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Topic: Guitar Gear Reviews
I swung by Firehouse Guitars and noticed they had just gotten in a Highway One Telecaster, one of the upgraded models, so I had to give it a try.
This particular guitar had a 3-Color Sunburst satin nitrocellulose finish on an alder body and a maple neck. All of the Highway One series Fenders have this finish. It looked good on this guitar, if a bit hazy. However, I wasn't impressed by the look of a nearby red Strat with the same finish. The thin finish is certainly a change of pace from the thick poly you'll find on a less expensive guitar. It will probably wear (aka relic) nicely as you play it and develop a personalized look quickly. If you're the type who worries about scratches on your guitar then this isn't the guitar for you. But if you want a guitar that will relic as you play it (as opposed to taking a belt sander to it), then this one would be a good choice.
The 9.5" radius maple neck, which is a 'C' shape, also has the nitro finish. It feels a little slick in the new guitar but it should wear down rather quickly. One of the main upgrades Fender gave this guitar was switching from vintage style frets to jumbo frets. They're about the same size as the ones on my SX Tele copy so I felt right at home with them. Bending, including double stop and pedal steel bends, is a breeze with these frets. Fans of vintage frets or even medium-jumbos may not particularly like them though.
The bridge is the vintage style 3-saddle, string through body, style. The saddles are steel, not brass, but that would be an easy swap if you were so inclined. The tuners are the standard Fender/Ping tuners and they did quite well holding tune while I played, including several pedal steel-ish bends. It comes with 9's which actually didn't sound or feel too bad considering I usually use 10's or 11's. I think this says a lot about the tonal quality of this guitar. The nut seemed to be cut just right although heavier strings would probably require adjustment. A rough check of the intonation passed muster as well.
To try it out, I plugged it into a Line 6 Spider III amp. This is Firehouse's preferred demo amp and is right next to their 'No Stairway or Enter Sandman' sign. I mainly used the 'Twangy' patch which has a Fender-ish tone but I did try a few other settings as well. This guitar played great and sounded great. The pickups are Fender's Hot Tele single coils that have Alnico 3 magnets. The tone is very much on the modern side and not the vintage side. While I prefer the vintage tone I thought that these pickups didn't go too modern, ie sterile. They still had a lot of Tele twang and snap in them. When I switched briefly to a higher gain patch there wasn't a lot of noise, no stuck pig squeals, although the Tele 'Truth Detector' was in full swing.
A sticker on the parchment pickguard advertised that it had a 'Greasebucket' tone circuit. This circuit replaces the standard Tele wiring with a single poly cap with two caps, a .100uf and .02uf, along with a 1/4-watt metal film resistor. In theory, this causes the high frequencies to be bled off without causing the bass to become overwhelming. I gave this new wiring system a workout with some Roy Buchanan-ish volume and tone swells. It really worked well with the volume and tone reacting well throughout the swell and the tone remained great as well. The knobs turned smoothly and were easy to grip. If you like to work your volume and tone, this guitar won't have a problem with that.
The price tag was $699, pretty good for a local store since you'll see the same guitar selling online for more (Hint: SameDayMusic, one of my sponsors, has a price match policy).
Trying this Tele out did give me a huge case of Tele GAS. If you want to avoid the same predicament, I'd suggest avoiding this guitar. But if you want a great US made Tele at a great price, take the time to check one out.
