Fender Squier Fat Telecaster

Squier fat telecaster, made in Indonesia,3 tone sunburst, agathis body, maple/rosewood neck, medium jumbo frets, humbucker and single coil, volume and tone and a 3 way pickup selector, standard hardware.
For features i`ll give it a 6, but i don`t need more in this guitar.

I`ve been playing guitar ( mainly bassguitar )for over 20 years now,( soul, funk, jazz, blues etc.
I owned a Am.Std. telecaster 10 years ago, and always loved the sound.
I used a gibson Les Paul for solo and dirty rhytm stuff and the tele for the clean stuff (studio sessions).
I wasn`t really looking for a new guitar, but when i saw it hanging in the local music shop i played and loved it instantly, so bought it.
It has the real vintage tele sound including the dirty Keith Richards sound which gave me a "wellcome home" kind of feeling. Great all together

The guitar was reasonably set, however some slight adjustments by me ( neck, action, intonation, pickups height )and new strings made it perfect for me. This guitar is very well made and doesn`t look cheap in any way, in contrast with the price paid. The finish is applied beautifully, the neck finish is too ( however thin applied ).

How wel a guitar will stand to gigs and so on is allways a question, but i would play it without a backup guitar, it looks trustworthy enough to go with it on the road.
The neck finish is very thin applied, so it will give in time( beautifully )playing marks, but he it`s a tele and will look better with wear.

Never needed them, so no opinion.

Like i said before, i play guitar/bass for over twenty years now and found MY guitar finally. If this guitar is stolen i would buy it again, i love the vintage sound/vibe of it.

2003, Fat Tele Squier Std, made in Indonesia, (you all know the specs) vintage blonde (I swear you can see what appears to be ash-like grain through the paint, but I am told it is solid Agathis, which is just Asian alder.) Firstly, let me say that I have been playing since 1966. My first electric was a 1968 rosewood, blonde tele that I got for $145 new back in '68. I have owned many expensive teles over the years as well as other models, but this Squier Fat Tele has the vibe of the old 60's "cheap" teles! I also now own a 1996 Fender B Bender tele....but I swear this Squier has more guts and grit to it.
I think Fender has upgraded the tele to too high a status and they got away from what a tele should be...proof of this is the 101 flavors of tele Fender offers!!! A tele should just be a freaking tele, dammit...

This Tele has bite. I played it through my computer recording rig and had to alter the sound only a tad...it has the sound of a tele even through a computer recording system. And that says a lot.
I thought I would eventually have to replace the pu's but uh-uh, don't think so.....they sound gritty and nasty and very similar to late 60's CBS Teles. And that is what I was looking for. Amp brand does not matter to me as I play through a wonderful Morley JD-10 pre amp, nuff said.

It looks and feels better than any Mexi tele that I have owned and I have had over a half dozen in the last 12 years. The workmanship is very competent. It all has to do with Computer Controlled Machines.
It really does not matter where they are made as long as they use the CNC's. And yet, the Mexican stuff is debatable. Stuff from the Orient seems more on the money. The frets are neatly done, the finish is very pro looking. The feel of the guitar is not chintzy.

Seems as duarable as anything out there...

Fender forgets ya.....don't expect much.....it is now between you and your guitar...

I have owned mostly teles over the years, even had a 1952 Esquire that I paid only $250 for back in '70, and the guy who sold it to me, told me after the sale...that he got it at a garage sale in South Carolina for $60...but I traded that off for a 1959 Les Paul Special double cut...and traded that off for...a , er...hmmmm who the hell remembers...............oh, well....
oh, the stories I could tell....
but I like this guitar.....

Standard Fat Tele made in Indonesia with chrome covered humbucker in the neck and single coil in the bridge. Standard tele 3-Way selector. Agathis body and rosewood neck (9.5? Radius (241 mm))with 22 medium jumbo frets.
Standard Die-Cast Tuners and 6-Saddle Strings-Thru-Body Bridge. Candy apple red metalic.

Giving it is a telecaster and you should know beforehand what a tele is about it gets a 9.

