweclipse13 wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 15, 2021 3:02 am

That custom is classy looking. I'd say both! Purple guard for the standard, black guard for the custom. Maybe buy both guards, and then wait on the electronics?

I voted black on the custom but +1 on this.

Shadoweclipse13 wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 15, 2021 3:02 am

That custom is classy looking. I'd say both! Purple guard for the standard, black guard for the custom. Maybe buy both guards, and then wait on the electronics?

Well, I could buy both guards, and I might, but both guitars are going to be completely gutted in time and revamped.

The reason for this is to defray costs, since I'll need to be selling what's currently in the guitars in order to pay off what's going in the guitars.

And those pick guards that you see on there now are Ilitch noise cancelling guards, which I'm moving away from, so they'll sell for around $125-150 or so. But once they come out I have a guitar that is fundamentally useless to me, pretty new pick guard or not.

I voted for the black guard on the black Standard because of how great it would look, but don't think you'd be an idiot if you didn't.

Purple because it's purple.

I hate to say it but I shuddered when I saw that purple guard, especially after seeing how sharp the Tele looks with a white guard. Sorry.

Me and these guitars have had such a weird relationship.

I bought that black Telecaster as a reward to myself once I graduated with my bachelor's degree, and I liked it a lot. At some point I bought a second American Standard Telecaster but never liked that one as much so it got sold.

Later, my friend let me borrow his AVRI Stratocaster, which I loved, and he wanted to sell it to me for a great price. For some reason, I declined that- very stupid, it was a tremendous guitar.

However, at this point I had realized I liked the AVRI stuff so much and I was missing the Stratocaster, so I inexplicably bought a second Telecaster. Again.

I have never loved playing that AVRI Tele as much as the black one, however, since it is technically the "better" guitar and I always feel I should love it, I tend to upgrade that one first.

Once I do that, though, then I realize I have no real use for the non-upgraded one since it is now technologically inferior for what I do. So then I upgrade the black one.

I can't really sell either of them with all that Hipshot stuff on there and don't really want to. But honestly, I don't know why I have them both, one Telecaster would be fine for me.

Although the black one has three levers, and when you pull them you are in open G tuning very quickly, both E strings drop down to D and the A drops down to G.

The AVRI Telecaster has the two benders there- which I'm not really good at- and only a single drop D lever on the low E string.

PorkyPrimeCut wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 15, 2021 5:48 am

I hate to say it but I shuddered when I saw that purple guard, especially after seeing how sharp the Tele looks with a white guard. Sorry.

Yeah? I have always found it very boring. I had the choice of a white Ilitch guard or a black one, I picked white, and have pretty much always regretted it. I thought I would like it more. Black on black would have pleased me more, and that's what I was thinking to do before I discovered fun paisley guards.

I would put an aged white pearl guard on both, but I'm super-boring when it comes to pickguards. Aged white pearl seems to be my best and only choice, and I'm OK with that. Those Kinman pickups are definitely intriguing. I had never heard of them before joining here.

BeeTL wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 15, 2021 7:23 am

I would put an aged white pearl guard on both, but I'm super-boring when it comes to pickguards. Aged white pearl seems to be my best and only choice, and I'm OK with that. Those Kinman pickups are definitely intriguing. I had never heard of them before joining here.

Aged pearl (or some kind of pearl) is where the American Standard started its life, so you aren't totally too far wrong with that.

I wouldn't be able to say too much in favor of the Kinman pickups. I guess this will be the fourth guitar of mine that has gotten them, I've been on a rampage trying out various pickups over the last few years (noiseless for the most part), and Kinman has emerged as my all around favorite.

I kind of wish that Kinman hadn't come out on top, really- there are a lot of cheaper alternatives out there.

Firstly, I have found that with a set of Kinmans, an aluminum pick guard shield and full shielding in the guitar itself I can have an instrument that is simply dead quiet until a string generates some sound.

All of which would be useless if the pickups didn't sound very good, but they do. If you go to his website you'll be in for quite a sensory overload, but despite the endless hyperbole you are actually reading what turns out to be very accurate information.

For instance, he talks about his own proprietary magnets that he uses called Alnico K (for "Kinman", geddit?), and while there's no real way of knowing that that means, he mentions that it is a low strength magnet that has a very light touch on the strings and don't pull them.

I can't agree with that or disagree with that, but what I can say is that the pickups have a very wide dynamic range, sound good and full throughout it, and are in no sense compressed. My first experience with them was a cheap set of "Thickmaster" Jazzmaster pickups that I won on eBay, which are wound to be powerful sounding, and I basically thought they might well be the sonic equivalent of some 90's era bullshit Gibson PAFs or something.

I was very surprised to find out that they were fantastic pickups in every way, much better than the AVRI pickups they replaced even if you discounted the noise free aspects of them.

Now, do they sound exactly like the real Alnico 5 pickups they replace? I don't really care all that much, honestly, I just want them to sound good. But anyway, this is the set that is coming my way, and it sounds like a Telecaster to me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg7ERRjnG0Q