Fender American Standard Telecaster

Mine is a blonde 1993 with a 1994 neck (more on that later) with all the standard features. The tone control has a middle detent on it which I discovered after loosening the knob when cleaning. Very useful feature, friends' Teles don't seem to have this so not sure if it is unique. Came with Fender flight case and all the goodies. Dealer tossed in guitar strap and extra set of strings. Set up with GHS strings too.

What can I say? Its a twangy guitar! That's why I bought it. I use older tube amplifiers only. The only thing I can say bad about the tone is that the bridge pickup isn't suitable for some kinds of music hence I own a Stratocaster also. I going to install the Fender super-switch shortly which will give me 5 pickup settings (N, B, N+B, N+B in series, N+B in series out of phase). I gather this is what the Hellecasters have done to their guitars. I'll write more on that later.

Factory setup was good, but local dealer re-adjusted everything before I picked up and that was fine. The overall quality of the guitar is very good. No blemishes. The body is made from 2 pieces of wood and if the light hits it the right way you can tell. I was a little disappointed to find this out but I gather this is typical of these guitars. After about 3 months of playing the finish started coming off the fretboard - to which I was shocked. I took it back to the store and they told me to pick it up in a couple of days. They claimed that this was caused by very low temperatures during shipping. What the hell, now its got a 1994 neck. After 11 years of playing the neck looks pretty much like it did after 3 months except now there's lots of fretwear. No complaints, I play this guitar a lot. In my opinion, you don't necessarily get a higher quality instrument if you opt for the coveted Made in USA sticker. :)

This guitar has been 100% reliable. It has never failed to work and strings seem to last forever on it too. I've even played for an hour straight and it stays in tune.

When I had the neck problem it was delt with immediately under warranty. The only thing they could've done better was to give me a loaner for a couple of days as it was my only guitar at the time. If I were Joe Gigging Musician I would've needed to rent something.

If someone ripped this guitar off I would go out and buy another one.

I got a deal on this 2003 or 04 American Standard, used but mint. This one is Candy apple red, Love that color, with rosewood fret board.Every thing else has aready been said. Usual Tele features. Single tone and volume....but that's all you need. I'm only giving a 9 out of 10 because it's just not a big "features" guitar

You can make this simple ax sound like anything you want, from the twang of country to the moans of Blues. Not sure about heavy metal but I did run through a couple old Who standards and believe it would even work for Metal. The tone is the thing that blows me away. What you can do with just the tone and volume control is amazing. I?m using a couple amps, a spider 210 and a Behringer GMX212. I tried a couple other Tele?s on a Vox AC30 at a local music store just to see how it would sound on a real tube amp. I like everything about this guitar

The thing is built well and feels super, the balance is perfect, Set up from the guy I brought it from was close to right on. Not that he ever did anything with it. I had a bit of buzz on the low E that was easily adjusted.

This ax seems rock solid. I've never had trouble with any American made fender I've owned (never had trouble on the mini strat that was made in Indonesia for that matter).

Never needed them

I've been playing off and on for 30 plus. Not a professional but a decent player. This is a great guitar and if I had to do it all over again I?d buy a new one at the retail price. Should have a long time ago. If it was stolen I would hunt the piece of crap that took it down and (you don't want to know the rest). That's just the kind of guy I am.
Amen,
Reverend Colin

Made in 1998 in the USA. 21 Frets. Solid top (or at least it better be since it cost almost $700 used). Standard simple tele features, one tone and one volume control, 3 way selector switch, 2 single coil pickups, does the job. Standard Fender Tele pickups, passive electronics. Body is made of alder I suppose, maple neck, white (but more like a beige color), tele body style, tele style bridge, string through body, standard schaller type tuners, nice fast neck, medium frets, rosewood fretboard, came with a hardshell case, cord and strap. A tele isn't known for its features, it's just a chunk of wood with strings on it and some pickups.