First thing to know is that I am a not specially skilled home player (which does not mean I cannot play!) and that my assessment is mainly intended for those kind of people looking for a good guitar to have fun with.
I play mainly blues/Stones kind of music and with this guitar I can have the tele twang I like as well as a really fat sound (but you have to tweak your amp to keep the mud out).
I use this guitar with a POD2 trough headphones or my high-end home stereo and the combination of the guitar and POD does deliver what I need to have fun and please note that a crap sound is not my definition of fun!
So again for the sound/price ratio it gets a 9

The guitar got a complete set-up when I bought it. I only raised the action afterwards, but that is a personal preference.
I really like the neck which fits better than the vintage Fender necks. When arriving home you could feel the fretwire coming over the edges of the neck, but this disappeared after some time (temperature issue I think) and it is OK now.
Inspecting the guitar I found some scratches at the back, but for the rest no complaints.

It looks and feels rock solid, but you never know.

I only visit the Fender and Squier websites. Never had to deal with the company directly.

I love this guitar. I saw it in the shop, asked to play it and bought it. Absolutely no regrets. I had a more expensive strat for 10 years before this one, but I sold it as I never played on it anymore.
I now have a great and versatile combination in my guitar and POD (which I traded for a Fender Champ 25 and some other effect boxes). The guitar deliveres me the sounds I like and the POD allows me to play without waking up the children.

Indonesian Fat Tele, 2003. Solid agathis body, maple neck, rosewood fingerboard. 22 medium jumbo frets. Standard Tele single coil bridge pup and chrome-covered humbucker. Tele 6-piece adjustable bridge. Non-branded tuners. Candy Apple Red metallic finish.

It suits my style just fine, I like folk, pre-80's rock, and some country. I just play for myself, and use a Frontman 25. The only effect I really like is reverb. The bridge pickup is a little too tinny for me. The humbucker is great!

I decided against mail-ordering this guitar. I went to the guitar shop looking for the best Tele I could find in the price range from $159 to $600. I thought I would wind up with a Mexican standard Tele. Wrong! The first standard Tele I looked at had the E string almost coming off the neck at about the 14th fret. The second one buzzed heavily on two strings. The salesman said "they all do that". I spent 3 hours selecting from among a dozen Tele's.

The neck on this one is one beautiful piece of maple. Frets were finished off very well. The paint finish (it's polyurethane)looks like a million $$$. The setup and action (pretty obvious that it was adjusted in the store) was nearly flawless. The joinery between the rosewood and maple is outstanding. The knob on the PUP selector was broken off (probably by a customer) but I put it back on with epoxy. The PUP selector seems cheap, and I don't trust the input jack, but both are easily replaced, by me, for minimal $$. I didn't want a guitar that neededed neck work right off the bat. If you spend 3-4 hours looking, you can find one, too!

For live playing, I would think you would want more substantial strap buttons...the included ones are hollow. I think you could bend the PUP selector fairly easily. I'm very careful with my stuff, so it's not a problem for me.

No idea, but I would not count on much help unless something split in half.

I've been playing off and on for 34 years. I also own one acoustic guitar. If it were lost, I'd get another one like it. What I love about it is the fact that I feel I got the best Tele in the shop for $259. Despite the draw of the American-made stuff, I think this is the best value for the money. Oh, and electric guitars, like many other things, have gotten much better in the last 20 years due to technology.

this is yet another update of my other review (the one two below, with my other update above it). I have now giged with this guitar numerous times, with two different pickups in it. One was a Seymour duncan hot rails, and now its got an STL-2 seymour duncan hot single coil. I now have a fender prosonic head (similar to a dual rectifier in tone, no im not kidding, check them out i love mine) going into a mesa 2x12 vertical rectifier cabinet. with this new setup i play my squier tele almost exclusively, and no one belives the crushing tone i get. I'm way into NoFx, so i decided to get a single coil and replace the hot rails so i could get their extremely overdriven vintage amp sound (they used marshall 1987's, a soldano 50, and a top hat head on their last album, even though they use high gain amps live). I wasnt sure what i would get, because the stock pickup in my tele was feeding back uncontrolably. But when i got my new hot single coil i found that it feeds back LESS than my hot rails did. do yourself a favor and replace the pickup, because now i love playing my squier, and i can blow away all those guys who spent $1500 on a gibson any day of the week. My amp stack cost me (used, of course) under $900 total, and thats a tube amp into a mesa cab. Why should i pay twice that for one guitar when i can play squiers and cheap fenders for so much less?
Although i have done many mods to this guitar i have yet to replace any of the hardware. the bridge and tuners work wonderfully, and i play scream-punk, so you know i bash it hard.
What i have replaced is all of the electronics. i have to have 500K pots, 250's are to weak for my tastes, and i dont want the treble bleed to ground that 250K's have. By the way, if you want to have a true fender sound your gonna need to add a treble bleed curcuit on the volume pot (look around online schematics and diagrams are easy to find), fenders have them but squiers dont. i personally dont want a treble bleed, so i like it this way. Buy this guitar! show all those les paul-weilding snot nosed daddy-buy-me-a-gibson bitches whos boss.

