Exactly i have a 2007 Stingray bass black metal flake and i love that color and that white or pearl binding is awesome on a tele like ol'e Merle had !! take care Nevada !!
I bought this guitar few months ago and I couldn't be happier, the finish looks sexy and sounds amazing, never played a guitar with such ease. Money well spent.
John, re the disappearing plastic switch knob (11:22) I've found two effective remedies; Not Bad fix: Pull the plastic knob off and turn it upside down, epoxy fill the void surrounding the shaft slot (not in the slot itself) replace it on the switch when hardened. It gives the plastic a little less give when you hit the switch and stays in place better. It can still get knocked off unexpectedly though if you're really going for it. Excellent fix: Have a machinist turn a brass, aluminium or stainless steel ring to lightly press into that void. It will have to be measured carefully to not crack the knob yet provide grip around the switch shaft. This fix never comes off unless you pull it straight up as intended. Almost as if Leo himself designed it! Thanks for your great video.
Amazing tone. I feel this tone is so useful that I can use it with any amp or pedal. Of course, the original series has legendary great tone, but sometimes I feel it difficult to play because of its unique treble.
Just to say that my version of the "Elite Fender Telecaster" was a black bodied, maple neck, with "lace" pickups set at right angles, and "Active" rather than passive - so a 9V battery was required to be installed every now and again. Not that I didn't /like/ the tone, it was actually pretty amazing, and the layout of similar in style to a gibson (tone/volume for each of bridge and neck pickups) was kind of more "natural" to me - having been brought up on a memphis SG copy, and the idea that you could dial in tone was part of my natural experience of what was possible on guitar - so at first I thought it was somehow more that you could compared to what at the time I thought of as a "restricted" or "constrained" availability of tones, but sadly after playing it for a few gigs it dawned on me that the active circuitry required the constant replacement of the battery and it became a constant struggle keeping it up while not earning enough to suport the guitar's demand for "more power". I'm not necessarily against "active" pickups, but I think just about every "tele" player would kind of prefer the sweet and still potentially aggressive tones available from - guess what? Two pickups, bridge and neck, with only a basic tone control between. Humph? I don't disagree. To be honest, we do know now that "Tone" comes mainly from our fingers and with simple subtle volume control for attack, any other extra thing we probably can "dial in" with careful adjustment of the amplifier's gain or even maybe with tasteful use of various footpedals so I guess all I want to say is that I do miss my Elite Tele, but I think I'm probably better off with my Squire Tele, because it really is up to me to make those strings sound and I can't blame my equipment, i have to own my mistakes and try to keep trying to make it better.
Great job Mr John, great sounding Geetar lol and i loved your behind the nut bends, I'm a Bassman who always enjoys a great guitar picker and a drummer who plays in the pocket and you are one of my fav pickers in Nashville take care your old friend Ernie.....
Love this guitar, again John another great video great balance of information and playing not too much of one or the other. I have the maple fretboard of this guitar absolutely love it.
Thank you for the demo. I haven't bought one (though I was tempted), but I did try out three of the natural finish Elite Tele's with the maple fingerboard, and all three were consistently good. The noiseless pickup technology is about perfect as it cuts the hum without changing the tone of the single coil pickups in a way that I can discern. I currently have a Select Strat, which they didn't do this year, but the Elite line takes its place at the top of the production range. I'd say if you can't afford a custom shop Tele, this is the one for you. Locking tuners and good noiseless pickups are nice to have already installed on the guitar. The only thing I would change are the bridge saddles, which I'd switch out for string savers.
John might have meant that it stays intonated because the strings won't go easily out of tune. But maybe he, like most guitar players, likes to throw around guitar-buzzwords.
Yup... I meant it helps with string slippage.. I misspeak often. I also mis-pick, mis-play, misunderstand, am misundestood and make lots of mistakes. Thanks for watching.
@@soofitnsexy I was gonna buy the new fender ultra telecaster but i ended up liking another guitar better and bought that one. But I'm gonna still buy the ultra telecaster. You should check it out too. It has vintage noiseless pickups.
John, lovely Tele, however, I am sure you want to show it in its best light. Make SURE, the guitar is CLEAN before you do a close up panno of it! It looked disgusting esp on the scratch plate with all that greasy finger marks and on the body too! Nothing I hate more on a guitar or glass bench tops/windows/mirrors are greasy smudges and marks! Fender are paying you to show off this beautiful axe! Show it in PRISTINE condition. And yes I know, black is such a HARD colour to keep clean! It's just little touches like that, that DO get noticed! GREAT demo and playing as usual! My 2nd Tele I built has 5 way switching from 2 pick ups inc the series mod. It is a seriously GOOD tone for a Tele! Fat but bright all at the same time! Rock on!
I definitely enjoy these videos.John, keep it up. I will say I love the compound radius necks on so many of these new Fenders but the aesthetics, no, I want them to look vintage. Althiugh I really want them to cut the rails down on the bridge:no one has played a Tele with the ashtray on it since before Chrissie Hynde was conceived.