I play lead guitar in an all Filipina woman band (I'm half Filipina)and this thing sounds awesome. Mostly what I love is alternative country music, classic rock, blues, punk and some hard rock. Our band has to play quite a bit of soft rock and jazzy numbers because that is what people here in the Philippines want to hear. This guitar does it all very well. At home, I'm running this through a VOX AD15VT Amp that I just bought a couple of months ago. Before that I was (and still do occasionally) using a Peavey Blazer 158. Here in the Philippines, the clubs we play at provide the amps, and we gig 4 times a week at 4 different clubs. One of the places has a Carlsbro GLX100, which is solid state, another place has a Fender Pro Reverb, which is all tube, another place has a VOX AC30 (WOW!!) and the other place has a Peavey Transtube Bandit. It sounds the best on the VOX AD15VT I have at home and on the Fender Pro Reverb and the VOX AC30 in the places I gig. I only use a ZOOM 707II Pedal for effects occasionally, and also use the footswitch for the amps I gig on. It isn't very noisy, just the hum that you expect from the single coils, but no noise in the middle position. Bridge pickup has that nice bright Fender twang, great for country and classic rock, think stones if you back off the tone knob a little bit, and in between the bridge and neck pickup you get that great Hendrix/Dire Straits sound, especially with some good reverb. Middle position also sounds great in the acoustic mode of the ZOOM 707II, neck pickup is great for blues and jazz. This not the most versatile guitar in the world, but it sounds awesome and of course, there is a sound you can get from a tele that you simply cannot get from any other guitar.

It was flawless when I got it and it still is. I take good care of my guitars.

I have been gigging with this guitar since 2000, so I suppose the answer to the first question is yes. It has never broken down, although several of my other Fenders and Gibsons have. Yes to all the questions. I don't gig without a backup. What if I were to break a string? This thing is built like a tank.

Never dealt with Fender.

I've been playing guitar since I was 5 years old, so that makes it 30 years, as I'm 35 now. My dad started me at it at an early age. I've also got a Fender Squier Series Standard Stratocaster (made in Japan, early 80's), a Yamaha Studio Lord Les Paul Copy as well as a Washburn KC600 and I have a Gibson Hollow Body Les Paul Copy made by a company called Rockstar. I've got an Epiphone Hummingbird and an Epiphone Chet Atkins Acoustic Electric, and several Takamine Acoustic and Acoustic Electric Guitars. I've got about 20 guitars all together, and my husband who is American and lives here has another 25, so we are one guitar family. If this were lost, I would cry. Love everything about it.

Mine was made in 1999 in USA. All the features have been covered, so I won't go through all that shit again. Mine is 3 tone sunburst, with a maple fretboard. Great guitar. I can't max it out because Telecaster's don't have a lot of features, but I think a 7 is fair. I'm not being hard on the guitar. This part is about features. Telecasters are simple guitars.......and that is where the beauty of them lies.

Well, I have a lot of guitars. I've been collecting them for 20 years now, so I have them broken down to where I use certain guitars for certain kinds of music. This is where this mother fucker shines. You can absolutely great blues and blues rock on this guitar. Great for Yardbirds, early Zeppelin, Stones and a lot of other things that just jump out of my head. This guitar does it all from country, blues, to rock. I only use Marshall Amps. I have a little MG10CD in my bedroom, I have an MG15RCD in my living room and I have an AVT 50 in my music room and that's the amp I gig with. Not much on effects, but I do use a boss distortion pedal and occasionally a ZOOM 707 effects pedal. Just a little single goil buzz, but not enough to notice. Nice bright twangy sound on the bridge pickup, mellow bluesy sound on the neck. Don't ever use the in between. As versatile as any tele can be. I can also max this out with no conscience pangs whatsofuckin ever.

FLAWLESS

Well, I play with it every Friday and Saturday night. I'm American living in the Philippines and we play at a bar......for whatever tips people give us and for free beer. Mostly I do it just for fun. We are all Americans, all of us retired military and all of us are 60's children, so our music is from that era. No pop shit, just pure no nonsense blues and rock. Everything is solid as a rock, in fact this is the only thing I can give it a 10 on. I never gig without a backup.

Never dealth with Fender. Never had one of my Fenders fuck up.

I've been playing since the late 60's. I have this Telecaster, I also have a Fender American Standard Stratocaster Stratocaster. I've got an Epiphone Les Paul Standard and I've got a Rockstar Solid Body Les Paul Copy as well as a Rockstar Semi-Hollow Body Les Paul copy, as well as a Rockstar Fat Strat Copy and Telecaster Copy which I put a humbucker off of a wrecked Gibson 335 at the neck position. I also have a Fernando Stratocaster Copy and a Fernando Copy of a Kramer 1984 Eddie Van Halen model, with a Floyd Rose, locking tuners, single humbucker and only a volume control (which is one of my favorite guitars) all of which are good guitars and I will do a review on them. I have an old Harmony Acoustic Guitar made in 1945, the year I was born which is a great guitar, as well as an Epiphone Hummingbird and an AJ18 Epiphone Acoustic Guitar. I've got a shitload of other guitars, but it would take up most of Harmony Central's space to put it all here. I plan on reviewing about 20 of my favorite guitars on here though. This is definitely one of the best guitars I own.