2001 model in metallic green finish, made in Indonesia. Same specs as listed in reviews below.

For the price I paid (about $70 below retail), I don't have any real complaints. The hardware is not top-notch but it is at least functional so it feels and plays like a real guitar (which it is). I wish they made these with maple fretboards though.

Out of the box it sounded pretty good, but I ended up swapping the bridge pickup with a Bill Lawrence BL-290TLE. There wasn't anything really wrong with the stock bridge pup (it had that characteristic Tele sound) but it did have a good deal of noise when recording in front of a monitor, as expected. The BL cut most (but not all) of the hum out and I think it is well worth the ~$50 extra investment. The Tele bridge is very bright sounding and sounds great in my recordings without much EQ'ing.

I'm not too crazy about the neck humbucker, it is too muddy for my taste. I usually play in the bridge only position and haven't considered swapping out the neck bucker (yet). It does have a good warm sound for clean fingerpicking (like Jeff Buckley's cover of Hallelujah). The neck bucker seems to have a much higher output than the bridge and dominates in the middle pup selector position.

Overall I give the stock pups an 8 for the price. They could be much worse (like some cheap Strats I've heard).

The action was set very low from the factory. Changing the strings to 10's fixed some of the buzzing. Other than that the build of the guitar seems very solid. There is a knot in the wood on the side of the neck (which I got a generous discount for) but other than that it looks great cosmetically. This is a pretty heavy guitar though so it feels *slightly* unbalanced while playing.

The hardware (tuners, probably pots) will need replacing in a few years but the rest of it seems solid.

Never dealt with them

For the price I paid I think this is a great deal. I record with it using a Johnson J-Station and it is the only electric guitar I now own.

2002 Squier Standard Fat Telecaster (by Fender)
Made in Indonesia
Solid Top
volume, tone, and 3 way switching controls
chrome plated humbucker in the neck position, and classic tele single coil bridge pickup
solid body - rosewood fretboard
Glitter Metallic Green

This is my first guitar, but not to say that I haven't played more expensive (and well known) models of guitars, say for instance (because I'm a tex-mex bluesey kind of guy) I have played the Stevie Ray Vaughn Fender Strat, and that goes for about $950.00 as compared to the $382.00 of the fat tele. I have to say, that I am very impressed with the sound that this guitar offers, the SRV strat dosent have the deepness or twang that this guitar has, that may be because of the neck humbucker, which offers great sound compared to any single coil pickup, especially on any strat. peoeple say that telecasters are old, and out of music, they say that les paul's own the music industry, thats soo incorrect, the telecaster may be a classic, but that dosen'e mean that its' not a contender, and just because it's a squier, dosent mean that it cant rock, because with this guitar, it does, I've taken it to 5 gigs now, and know what it's capeable of, it defenitaly beats out our rhythm guitarists gibson les paul studio, which is one of the most expensive electrics you can buy, this guitar just simply has better tone and sound than what you would expect from a fender.

This guitar was built quite sturdily, I have no intentions of modifying it, or adding more pickups, the only thing I might have fixed (and I think this may only be a flaw on my guitar, NOT ALL MODELS) is my tone knob is a little loose, in that when I turn it down all the way (and its off) the switch can still move down, not a major flaw, and nothing to worry about. Very good action, and craftsmanship.

as I said before, I have taken this guitar to 5 gigs, and have had NO onstage problems. and like any other telecaster (made directly by fender, or squier by fender) it is still the most durable model guitar made to this date. I do use it at gigs (as I have allready mentioned) and suprisingly enough, my backup is the Stevie Ray Vaughn strat that I mentioned before (my neighbors axe, very nice to let me use it) and I've never had to go to it. VERY RELIABLE

