Over the past few months I have became enamored with some of the custom builders who are making Telecaster Deluxe type guitars with eye catching new aesthetics, custom pickups. While these guitars are some of the best money can buy, the problem is that some Worship guitarists aren’t in a position to fork over $2500-$5000 for a new guitar.
With this in mind I set out to find an alternative. In my research I stumbled across the Chris Shiflett Signature Telecaster Deluxe guitar from Fender. My local shop had all three colors in stock; black, shoreline gold and white. The gold one immediately caught my eye but the black and white ones stood out to me as well. What I noticed in these guitars aesthetics is that they were a take on the 72 Deluxe Tele reissues but had a modern flare. The back of the body had a tummy cut making it more comfortable to play while sitting down. Also the color schemes fell in line with some of the guitars some of my favorite custom builders were doing.
I took the shoreline gold one and one of the 72 Deluxe Tele Reissues and sat down with a new reissue Princeton Chorus amp. Initial thoughts were that I hated the neck humbucker. It was extremely muddy and had too much low end. The bridge humbucker was definitely more down my alley but it seemed to have too much gain, which was what it was designed to do. The neck however was a huge surprise to me. Even though it has a similar neck to the standard 72 reissue it played so much better. The neck and color scheme alone sold me on this guitar so I decided that for $500 (used) I could take it home and swap the electronics and pickups out for something a little more friendly to lower gain settings.
That Sunday I plugged it in to my Bad Cat Cub III30 and pedalboard. I was blown away. The guitar sounded completely different. The neck pickup was still too muddy and dark for my tastes in most cases but I fell in love with the bridge pickup. While it was a little more gainy through the Princeton it sounded perfect through my Bad Cat. I believe that it was likely due to the 1×10″ speaker in the Princeton vs the 1×12″ in my Bad Cat. 1×10 speakers overdrive more quickly which was likely what put it over the top for me.
After playing the guitar for 6 months I can honestly say that it has become one of my favorite guitars of all time. I just ordered a new Emerson Custom Telecaster Deluxe Pre-Wired Kit, and plan to order a Bigsby B5, Callaham Bridge and either Veritas or Lollar pickups. For a little under $1000 this guitar is going to be killer. I cannot say enough about the build quality on the guitar. Again this is a “budget” guitar and won’t hold a stick to the custom made guitars that the boutique guys are making by hand but for a $500-$725 guitar it is one of the best out there. Throw $300 to $500 into it will compete with the best of them.
My big complaint with the guitar is that the wiring is terrible. After taking the pick guard off of the guitar and inspecting the pickups and wiring, the wiring is very poorly done. There is tons of extra wire length, sloppy solder joints and plugged in on stage with LED lights you can definitely tell. The guitar hisses and hums worse than a single coil tele or strat. Again though I just ordered a $95-$110 wiring kit from Emerson and I expect there will be a huge difference in not only tone but less noise as well.
Going back to the stock neck pickup being muddy. I have found that on certain Hillsong tunes like “I Surrender” where are some piercing lead lines in the upper registers of the neck, the darker neck pickup works really well. It did have a tendency of getting lost in the mix however. I think adding some Veritas Bearcats or Lollar El-Rayos will be the ticket.
Stay tuned in the coming months for our video series as we mod this bad boy. We will be doing a stock vs modded comparison for each of the mods we are doing. Again if you are looking for a great affordable guitar, backup to your custom baby, or just want a different sound in your rig this is a great guitar.
4 Comments
I look forward to hearing how you like the upgrades you plan on doing. I know for me, when I loaded in an Emerson pre-wired kit the difference was instantly noticeable. If you like the way the guitar feels, I’m confident that with some new electronics you’ll be able to get the sound you’re after!
Daniel,
That is awesome man! I can’t wait to get started too! I have all of the parts in now but I have to shoot the before video before I start upgrading. I am so excited I almost can’t control myself!
Did this ever get modded? I would love to see what you did to it? Upgraded bridge? Bigsby? I just bought one and am trying to decide.
I did actually get this modded last year. I ended up updating the bridge with a Callahan brass saddle tele bridge for Bigsby equipped guitars. I also installed a Bigsby B5 tailpiece. The goal was to swap out electronics and pickups but I never received the pickups I ordered.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfyDc0ZgLAq/
Above is a link to a picture of it just before I sold it. I still miss that guitar to this day. Great build and with new pickups and wiring I am sure it would have been even better.