2005 (?) American Standard Telecsater model, made in the USA. 22 medium jumbo frets. Rosewood fingerboard, maple neck, alder body. Schaller tuners. C neck. Included case, Fender "pack of goodies" (a strap, cable, cloth, manual, etc). Poly finish: 3-Color (brownish) Sunburst.

It's a Telecaster, with all the features of a regular Telecaster. No more, no less.

I play modern and/or classic rock music.

I play this guitar through a Deluxe Reverb Reissue amp. I use these pedals with my set-up: Fulltone Full-Drive 2, Ibanez TS9, Boss SD-1, Z. Vex Fuzzfactory, Line-6 Delay Modeler.

It is about as noisy as: Single-Coils Pups -> OD boxes -> Tube Amp. Some buzz, some hiss. Single coils hum, that's natural. Over all, the noise level is just fine for recording, which I do a lot of with this set-up. By the time I approach power tube saturation levels, the S/N ratio is no real problem at all.

The sound is just about perfect stock. Being a Telecaster, it's pretty bright on the higher strings. I will be trying some different Pups in the future in oreder to counteract this. The basic sound of the Pups are great, however, other than the "bright-brightness". Nice and full, great articulation. Good output level for driving the tubes. Not crazy hot, but certainly not wimpy. Responds very well to picking dynamics. "Tone is in the Fingers" kind of thing here. Sounds nice clean or with OD: Plenty of fat, plenty of sparkle either way.

Sounds like rock'n'roll to me.

Was already set up nicely. Intonation pretty much spot on. Action a little on the higher side, but not a problem at all. Neck feels great; it's fast but still "sturdy" feeling. Fretwork looks fine. I might have the fret edges sanded down a little more in the future, but nothing major at all. No nasty burrs or anything. Hardware looks fine, tuners work just fine for now. No problems tuning with a strobe tuner. Everything is nice and tight. I love the 3-Color Sunburst finish.

A nice playing and sharp looking baisc Telecaster.

I have owned this guitar for only a short time, but have owned other similar guitars in the past (Strats, etc.). It will hold up just fine with normal care. I don't plan on abusing this guitar, so I'm sure it'll be around for quite some time...

Gigs:
I bring my Strat as a backup, if only because strings can break at any time... you know: Murphy's Law, right? No fault of the Tele at all.

I'll depend on it.

I have not dealt with Fender directly.

The shop where I bought this guitar has wonderful Customer Service and Support. Totally friendly, knowledgeable, etc. SO... this rating is for Willies American Guitars in St. Paul, MN.

I've been playing guitar for 14 years. Other gear? Martin Acoustic Guitar, Fender Bass. I also own a modest home/project studio. I wish I would have bought this guitar sooner! If it were stolen or lost, I'd get another one ASAP. This guitar suits my wants and needs. The only slight problem is the brightness inherent in my set-up, but I'll be putting in some new Pups soon. I tried several other Teles, all American made, including Ash, Deluxe, and a G+L ASAT. This one felt and sounded right. Price wasn't a major factor in my choice, but this guitar represents an amazing value to me. A fair price for a professional piece.

This is all just my humble opinion.

AS ALWAYS, LET YOUR HANDS, EARS AND EYES GUIDE YOU IN YOUR CHOICE.

well after owning several telecaster type guitars made by fender and others {I had an earlie 80's tele made by tokai} they go for big bucks today.
I thought I would give my opinion on this one in a compartive way. what I have is a 1999 matellic ocean blue/green AST w/rosewood fretbord. I went to my local shop to trade for a sunburst maple neck AST but when I got there someone else had bought that one but he had just got this one in.
This one is stock with nothing added. looks like it was played for a while and put under the bed. the neck and body was so dirty that you really could not see the real beauty of the guitar.

