Showing posts with label Fender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fender. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

2008 Fender American Standard Telecaster


I just got this guitar yesterday. It's a great instrument, and from what I can tell so far, a pretty good deal even if you pay the retail price. I played the three American made versions: Highway 1, Standard, and Deluxe. The Highway 1 was a great instrument, but the Standard just felt more substantial, had a smoother feel in the volume and tone knobs, and was a bit more balanced across the strings. The Deluxe, while it felt great to play, just doesn't really sound like a Telecaster, so nevermind.

The only problem I really noticed after getting home, which would have been impossible to notice in the noisy store anyway, was a buzz on the open B and A strings. Turned out it was coming from the nut, and after a little research figured out it was a shallow angle of termination. To correct it, I took a very sharp razor blade and lightly etched out the back 2/3 of the nut, on the tuning peg side. I went in tiny, tiny increments and tuned back up several time until the problem was eliminated. I'll get this taken care of when the guitar gets set up, but for now, this is a decent fix.

You'll hear plenty of this guitar on some of my new tunes for my trio. You can really get down with this tone, and through my Bogner it's going to be dirrrtaaay.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Gear


My first band back in junior high spent more time keeping a binder that listed our gear and how to set it up than making any actual music. A couple years later I had a conversation with a neighbor that played viola in the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and he said you've got to have a piece that you can play at the drop of a hat, on an acoustic guitar. To do that, it doesn't matter what kind of guitar you play, what kind of amp you've got, what kinds of strings, picks, or pedals you use, or anything other than how well you can actually play. Experience has shown me that most people that aren't very good, especially guitar players, usually try to cover it up with all those smoke and mirror effects, while the best players can take the cheapest piece of junk guitar and make it sound beautiful.

After a few years of just running my guitar straight to my amp with maybe just a volume pedal between the two, I started using some effects again with my trio. I'm also expanding my arsenal to give me greater flexibility for different types of gigs. The downside here is that I often have to carry close to 100 lbs. of gear to and from gigs on the subway!

Here's what I use:

Guitars:
Gibson ES-175 (vintage 1967)
Taylor 210ce
Fender American Standard Telecaster
Cordoba classical
ESP Eclipse (mid-'90s custom)

Amps:
Bogner Duende (15 watt, Class A)
Polytone Minibrute (12")

Pedals (routed in this order):
Crybaby
Turbo Rat
Mini Q-Tron
Boss Giga Delay
Boss Flanger
Boss EQ pedal
Ernie Ball Jr. Volume
+Vibrato effect built into Bogner amp

Misc:
Fender Mandolin
Ukulele (no brand)
Honer harmonicas