Chapin Guitars T-Bird

2003 Chapin T-Bird, 22 frets, solid, *single-piece* alder body, maple neck, rosewood neck, 25.4" scale, natural finish. exceptional wood selection. Tele-style body w/vintage style bridge & bridge plate, Duncan Vintage Tele hum-cancelling bridge pickup, DiMarzio humbucker in neck position. standard tele-style pickup selector switch and tone/volume controls. Earvana Compensating Nut, vintage-style six-on-a-side locking tuners. a "9" because it doesn't have "tons of features" - note: this is a custom-built guitar to my specs and tons of features were not called for.

elsewhere around here another happy Chapin owner commented on how huge his guitar sounds. he later commented my Chapin Strata-Houla sounded bigger. we all agree this guitar, the T-Bird, sounds even bigger. the balance among the strings (i use Pyramid 11s), separation and ring of the acoustic sound is astonishing. pickups were chosen for quietness and range of sounds, combined with wood selection. this is an extremely versatile guitar. the humbucker neck pickup is warm and punchy, no flubs. the bridge gets the twang and singing sound of a variety of vintage tele sounds, including Yardbirds-era Beck and 50's country & rock & jazz players. the middle position actually gets a very strat-like sound and i've been using that more than i anticipated. the neck pickup rolled off in tone actually gets a very archtop-y sound. neck and body woods are painstakingly tap-selected to match. shockingly good sounds and feel.

setup is to my taste and perfectly there. fit and finish nonpareil, flawless. fret shaping, action, neck work exceptional. Bill Chapin has taken one of the most tried and true models of electric guitar and elevated it to its highest potential. i'm surprised more customers haven't posted here. there are quite a few Chapins out there and over the past two years+ i've sampled many of them. maybe they're too busy playing. myself i've balked at posting here, preferring to play rather than write. anwyay, i have also tried maybe a couple dozen finished necks. Chapin owners will tell you that no one crafts a neck like Chapin. truly a master. the neck and body are finished to an unusual degree of smoothness. 2000# sanding with multiple custom rubs to a feel Chapin owners refer to as "zero-drag" or "negative-coefficient-of-drag" feel. wow!

since receiving it a couple months ago, it has become my main guitar. everything has been completely dependable. rock solid.

i've dealt with a number of high-quality guitar and amp manufacturers and technicians and Bill Chapin is the best. this is my third Chapin guitar. when i've needed mods or adjustments he's done them on the spot and perfectly at no charge. of course, if i break it (not likely, given the construction), that's on me. his "limited lifetime warranty" to me has meant his lifetime is limited, not the guitar's! he freely shares extensive and intensive knowledge of luthiery and tonequestery and is also a high-quality boutique amp dealer (Komet and Dr. Z).

i've been playing 35+ years and have owned several Les Pauls, a strat, a tele, some Heritage guitars, a Turner Model 1, some others. this is my favorite guitar. the challenge: another guitar is in the works - how's he gonna beat that? the Strata-Houla became my favorite almost a year ago, then another Strata-Houla, now the T-Bird. the next one, a Chapin Hawk will be a P-90-based, mahogany body and black limba (korina) neck. no big-time manufacturer's custom shop could touch this level of materials & work for less than twice the cost (including after discount), so there's the value. ultimately, i'm not ordinarily given to use of exclamation points, but "nothing feels like a Chapin!"

This is a 2002 Chapin TBird tele-style guitar, built by hand here in San Jose. 21 frets, alder body, maple neck/fingerboard, slightly softer body radius in back. Seymour Duncan Nashville Studio bridge p/u, Velvet Hammer S1 strat p/u in the neck with a hidden dummy coil to make it hum-cancelling and to give it a slightly meatier sound. Standard tele 3-way switch plus a mini-toggle for the dummy coil. Kluson locking tuners, stainless steel tele bridge, small frets (don't know the exact size). Bill Chapin makes custom guitars so you can specify a tremendous amount on them, but this is one he made on spec that I fell in love with.

The Duncan bridge p/u is warmer than many tele bridge p/u's, the VH S1 pickup gives the guitar a more useable neck position than a stock tele neck, and the middle position is extremely productive because the pickups are balanced tone- and volume-wise better than a stock tele. The dummy coil gives the neck and middle positions extra tonal choices - darkens them up a bit - so you really have 5 switchable tones with this guitar, plus what the tone knob will do for you.

So compared to a standard tele, I'm giving it high marks for features. I suppose with a Fishman Bridge, a middle pickup and a whammy bar it would earn a 10, but it wouldn't be a tele then, would it?

Sound is killer! No ice-pick to be found - very warm sounding, but no missing the fact that it's a tele thru and thru. The strat neck p/u is much ballsier and brighter than a standard tele neck, so it can give you something in the same tonal neighborhood as a strat in the neck position, but with the maple fingerboard and tele bridge hardware, it is not at all a strat clone.

I'm using it for rock and blues with (primarily) a Jim Kelley 30/60 Reverb head into a pair of Celestion Greenbacks, and it is sweeeeet! Bunch of Menatone o/d pedals in front. I have no doubt a country picker with a Deluxe or a Twin would be loving life with it, too. Teles can do jazz if you roll off the tone a bit and use the neck, and this one is no exception. Haven't had a chance to plug it into harder/higher gain amps at volume (yet), but I think the warmth of the guitar would keep it from killing people and shattering windows the way some teles can at high volumes.

Some noise, given that it has single coil pickups, but not horrible. And the dummy coil helps control that. Sounds exactly the way I think a tele should.

Hand set up to my prejudices by the maker - of course the action's perfect! Otherwise, just a beautiful guitar. The Candy Apple Red color is slightly deeper/more crimson than a standard CAR, the maple neck and fingerboard are tinted just the right amount so they don't look raw but work with the white pickguard, the neck has as smooth a satin finish I've ever played, nicely rolled frets. Just perfect.