of all the few teles I have owned this is the most balanced in sound, I think it may have the deltatone system. no othet tele I have owned has sounded this full and rich. I love the neck pickup and the bridge. I have always been partial to the neck on a tele but this one blows me away with its bluesy sound and slightly compressed sweetness.it is the only one I will keep as I am mostly a strat player and have two fine ones. I am a hater of the American standard Strat pickups BTW. might as well throw them away if you by an AS STRAT. why couldnt fender have made the american standard strat pickups to sound as well as they did the telecasters?

this guitar is flawles in terms of work. I don't like the neck as it is small but theres nothing that I can say against it in workmanship. I just make mistakes with it that I would not make with my Strats

as good a tele that was ever made, should last with no need of a back up. most old players from the time the tele was made could not afford another guitar.just don't break strings{-; fenders are made to last.

ha.ha.ha.
I hope they have got better since the mid 90's.

been playing since 79 I don't own but four electrics now and a few acoustics, I have tried to cut down on unnessesery{cant even spell the word[-;}redundant guitars. well as far as this tele goes yes I wish it had a maple neck that plays as well as my strats but I don't hate anything. just wanted to share my thoughts on this fine guitar. I don't understand why anyone would want to change the pickups out for something else but I am sure someone has or will, people are never satified.

1992 Fender Tele, sunburst with stock pickups and maple fretboard, alder body (one piece)- everything stock- you know what it is.

THere is really very little this guitar can't do... I've played everything in the past 17 years from blues to jazz to funk to country and rock, and if you're smart about amps and settings this thing will do it all. Played through a 70's Princeton reverb, Peavey Classic 50 4x10, and '68 Silvertone (great amp for cheap). Effects include dunlop wah, danelectro daddy-o, tube screamer, fulltone choralflange (oooh), korg dynamic echo, and various goofy pedals I bust out once a year.... I actually think having a few things in the chain helps tone down the treble in the guitar a little. A little hum but that's what you get with single coils. Sounds full when I want, twangs when I want without sounding brittle like a lot of teles and strats in the bridge postition.

I do all of my own set- up, but this particular guitar plays like a million bucks... Had it a few years now and have her right where I want her. I slowly gravitate towards heavier strings for the sound and the snap... Construction is great, one of the better examples I've seen... From what I understand Mr. Suhr was still at Fender during this time, but more on that later.

Never had a problem, and I've played it hard- but I'm not into destruction either. Never play without a backup.

N/A, although I hear their customer service is suspect these days.

I looked at a LOT of teles before buying this one- it's the one that spoke to me. If I were to lose it, I would be absolutely beside myself- my wife can vouch for that. It's the guitar that is never in the case because it's always on the couch next to me. I've written so many songs with this guitar...

OK, now for the soapbox. In my opinion, the early to mid 90's were the last years that Fender made consistently good instruments (and by consistently I mean about 60- 70% of the time), and the good ones were really good. Now it seems whenever I play new Fenders in the stores, which I do a lot, the set up is bad, or the sound is subpar, or the construction is suspect. I'll find one that is built as well as mine about 10% of the time. I think maybe they focus too much on seeling those Squier Strat Packs to parents of thirteen year olds who'll let those things sit in their closets after they can't figure out a Limp Bizkit song... In addition, with the price of American FEnders going up, they are creeping into territory occupied by G&L and Suhr, who in my opinion are making the REAL Fenders these days. These two makers are simply blowing away Fender in terms of build quality and sound. And with foreign guitars getting cheaper and cheaper, Fender may be digging themselves into a hole. I guess there's always room for the mediocre.

So, I'll give my particular guitar a 9 ( nothing's perfect) but I have to give Fender a 4 for their recent efforts.

2003 american telecaster, bought at a local shop, vintage white with a maple fretboard. nothing about this guitar is particularly amazing; just a pickup selector, volume knob, and tone knob, nothing else. the only 'special' feature is the delta tone pickup system, which leaves you with completely pure tone when it's clockwise. i can't say i've ever wanted or needed more, but it's pretty plain regardless.

the appearance is kind of a drag to me; i find it awkward that the pickguard just cuts off in a flat line above the bridge, and that there's a metal plate surrounding the tone controls that just kind of looks out of place. i wish it had one of the pickguards that elegantly stretched down to the end of the body as they did in the seventies, but whatever.

this guitar can sound practically any way you want it to; i've been able to mimic every sound i've ever heard, from the beatles to pink floyd to radiohead to the pixies, ect. the pickups give you a wide enough range of sound to create any tone that you need, and all of them are beautiful. once again though, it can seem plain in some respects; it's wonderful, but not like it's the best guitar you could use for every job.

