I adore these videos because you guys do an incredible job at showing what's possible on a budget while not discouraging custom shop stuff. And there's never really a sales pitch like a lot of other channels. It's honest gear fun!
Modding my guitars is my favorite thing to do. Because it makes it “mine”. I never understood people who say “If change something, the value goes out for resale!” Certain cases apply, but I never plan on selling a guitar. I want to make it mine.
I bought a wiring loom for my tele from montys. I'd never done it before so I asked loads of questions which spanned over weeks. Mat answered everything, sent diagrams and was basically a legend. And it sounds killer, cannot recommend him enough
what I hear too, not far behind but it is prolly cuz the woods aren't as tonally accurate, one would sure hope that ina $5000 custom shop you are getting something for that money
I ordered a Squire Tele in purple from Anderton’s and also ordered Monty’s Danish Pete pickups. Had the pickups installed, upgraded the tuners and WOW! Love the guitar! Super bonus: Pete and the Captain signed the headstock. Now, if I could play as well as them…
I have a classic vibe butterscotch tele and I removed all the poly, sanded it back to wood and then sealed it, took a huge amount of work but it looks and sounds great! Well worth the effort 👍
I think the custom shop thinline is the perfect guitar tone. A little more woodiness than a standard Tele, very articulate and defined... just gorgeous. No other guitar does what a Tele does. You really can do it all on a Telecaster. I've always thought that since I bought my first one almost 30 years ago at 16, but I could only afford one guitar then. Desert island, I would want a Tele... AND you could use it as an oar to row your homemade raft back to civilization and it would still be in tune.
I love (light-medium) relics, but as talented as this fellow may be, this just illustrates the challenges of relicing a poly guitar. It just doesn’t work, and I definitely prefer the look of the stock Squier vs the modded version. Lee’s wins, though-proper nitro is wicked.
should stripped the poly totally and refin in a basic black nitro, would be much more satisfying. Even rattle cans can get a great relic from for what... £50 (primer, colour, top coat)
Get Montys pickups. I have a set of Pete's version in my purple Squire Tele CV. Outstanding. BTW not a relic fan in fact chipped some paint. Found some purple glitter nail polish on Amazon that's a perfect match😃
I think everyone should have an expensive guitar and its entry level equivalent. It shows you how great a high end guitar sounds and also how good beginner guitars are today.
Instead of sanding the guitar directly to relic it, I've just had a brilliant idea to do it more naturally. You could relic them by playing the guitar but greatly accelerate the process by strategically placing super fine sandpaper (1500 grit, or maybe 1000 grit if you wanted to be brutal) all over yourself with double sided tape. The back of the neck could also be done by placing some sandpaper in the gap between the base of the index finger and the base of the thumb, and a thin strip about the size of a plaster in the middle of the palm. Then you just play, alot. The wear would occur naturally as it would have done from normal playing but at a very accelerated rate.
Really nice to see the "Benny Hill" relic process but I now have "Yakkety Sax" as an earworm... I have Monty's pickups in my main guitar. Soooo good. More like this please,
My favorite sounding one with fairly expensive headphones on was….. the purple one!!! After that, the Monty pickups sounded so good but the no-caster bridge and twisted tele neck pickups wins a close second for me. Great job guys! It could be however, that Pete is so familiar and comfortable with his G.O. A.T that he just knows how to bring out the magic in that one.
To me the best sounds came from Lee's CS Thinline and Pete's purple Tele with Monty's DP51s. Head and shoulders above the other two, but given the price difference not unexpected. I have Monty's PAFs in my Les Paul and SG and they sound amazing. May have to invest in some Monty's pickups for my Tele too!
The less money you spend on bass traps and other acoustical treatment, the more money you have to tweak your guitars and amps to get that perfect tone :-) :-). Happy Hols and thanks for all the great videos, looking forward to 2022.
Telecasters without Pete? I will be doing this to a cheap tele soon. But it might be getting Pete's pups now...dangit. Oh, there's Pete at the end! I feel like I owe a cover charge for that outro.
Nice pickups Monty! I don't like relics. However, I think this kind of video is one of the best! The guitars all sound terrific. Maybe Monty should have plsyed on a bit. He sounds good. Try this on an Infinity. That would be very interesting. Thanks!
The relic job really just looks like someone sanded a new guitar, not really like years of aging. 30 years from now, Squiers will still look like new with their thick lacquer and expensive relic guitars will all have disintegrated :-)
I have a custom made telecaster (which I built) and when I had it setup, the luthier (who services Toni Iommis' guitars) said its just as good at custom shop. Modding your own is definitely the way sometimes.
I purchased the DP51 pickups. They are amazing. I installed them onto an Alder Warmoth T body. I painted it blonde with nitros. I bought a 50s 7.25 radius replica neck from Fender and medium sanded both sides of neck, feels great. The guitar looks and feels like a 1954 white guard, and sounds great thanks to Monty.
The only issue with modding a squier is a neck, which tends to be made of cheaper wood. It is not exactly dry, it often twists with time and is more prone to react to conditions changes
Agreed , try selling a high end moog or original Roland Jupiter 8 looking like it’s been set on fire or thrown down some stairs , it’s brilliant brilliant marketing ploy / tool to sell same thing twice at twice the price , oh how the sheep are easily fooled . Get a guitar , play it , enjoy it and it will age with you , sadly people are too eager to be cool and can’t wait for natural ageing , just my five pence worth , with natural ageing , so worth at least two hundred pooonds 🤣
I just don’t really understand the relics. It’s probably because I’m a painter and have spent 20 years restoring things to new condition. But I just can’t imagine paying for something that looks like old and beat up. Had I gotten my hands on a worn in 50/60’s era guitar, the first thought I would have is how do I restore this to like new