I have never dealt with the squier/fender companies before when it comes to support. it is under warrenty (hence the fender warrenty form given with the guitar)

very toneful, and good guitar for the money, like I said before way more quality than youd expect from squier/fender

this is a quick update of my review below. upon further investigation it turns out that the neck is really nothing like my tom delonge strat, its a lot thinner, which i like so no biggie. i also forgot to mention some minimal double fretting higher on the fretboard, which might also be a symtom of the low action of my setup. its not a problem , just throws me off when finger tapping. (and who finger taps a telecaster, any way.)

just picked this up at my local shop, and no one is more surprised than me that i got it. the sales guy came over and looked at me, as i mumbled "i cant buy a squier, I cant buy a squier." I mean, i was going to get a gibson, so why did i buy a squier? oh well, on with the review. youve heard all of the features, and mine is no different. i am planning on doing some major mods to this thing, so im going to do two reviews, this one being on the untouched stock tele. Mine is metalic black, which just looks very cool if you ask me. rosewood fingerboard, with a neck that feels to me very similar to my tom delonge strat (also ready to be modded itself), which might be why i liked it so much. actually, i love fender switches. compared to gibson style three ways these are indestructable, and every punk knows that on gibsons (especially LP's) the switch is the first thing to be destroyed mid-jump hitting an open E chord. its a tele, so for a tele its got many features (although ive already disconnected the humbucker so i can use the switch as a kill like my other guitars). so ill give it, oh i guess a seven on features, why not right?

remember, this is on the unmodified guitar. tell the truth, i first didnt like the guitars tone, as this is my first ever foray into single coils, a strange new land of treble ;) but as i tweaked my Marshall AVT150 half stack (one of these nights a fairy will come in and change it out with a JCM 800, i just know it) i got some cool new sounds. as i strummed i got, well, just a different feel. however, when i tried to play leads, i remembered why all my guitars are humbucker equiped. it sounded thin and tinny, of course, but even more than i expected a tele to sound.

it is noisy, as it is a single coil p/u, which is something that kind of comes with the territory, but there was another even more important problem. FEEDBACK, and im talking the uncontrollable ear splitting bleeding-from-every-orface type. rolling back on the treble and prescence controls helped, but took away the attack of the pick up which is the reason that i wanted a tele at all. i cant wait to practice with the band tomorow, so i can hear how it sounds with another guitar going, but ill probably just be overpowered by the other guitar.

oh by the way i play a combination of ska, rock, punk, and hardcore.

i cant wait to mod this thing like crazy. im taking the pick guard off, getting a gold bridge, gold control plate, and gold metal p/u ring, along with a seymore hot tele stack bridge pick up from warmoth (check out warmoth.com, they have every SD pickup out right now), so it'll be all gold on black, like my personal black beuty telecaster. like i said before i didnt want a squier, actually i was looking at a gibson sg fade, or an esp viper 301, so tell me, how did i end up with a squier telecaster?

truth is, even though im only 19 i do home recording and am over the whole punk rock sound, so i figure what better guitar to get to make the departure, right? now all i have to do is get my SD custom soap bar P-90 for my strat, and ill have an arsenal to pick from.

stock, this guitar stings, and OH, HOLD ON, WAIT A MINUTE- i forgot the clean. I LOVE THE CLEAN (preach it brotha, say it again!) I LOVE THE CLEAN. mine eyes hath been opened to the beuty of single coil clean sounds, thank you very much. The punk side of my playing has little experiance with clean sounds, however the ska side of me is a clean guitar lover, and i want more.

ok to sum up, the dirty with the stock set up gets a 5 from me, but the clean gets a 7 or 8, its so sweet and, like clear and warm- very nice.

heres where my guitar shines. i have played (insert obligatory list of manufacturers here). lets just say im not a begginer (the local sales people ask me about the gear they sell). and i like the action, thats all there is to say. its low, lower than my other guitars, but the only buzzing is on the e and a strings, and its the kind of buzz that is consistent all along the neck, which shows that there are no exeptionally high frets, just low action. its not noticable when playing. the intonation is slightly off, but thats expected, and will be remedied when i put on the new hardware, so no need to intonate this setup. the pick up poles are aligned very nicely, and response among the different strings is very balanced. the finish is great, no flaws that i can detect. One difference in the production of this guitar is that the routing was done after the finish was applied. I was surprised to see wood inside the routes when i took off the pic guard. this was kind of annoying, as its my trademark to have an open cavity in the neck position, but i coudnt do that because there was no black paint in the hole (im the only one who would complain, i know. i give the fit and finish a 9, with respect to other guitar in or near this price range.

