Fender Squier Telecaster

1999 Fender Telecaster (Chinese-made). Rosewood fingerboard on a 4-bolt maple neck. glossy black finish. Classic Tele 3-bolt saddle tail-piece. Cheap Tuners, 1-piece pick guard, vintage "bar-style" pickup up front, modern pickup in the rear.

I bought this guitar to use for a couple recording projects and wanted to mimic a wet vintage sound (think cross between Stray Cats and Chuck Berry). The amp is a Crate GX-40c and was designed with recording studio work in mind. This gave a clean, full sound that was better than I expected. The guitar's potentiometers and pickups gave the guitar a range in sound from mud to flimsy, but, a little fine-tuning and I had a working range that was very pleasing. The amp did much of the rest and I added an Ibanez PT-4 (yeah, I know it was made for acoustics) to add some color. Great combination.

The guitar surprised me in how well the neck was made. The frets were dressed perfectly. The maple neck was straight as an arrow and the truss rod was adjusted perfectly, too. The only weak spot here is the cheap machines (tuners slip when you are moving them, but, oddly, they don't give a bit when bending steel licks).
The body was painted high-gloss black with a flawless precision. The one-piece pickguard was not very asthetically appealing, but, it did the job. The tail-piece was stable and the guitar holds a tune very well. I have perfect pitch and hate guitars that will not tune or stay that way.

I played this guitar hard during several lengthy recording sessions. Can't complain, here. The fit and finish is good and the guitar's neck is a four-bolt and practically plays itself. The heavy leather strap held well on the strap buttons and I felt that the guitar is actually solidly built.

I"ve never had the need to deal with customer support in 30+ years of playing guitar. I always do my own work and don't anticipate any dificulty. I will be replacing the machines and plan to install vintage pickups at a later date, but, given the fit and finish, there doesn't seem to be any need to worry about things going wrong.

I have owned and played many fine guitars and ued many amps, pedals, and other instruments for that matter. I have played a lot os live gigs, studio gigs and other various performances. I never buy a guitar without feeling the neck. This little Tele was perfect in that respect-great workmanship for such a low-priced axe. I'd like to see better machines. The pickups did give me the sound I needed, but, the potentiometers were pretty poor in range (structurally, they were not bad).
The single most important thing on any guitar is the neck. If the neck is good, the rest doesn't really matter, it can always be replaced. I plan to do just that. I will be swapping the machines and adding Tele vintage pickups to warm-up this little gem. With the neck on this guitar, it deserves a better rating, but, the machines are poor. They hold, but, they bounce around when trying to move them in tiny increments.

Japanese made tele, made about 83-84. Blonde with string through body, maple neck and ashtray bridge with 3 piece string saddles.

Mainly used at home for me to practice on, although I have used it on occassions with a band. Played some rock and some funky stuff. Played through a Peavey Classic VT and a Marshall Valve state combos. The neck pick-up gave a reasonably good facsimile of the standard tele sound but the bridge pick-up lacks depth, lots of treble but nothing else. The output is not really high enough to get the best out of the valves in the Peavey amp, but it suited the Korg AX1G effects unit down to the ground (yes I know its cheap but it doesnt do a bad job!).

The build quality when I first brought this was excellent, I was suprised they could use this quality of materials for this price guitar, looking around at present day Squiers they obviously couldnt continue doing it. This uses much better materials (especially the wood) and is much better put together than those built in the last few years. Good action from a lovely maple neck. Stays in tune well.

Well I have had it 15 years and apart from a few minor dints in the finish (and i do mean minor), it is almost like new. Whether that would have been the case if I gigged a lot with it I'm not so sure. The volume and tone pots have always felt a bit flimsy although I havent had any trouble so far. If I was to gig seriously with this guitar then the weedy bridge pickup would have to be replaced but otherwise I would be happy to rely on it.

Never had any dealings with them.

Well i have had it a long time but I have never really fallen in love with it as I have with some guitars. I think its because I am just not a Fender person, my preference is for SG's (provided they dont have a ridiculous Gibson tremelo arm fitted). For anyone who does like teles then this is an excellent cheap alternative, but do go for one of the earlier Japanese made models the new ones are cheap and nasty. If/when you can afford to change the pick-ups then you will have a very nice guitar. Would I replace it if it was stolen - prbably not but as I said I am not a great fan of Fender style guitars.

It's a Fender Squire TElecaster, made in 1997. It has 21 frets and the body is poplar, maple neck, maple fingerboard. Black finish, 1 volume, 1 tone, 3-way selector, 2 single coils, and a vintage bridge.

