Fender 72 Tele Custom - £595

Much as I LOVE this guitar, it really does need to go to a good home.

So I present a stunning and all original Fender Crafted in Japan Telecaster Custom - a real rock-n-roll machine with a broken-in feel and a gnarly tone.

A humbucker in the neck position gives you fat rhythm sounds you might not expect from a Telecaster, and the bridge pickup keeps those classic, searing tones intact. 

Individual volume and tone knobs for each pickup further enhance the tonal range of the 72 Tele Custom.

Playability is superb, the Tele is fitted with a 184R / 7.25" radius maple fretboard, 21 Narrow Jumbo frets, perfect for chord work or big bends.

The red tortoishell pick guard adds a twist to the black ash body is a rare factory fited option.

As with all Japanese Fenders, the guitar is extremely well built, plays like a dream and are becoming increasingly rare.

See this guitar here

Also another good demo of the same CIJ model

Twang Tastic Jam Tracks

There's nothing better than kicking back with an old Telecaster, and I have been using these jam tracks to get in a little practice over the last few weeks.

I'd love to see some video responses in the style of...

Waylon Jennings
Vince Gill
Merle Haggard Troy Crook Allman Brothers

'67 Tele with a Twist

A bit of a diversion to making my own great guitars, I came across this and had to add it to the collection.

Built on a standard 1967 specification, Alder body, hand wound pickups and large C shape neck,  the twist is the addition of 4-way switching and a 10" radius on the fingerboard.

Mine is not from Greg though...

Princeton Reverb Clone - First Impressions

I finally completed the testing of the Princeton clone I have been building since January.  Some of the basic spec available here.

First impressions of the amp are great - much richer and mellower sounding than my stock Princeton Re-Issue.  Huge amount of bass - in fact I will probably need to tweak this circuit in the future to calm it down a bit.  That also goes for the reverb - its pretty unusable above 4 or 5.

Enjoy some sound clips - I welcome your feedback!

Clean Tones

Dirty Tones

Tremelo

Blue or Turquoise?

I had some good feedback on the Lake Placid Blue guitar that I put together earlier in the year.  Ultimately I sold the guitar as it wasn't close enough to the colour I was looking for.

I have since done some research on how to achieve an authentic look using blue, and discovered that I am favoring Ocean Turquoise such as the examples from the Fender Custom shop shown here (though they look pretty close to Lake Placid Blue to me?)

Having said that when I have shown these pics to Fender dealers they suspect these are actually custom colours that have been specially mixed to emulate how Ocean Turquoise would have aged over 40 years.  They look nothing like a new Ocean Turquoise guitar.

The search for the perfect 'blue' continues.

Keeping It Simple > Ditto Looper

I traded in my old looper recently for a new Ditto from TC Electronics who have taken a minimalist approach to looper design – just a single switch and a level knob!

My old looper (Digitech) had so many features and functions that it killed the mood each time I thought about using it.  And it had a non standard power supply L.

I’ve now plumbed the Ditto into the pedal board, its really easy to use, quality is great (24 bit uncompressed), 5 minute loop time, and most importantly it’s given me renewed impetus to pick up the guitar and jam, rather than spending time fiddling with controls.

Here is a quick demo from TC electronics.

Whilst on the subject of great looper jam examples, here is a couple of my current favourites (not using a Ditto).  Enjoy!

 

Smokin' Princeton Reverb

So I completed the wiring on the Princeton clone today, having spent many hours over the past few weeks fault finding and testing the power supply circuits.

I would love to report some smokin' amp tone straight off the bat... unfortunately all I got was some actual smoke :-) from an overheating power supply resistor which probably indicates a short somewhere.

So, back fault finding again.  Pics of the completed (if not yet working) amp .....