It's a tele, for crying out loud - you can't hurt them! Very solidly made, I'd say completely dependable barring nuclear strikes. I have no doubt that being played out, there will be occasional dings, but that's just the nature of taking guitars out of the house. The guitar itself should last forever.

This is my second Chapin guitar with a third on the way - I've dealt with the company (which is to say, Bill and his dog Riley) for going on 4 years. I've bought a lot of amps and pedals from him, too. He won't let you go until you understand exactly what you are playing/seeing/hearing/whatever. He has talked me out of gear that wouldn't work for me, and (unfortunately) has talked me into lots more that does work for me. Bill's the guy, and incidentally, he's a hell of a blues and rock player, too!

Do you like Teles? If so, this is as good as they get - what they are all meant to be (IMHO). So if I give it a 10, that's because for what it is, it's perfect. Bill Chapin knows every piece of tone wood in his shop, and a neck doesn't go on a body if they won't work and play well together. If you want a shred-meister whammy bar hum-sing-hum special, you'd hate this. I don't, so I love it.

I've been playing off and on since um, 1968 or so, I've owned 2 other teles, currently own a Chapin Fatline (see review), have another Fatline on the way (insanely flamed redwood top/maple back, otherwise it'll be a Gretsch in disguise), Dr. Z amps, Menatone pedals, lots of great stuff (you can buy tone, if not talent!) I never intended to buy this guitar, but I saw it, started discussing pickup options, and somehow ended up taking it home. My Fatline is a truly amazing instrument - not like any other guitar in the world as far as I can see. I think it will always be my #1. But everyone should have a tele - it's a workhorse you can take anywhere. This is the one I'll be taking to jams, noodling with, and using when I need that vibe that only teles have. If it were stolen, I'd most likely get another one (but maybe it'd be one of Bill's Stratahoulas with the Skyway bridge...). But I'd be massively pi$$ed either way!

Okay, folks: you ask that I be objective about something I'm totally sold on - but here goes. I have owned this guitar since July of this year; it is a 1998 model. 21 frets, solid swamp ash body with a very nice see through bone finish. It comes with the usual tele 3 position selector, one volume control, one tone control, and a mix knob (more about that later). The neck pickup is a Velvet Hammer (made by Rusty Rhodes sp?; I'm told some of you folks in the L.A. area will recognize that name)it's a very sweet, full and quiet single coil. The bridge is a Seymour Duncan tele single type; also very nice. In addition it comes with a Fishman Power Bridge; the mix know controls the preference for it's acoustic flavor and the electric side, and there's an out box that you plug the guitar into and it splits acoustic to one amp, electric to the other for stereo that I find extremely pleasing. I run the electric into a Dr.Z Maz 38, and the acoustic into an old Lab Series 4x10 with very pleasing results. The electronics are all passive, which I like (no batteries, among other things). This is a Tele style guitar with some refinements; the inset neck is joined to the body with a completely rounded non-angular joint that ends up being this very smooth round neck pocket - very comfortable and accessible. The tuners are a self-locking Kluson look - I'm actually not sure who manufactures them; they're nice, what can I say, the guitar tunes easy and stays in tune. The neck on mine is 21 frets, shaped like the fat old Teles; it's also beautiful to look at. The wood is tiger striped maple from tip to toe - one piece, no cap. The guitar came with a decent grade tweed covered vintage style hardcase.

I'm primarily interested in the blues, R&B and country. It has made me happy in all respects. It's articulate in rhythm playing and very natural and open sounding for solos. As I stated above I use it mostly through a Dr. Z and a Lab Series 4x10 L7 for stereo. But I've played it through my old Kustom 2x15, 2x10, and 4x10 amps with great results and also with my Fender Hot Rod DeVille 4x10 - same story. This will sound a little wacky perhaps, but the tone character on this guitar is very hard for me to peg. The neck position is the richest sounding for me and it gives a nice dark blues moan, but at the same time there is an open string clarity about this thing that reminds me of guitars that I would call "bright" in their character. Clarity is what strikes me most about the sound profile of this guitar, but I want to be clear myself, it is not a thin sounding guitar, you can just hear everything that's going on. Enough on that.

I can't place too much comparative weight on this aspect. I bought the guitar from Bill Chapin at a Luthier's convention in Tacoma, Wa. and it was the axe that he was using to perform with there in the evenings. It was set up very nicely and everything was great; I simply put a set of Everly 10's on it (my favorites) and was ready to go. There was one of the intonation screws in the power bridge that was frozen, but it's a double locking saddle system so the "sliding saddle" screw lock (a redudant system, really) did the same job, so no problem. There were a couple of tiny dings in the body, but Bill gave me a break on the price that reflected those minor flaws. He's a reasonable guy to deal with and was very clear that this was not a purely new guitar - no jive involved.

I only play out occasionally, but comparing this guitar to the others I have used and own presently, I'd be happy and confident with this axe on any stage.

No problems so far. I purchased a second guitar shortly after this one; a Strat type. I knew better, I'm not a Strat guy - but what the hell I tried it yet again. I wasn't playing it at all, so I called Bill and he's selling it for me at this time.

I've been a musician for 35 years. I spent most of that time fronting R&B bands. I started playing guitar about 5 years ago, and it has consumed my musical soul ever since. I own a total of 25 guitars and this one is the one I use daily. If it were stolen, I pity the fool; if it were lost, I'd grieve my stupidity - but I'd sure as hell lean on Bill to get as close a repro as humanly possible to this puppy. I will close this section by saying that what I love about this guitar is that it makes it ever clearer to me that a great guitar won't make you a great player, it just won't get in the way of you're being one - I also hate that about it!