Everyone who’s been reading the reviews of this guitar on the Telecaster Discussion Page and wondering whether it’s really that good………….IT IS!
The paint job looks flawless. It’s a milky/creamy semi transparent white with the grey wood grain of the pine showing through. Polished to mirror finish.
The neck fits tightly in the pocket, you couldn’t get a hair between the neck and the body. The vintage look finish is, again, flawless. Not too yellow or orange and certainly not too pale. The width of the neck is slightly slimmer than I’m used too but very comfortable and a joy to play. You will NOT believe how good the fret job is on this thing. Some have mentioned a slight flame on the neck. Mine has that too but I thing that was caused by the CNC machine router bit.
Unplugged it sounds very rich, resonant and surprisingly loud. Plugged in you’ll notice there is too much sharpness in the bridge pickup and it’s too dull in the neck pickup. This needs some adjustments.
Ok, this guitar comes with 9’s on it and that’s too thin for me so I changed the strings to 10’s. That also takes away some of the sharpness. The string change required some setup adjustments. I needed to widen the nut slots a bit and the truss rod a quarter turn. Action and intonation remained just fine. It’s a brass three saddle.
While I was at it I adjusted the pickups. Neck a little higher, bridge a little lower (especially the treble side). Now it sounds balanced and like a classic style Tele should. I didn’t expect much from these pickups but they sound really good. They’re low output AIII pickups and you have to work a little for your tone but all the twang and classic Tele tones are there.
The chrome could have been better, the tuners are decent enough but I doubt they’ll last long if you string it up with 11’s. The pots feel pretty solid and they’re quiet.
In essence, this is Leo’s vision re-incarnated.
From memory I can compare this to MIM Tele and the Lite Ash. The finish is on par with the MIM, the neck is superior IMO, especially with that stunning fret job. Soundwise, a Lite Ash Tele sounds better with it’s SD pickups but the feel of the Classic Vibe’s neck is much better. The pickups are just as good as the MIM’s but very different in tone. MIM pickups are much beefier, rock and blues oreiented. The CV’s pickups are all country, rockabilly and rock n’ roll. More airy, snappy and twangy.
This has got to be the best deal you can get on a guitar.
The serial number on mine: CGS080400777 Lady Luck must be smiling down on me.
I’ll post some pics when I get my regular computer back.