Well, I'm actually renting this guitar from a friend, and I play metal, but I wanted to get a sound like Tom Morello of R.A.T.M. Let me say that this particular guitar comes nowhere near that sound. I use it thru a Marshall stack and a Matchless DC-30 combo. This is my opinion, but I think the neck pickup is completely worthless. It has no dynamics at all. The treble pickup is a bit twangy, but it does not sound like an American Standard Tele. It dosen't fit metal as well as a Les Paul.

The set-up is great, but the neck is pretty chunky and won't help you for speed solos and shit like that.... The tuners are usually pretty trustworthy, which is suprising, considering that this is a Squire.

solid

I've been playing since '94, and I own a Les Paul, Marshall, Matchless, Lexicon delay, and a talk box from digitech. I prefer versatile guitars, and this one is no PRS. If you want a great Tele, buy an American Standard; I test drove one and it is superb, affordable, too. Don't buy any Squire products, because it's worth an extra 40 bucks to have tone 2x better. For a beginner's guitar, well, you'll have to test it out, but I don't even think you could tell it was a classic Tele tone if you had your eyes closed.....

Approx. 83-84 made in Japan (SQ serialnumber) 21-fret maple neck and Ash? body (2-piece) finished in see thru butterscotch creamy something. standard tele features. 1 volume 1 tone and 3-way switch. This one has the Fender ashtray bridge (fender Pat-Pend on it)with stringing thru body. Tuners are marked "Fender Japan". Pick-ups are standard chrome one at the neck en flat polepiece single-coil at the bridge.

ok, here we go.. This thing sustains like hell!! No dead spots on the fretboard and a very good Roy Buchanan meets Rory Gallagher meet The Urban Dance Squad type of sound. The amps that I use are a Marshall JCM 800 Lead combo and a Fender '75 with 15" JBL!! It's amazing at what type of sounds you have by just using the volume and tone controls on the guitar. (the amps are all the way up)From clean to vintage distortion to (almost) metal (urrrrgh) The only thing I hate is that the neck pickup squeels when I'm too close to the amps.(I will replace this one with a Seymour Duncan Antiquity)

What the previous owner did, I don't know, but it wasn't playing this one!! Absolute mint condition. No marks, scrathes or anything like that. The neck-fit is very tight with no space between neck and body. The action was a little bit too low for me, but that took me just a couple of seconds to fix it to my specs.

I don't gig. I just play and collect for fun.

HUH??

I've been playing/collecting for ten years now. I've got a '57 re-issue strat, an old Squier strat ('89 Jap.) Fernandes Goldtop (LP copy and a damn good one) plus some old junk guitars for slide. (ever heard of Custom ??)

Make in Korea. Nothing very special, standard Tele capabilities. My major feature criticism: the neck PU is not screwed on the pickguard, but in the cavity, making it VERY uneasy to adapt. PUs and electronics are of poor quality, as well as shielding. I changed those items (2 PUs and pots). The neck on the contrary is a dream to play (mapple). That' what convinced me to get it. And it is still a dream to play! It remains my gig instrument, given it's cost, I have no fear to break it.

Given the poor quality of PUs and electronic, I changed for two Muy Grande Tele PickUps. I also changed the pots for 250ohm good quality versus the 500ohm poor quality originals. My tone pot is also switch-equipped, so I now can put both PUs in serial or parallel. After those changes, my sound is just incredible. As good as any US tele, and globally for a minor price (< $150 to upgrade everything), and 1/2 hour work. so before, rating would be 3, after, I put a 9.

Actually I don't care about those, I do all my setup myself. Finish is OK, I have not found problems on mine. One comment though, magnetic insulation should be better. There is absolutely no shielding nowhere. I put some conductive paint in the cavities and metal sheets under the pickguard. I play it almost daily, am a heavy bend user, and never broke a string on it!

I changed the strap button for strap-locks, like I do on all my guitars. Beside, this one follows me everywhere and I can't complain about its solidity. Can't really comment on durability, but have it for 3 years now without any problem.

Don't know

I own 11 guitars: Fender Std Strat (US), Fender Duo Sonic (Mexico), Fender Strat XII (Japan), Gibson NighHawk (US), Epiphone SST (Korea), Terrada 6-strings (Japan), Terrada 12-strings (Japan), European's (Italy), Samick (Korea), Aria Pro TA-40 (Korea), so I have comparison items. I think it is a good little guitar for the price. MUCH better than the chinese squier's. Changing the PUs is not a costly affair and provides very ot of improvement. Good choice for gigging around with no big risk.