MasterKtulu
New member
Squire Classic Vibe Telecaster Thinline Is Better Than Expected…
I’ve been looking for a “cheap” Tele on and off for a few years as a project guitar, but could never decide on the one I wanted. But as soon as I saw a picture of this Tele, I knew it was the one...
About four years ago, I bought a Chinese made Squire Affinity Strat as a project guitar. I changed everything except the neck and the body. It made a great playing and great sounding Strat that I still enjoy to play these days. And that is what I expected to do with this Tele, except I didn’t expect to play and sound so good… The frets are great, the vintage style tuners stay in tune and the “Fender” pickups actually sound great (From the information I could get, the pickups seem to be the Vintage Plus Tele Pickups made by Tonerider). Looking inside, the electronics are decent for a Chinese made guitar; full sized Alpha pots and an Alpha pickup selector. The only thing I hate about this guitar is the bridge with its chrome saddles, it makes the guitar sound flat and metallic… So I bought a vintage style Fender “Pat. Pend.” bridge and some Wilkinson compensated brass saddles, and it did wonders for the sound, as it sounds full and louder acoustically now. I had new 250K CTS pots, a Fender 3-way switch and a Vitamin-Q capacitor that were gathering dust in my parts drawer so I installed them (Although the stock electronics seemed to be acceptable and didn’t need to be replaced). And Done! My project guitar, wasn’t much of a project after all… The rest is too good to change just for the sake of changing…
Now I’m going to say something I’m sure won’t be very popular… This Chinese made Tele is better made, plays better and sounds better than any Mexican made Fender that I’ve ever played… There I said it, let the flaming begin…
I’ve been looking for a “cheap” Tele on and off for a few years as a project guitar, but could never decide on the one I wanted. But as soon as I saw a picture of this Tele, I knew it was the one...
About four years ago, I bought a Chinese made Squire Affinity Strat as a project guitar. I changed everything except the neck and the body. It made a great playing and great sounding Strat that I still enjoy to play these days. And that is what I expected to do with this Tele, except I didn’t expect to play and sound so good… The frets are great, the vintage style tuners stay in tune and the “Fender” pickups actually sound great (From the information I could get, the pickups seem to be the Vintage Plus Tele Pickups made by Tonerider). Looking inside, the electronics are decent for a Chinese made guitar; full sized Alpha pots and an Alpha pickup selector. The only thing I hate about this guitar is the bridge with its chrome saddles, it makes the guitar sound flat and metallic… So I bought a vintage style Fender “Pat. Pend.” bridge and some Wilkinson compensated brass saddles, and it did wonders for the sound, as it sounds full and louder acoustically now. I had new 250K CTS pots, a Fender 3-way switch and a Vitamin-Q capacitor that were gathering dust in my parts drawer so I installed them (Although the stock electronics seemed to be acceptable and didn’t need to be replaced). And Done! My project guitar, wasn’t much of a project after all… The rest is too good to change just for the sake of changing…
Now I’m going to say something I’m sure won’t be very popular… This Chinese made Tele is better made, plays better and sounds better than any Mexican made Fender that I’ve ever played… There I said it, let the flaming begin…