Looks comfortable for sure i prefer the maple board tho.....i would buy 1 if money wasnt so dear Im not sure locking tuners increase stability n intonation tho.....i been told thryre really intended to facilitate fast string swaps John ur a great player man
im annonymous I‘m with you man. Replaced the stock tuners on my American Special and the two things I like... 1. They hold tune better. 2. They really do make string changes much faster.
I want this guitar very badly. Would keep the Noiseless neck pup but change out the bridge for something that can do Slayer with everything turned up but then be also capable of all the traditional tele bridge tones with a simple turning back a couple dials...
Man that's really disheartening to hear. Especially given the price point of this guitar and that the button being one of the most redeeming qualities, you'd think they would make it more durable.
I am old school and the less moving parts the better. I prefer basic wiring. I took it apart and imo its just cheap. The same could be said for Gibson and others. If you have basic guitar repair skills don't let this keep you from buying. Although, I would find one used and let the orig owner take the steep decrease the value.
I would agree; the less and the simpler the better. I miss the simple times when Fender made just a few guitars and they had very few options, but they all had one thing in common; they were all set up to play out of the box and came with a quality case. If I were Fender, I would sell two models of each instrument, a basic model at around $300.00 and an Elite model at $1000.00. Period. The last few Fenders I have bought, I have returned because the setups were terrible and the quality control was poor. I would price this guitar in the $1000 - $1200 range because I would probably have to spend a few hundred dollars just to make it playable. I bought a new Strat Deluxe ($799); it was near impossible to get the bridge parallel to the body; the routing on the tremolo cavity wasn't deep enough and the controls were of poor quality so I sent it back. I bought a David Murray Strat ($1000) and spent countless hours and money trying to get a playable instrument. There was no shielding in the control cavity, so I put in some double sided conductive copper foil in the instrument. I put the pickguard on and the middle pickup wouldn't work. I found after 3 hours that the center lug on the 5 way switch was shorting out against the copper foil; either the control cavity routing was too shallow or the switch was out of spec. I ended up putting a piece of black electrical tape under the lug; it was an aggravating mess. It is a shame that one has to spend close to two thousand dollars to get a respectable instrument.
Last year I bought a $500 G&L Tribute Semi-Hollow Telecaster from MF on sale. For the money; nice fret work, nice neck; not to big, not too small. Excellent quality 18:1 tuners, with a top dollar switch and volume and tone pots, they were just massive and smooth. Nice tight neck pocket and good upper fret access (nice profile where the neck meets the heel). I took the instrument to my Luthier and he said a fret job would be a waste of money. I did completely shield the guitar and put in a dummy coil for the Bridge pickup; it was just too noisy. Other than that it has been a great guitar and I play it very night. Fender should take notice.........
Love the neck and tone but mine was far from "elite". The high E kept popping off, replaced the guide with one flush with the wood. S1 switches are crap and just something else to fail. The wire on the neck pu is very VERY frail. Needs to have a blob of epoxy/shoegoo etc on it where it attached to the eyelet If you take off/replace the pick guard be very careful as I found it impossible to find the latest pu replacement. The grub screws are still all different sizes and strip,round off wrenches easily. The binding at the bout where it bend towards the neck is slightly kinked. Most of these are no biggie but at $1800 should not be there. That said the neck is incredible.
This might seem like an odd question on a video reviewing a telecaster but I was wondering if those knobs would fit on a stratocaster. I've been looking at maybe getting an elite stratocaster but I really dont like those plastic knobs its has. I would much rather have the knobs from the telecaster.
Nah, that's a myth. Redding borrowed a Tele (that he previously sold) and gave it to Jimi for a gig. This was after Purple Haze was recorded. There is zero evidence that Jimi recorded anything on a Telecaster.
It's annoying that you have to get the Elite now to get a belly cut and individual bridge saddles on a Tele, unless you want the shawbucker one... should have got a standard when I had the chance
I think they do, to some degree. I think what he means is that the locking tuners help keep you in tune, and it's easier for string changing, and that the intonation won't get all wonky if you have them installed on your guitar.
John Hardin I used to have a noiseless in the bridge of my thinline, but it sounded very different from this one. It was most likely a different noiseless model though.
Hmm..I'm not sure whether it's the guitar or another part of the chain but I didn't really here it as a "good rich tone"..more a slightly processed sounding rather bland tone. Neither the spank of of a 60's Cropper think nor the rawness or balls of the early blackguards.
Depending on the design, if there is a dummycoil on the bottom, which I suspect, it can be tuned to where 75% of the hum is bucked but high end is still preserved, where a 100% humbucking will kill some highs. getting the hum 75% down will most likely work for you and take your mind of it. FWIW
Will it depend on how a dummy coil is wound? I mean, how do you get different degrees of cancellation? I'd suspect ratio between number of rounds coil is wound in pickup and hum-cancelling coil will have something to do with it.
Sounded like he was using a compressor. Not that I care if he did or didn't, but if he did he didn't mention it. Nobody plays telecaster and chicken picks without a compressor on.
So awesome, he plays the shit out of these N4's, but at the end 10:50 first, he forgets the name of the S1 switching system, then he proceeds to burn Fender.......haha