this is the reason i bought this guitar; it feels completely natural and smooth every time you play it. you can slide all the way from top to bottom in a split second without burning your hand, and everything always feels perfect. it's also the fastest guitar i've ever played.

i've only had it for a year, but it has not so much as a scratch on it. i've dropped it, knocked it over, blah blah blah, and you still can't even tell someone had ever used it before. (some of the 'new guitar smell' even remains)

fender's policy is apparently to let authorized local stores handle all repairs and whatever else, so it's impossible to rate as it varies from store to store.

i do love this guitar, and it will do whatever you want it to do, but if you're absolutely anal about the way everything you play sounds it may not be the right guitar to buy. i've found myself wishing i had picked out one of the 70's variants of the telecaster instead, which have more defined sounds and, not that it matters, body styles more to my taste (a black telecaster deluxe is freaking awesome). if it were lost, i would not buy another one. it's just that this guitar doesn't really give you anything special that makes you want to bond with it; it gets the job done, but it's a little boring. if you're into that sort of thing. huh?

Well, I stumbled across a kick-ass deal with this one. A friend of mine started getting into guitar three years ago, and he just got GEAR CRAZY. Bought this brand new Fender American Tele a few years back just so he could have the maple neck with the ebony fretboard >.< Crazy, if you ask me. Anyway, the Tele sat in the closet, with everything on it, minus the neck. Meanwhile there was also a Fender American Strat body with nothing in it, and a Fender American Telecaster with also nothing in it. In this whole deal came 12 tuners, various bridges, a set of Tele pickups, and a '97 Telecaster neck. The neck is rather worn down, but I bought a neckplate and bolts and bolted the neck to the Tele with everything on it.

Now I have a Fender :-D

As far as features go, it's a Tele. Does as designed. Electrical problem, though :-\

Sounds very bright, especially in comparison to my $110 Essex Tele. I actually like that one better ... the bridge is microphonic on my copy, but the pickups have a warmer sound, and a hotter output. I like weaker pickups, but the ones on this Fender are very weak.

I won't put it down for that, though. There is an electrical problem where the neck pickup likes to cut out ... seems to work if I tap the pickup or fool with the cable connection on the input jack ... eh, whatever.

Still sounds very bright, as most Tele's do. Check out this track I recorded with only this Tele, a Digitech Multi Effex pedal and then into the computer: www.soundclick.com/BrendanS.

Well, hard to say. The body's brand new (still has stickers and everything) but has an electrical problem ... sometimes. And the neck's from a '97, which is very beat.

I can't even rate this, it's not a brand-new Fender :-D

Aside from the electrical problem, I like it. I can make it work, so it's not a problem. Just needs a li'l fiddlin'. Seems to go away the more I play, so I guess I HAVE to play (wink). Neck isn't connected properly, though. Could by my fault, there's a little gap there, but it still works fine with 9-46's.

Emailed them about the proper neck to use, blah blah, never answered.

Playin' since May of '03, have an Essex Tele, Samick Les Paul, Samick Acoustic, this, and I'm soon to turn the Fender Stratocaster body into a hotrod with 2 p-90's as soon as my neck comes in the mail.

This is an all right guitar, they seem expensive new, though. I wouldn't pay that much when I like my copy better, but to each his own.

I've been playing a variety of guitars around the $700 price range and after much consideration the American Standard Telecaster made the final cut. Solid tuners, best version of the tele bridge, solid neck and great playing guitar. Standard 3-position switch. I pulled off the white pick guard and replaced it with a black one. It is now all black and chrome and real slick looking. At the end of the day it is a solid guitar that has a few great sounds and plays awesome.

The stock tele neck pickup works well with my taste in music.(Although, I'd like to get the same sound better shielded) The bridge pick-up is a little too brassy for me. (I pulled it out and replaced it with a Seymour Duncan "Little '59" - it now ROCKS on that selection.)

Action, Fit and Finish was solid from the factory. Did a little tweaking of the neck and intonation pulling off the bridge to install the new bridge pickup. It was what you would expect from an american made guitar. Well put together.

It came with strap-locks and a strap. Time will tell on the live playing , finish, etc. Looks solid so far.

I took my time before buying this one. I'd be pissed off if it disappeared. Plays, sounds, looks great. Keep playing.