i cant wait to play this live. unfortunatly im between gigging bands right now, but maybe tahts good because i would have probably just stepped out on stage with it, just because i like the playability. its a fender. it weighs like seven pounds. its got a maple neck. how can i avoid the cliche's? oh, i can go with the old favorite-if there was a nuclear holocaust only roaches and this guitar would be left. i always loved that one.

by the way, is any one else tired of people filling out these reviews like questionaires? boy that gets my gut :(

does any one use strap buttons any more? get locks or do what i do, just screw the strap directly to the guitar (punk rock, baby!).

when i start gigging again i am going to switch guitars for different songs, so a back up is not a problem. isnt it messed up that the people who break strings the most cant afford a good back up? "punk rock, a lesson in irony," an essay by me. this guitar gets a 9 for dependability.

Fender? whatever :(

play one of these before you get it, thats all i can say. these lower grade guitars very so much. what am i saying, all guitars very so much. i love how resonant it is, which probably comes from its weight, so if the one you try is lighter, it might not be as resonant. there are hundreds of things like that, so play it! i also have a deam standard ML with a duncan distortion, and a tom delonge strat, that will soon have a custom P-90 (i love P-90s), all my babies go straight into my marshall stack, and they all have a different sound, which is what i wanted to begin with. i'll give this guitar, based on its stock status, a 7. thanx for reading, and stay positive guys, were all here to help each other remember, so lets all get along. ;) feel free to cantact me with any questions or comments, i welcome gearhead conversation.

This guitar was made in Indonesia. It has a humbucker in the neck position and a traditional Telecaster pickup in the bridge position. There are a volume and tone controls and a 3-position selector with passive electronics. It is red sparkle finish on the body and head with a maple neck.

I LOVE THIS GUITAR! It has a greater variety of sounds than any single guitar I have ever played. The front, both and back pickups are like 3 different guitars. It plays well as clean, jazz, distorted, raunched out, and just about everything in between. Since I bought it, it has become my new favorite over other much more expensive guitars.

I still cannot believe how great this guitar plays as set-up by the factory. I have changed nothing on it. It's only flaw is that the bridge pick-up is mounted quite high (which sounds great). However I often rest my palm for muting in that area and sometimes I will inadvertently push the low E-string against the pick-up pole (which makes an anoying sound). I had this happen several times at a recent recording session. However, I have not adjusted it because I love the way it sounds as is.

I have only had this guitar for less than 6 months and have not used it for any live performance. So far so good and I have changed nothing. However, when I play live next I will plan to only take this guitar.

I have had no need for customer support so far.

I have not stopped raving about this guitar since I bought it. I was not even planning to buy a guitar but was only checking out what was new when I saw this beautiful instrument. It is unusual as a red Tele with a maple neck but red head. I thought it was a nice looking instrument so I tried it out. It played great. Surely it must be $1500-$2000 Canadian (approx. $1000-$1500 U.S.) but it was only $279 Canadian (about $170 U.S.) I couldn't believe it! I thought: "Plays great but probably sounds lousy" so I tried it through a couple of amps. Wow! It sounded great! Surely it must be mismarked so I checked: $279!!! Long & McQuade is the largest music store in Western Canada so I tried every other Tele. None of them played as nice. I then went to Long & McQuade's primary competitor, Tom Lee Music and tried all their Teles. None still compared. I really couldn't afford it but I couldn't afford not to pick this up. I have collected guitars for over 30 years and this guitar is the best deal, most outstanding find I have come across. Many of the Squire guitars I have tried to not play well although they are well very well priced. Even this same model at other Long & McQuade stores is $100 more. But it plays great, sounds great, looks great -- it is classic!

I have owned many guitars in my time and I have never raved about a guitar like this. 6 months later I am still blown away. My theory is that for whatever the reason the Indonesian guitar techs just happen to take special care with this guitar as it is one of the best playing guitars I have ever played. I have compared it to at least 25 other Indonesian-made Teles and it is by far the best. My Schecter Strat and Gibson Les Paul are lonely now since the Tele is getting all the attention.