G&L ASAT Classic

USA made Tele-style 1996, bought used, (with only a few hours of use on it, still had the adhesive pickguard cover on), in Nov. '97. Swamp Ash body, maple neck and fingerboard. Clear finish on body, satin finish on neck. Came with all G&L hardware, including pickups. This is the G&L model that looks and sounds like the classic Fender Tele. I have replaced the stock white pickguard with a tortise shell one, and also replaced the pickups with Joe Barden Tele model pickups. Everything about this guitar is classic Tele: slim neck with little radius (I believe it's a 7"), medium frets, chromed Tele six barrel-type saddles bridge. Came with molded case. Not a guitar with tons of gizmos and gadgets, but that's not what Telecasters are about. It has what it needs to aspire to Twangdom, so I give it a 10.

I play my ASAT through a Fender Hot Rod Deville 4x10, with various pedals, or sometimes straight through the amp. I play a little bit of everything stylistically: Rock, Country, Jazz, and heavy on the Blues if you please. Stock, this baby was pure Tele; bright, twangy and noisy. With the Barden pickups, the complection of the instrument changed dramatically. Now it is dead quiet, and extremely versatile tonally. I can get Barney Kessel jazzy, Roy Buchanan gritty, Albert Lee twangy, and even a passable Angus Young ballsy. It all depends on the tone settings of the amp, and manipulation of the onboard tone control, along with my own touch. It's very sensitive to changes in attack, and the height settings of the pickups.

True to G&L form, the clear finish is flawless, revealing the beautiful ash grain of the body. Factory setup was very good, but I had it setup when I purchased it to accomodate my string gauges; 10-52. All hardware is excellent quality, and I've had no problems with any of it, nor have I witnessed any degradation. I don't know the electronic values of the tone control capacitor, but is a very even roll-on, yet is capable of a slight "wah" effect, when rolled on in conjunction with striking a note.

This guitar will probably be inherited by grandchildren! I've gigged often with this instrument, and it is totally, absolutely bombproof!

Have not had any warranty issues with this guitar, but I own other G&L's, and the factory is very, very supportive. All G&L's come with a ten year warranty for the original purchaser, but it is not transferable to subsequent owners.

I've been playing 22 years, 21 1/2 as a semi-professional, and this guitar is probably my favorite I've ever owned. At the very least, it's in the top 3! Through buying it, bringing it home, and then rehearsing and gigging with it, it took the ASAT about a month to become my main guitar. My arsenal of guitars is currently around 7 or 8 (who's counting?), but, if I could only have one, this would be it, without a doubt. I've thought about adding a middle position strat pickup, but won't , because I'm afraid I might spoil a good thing, and I love this guitar too much to risk that. I have a beater Tele-style, and will modify it instead; if I like the result, I'll buy another ASAT. With the addition of the Bardens, which are FANTASTIC, this guitar is absolutely incredible. Yes, I like it! I love the look, feel, and sound of Teles. If you're in that club too, I could not recommend the ASAT Classic enough!

Made in '97 I think, bought in '98; Swamp ash body with Premium Clear ORange finish with white pearloid pickguard; 2 G&L MFD pickups; maple neck w/ rosewood fingerboard. Satin finish on neck. Tele style body; G&L patented bridge, Gotoh tuners. 25 1/2" scale. Hard case (SKB) included. Tone & volume controls, both very smooth and sensitive for flexible tones.

Great guitar for blues and r&B; I use it with a Fender Blues Jr., and Custom Vibrolux Reverb. Not particularly noisy, gives very clean Tele type spank on the bridge pickup, great rich & warm tones on the neck pickup (use that & turn down the tone pot and you can play warm jazz), and a nice combination in the middle pickup selection. Sounds like a Tele but with higher output, a warmer, fuller sound. Not a Tele clone (see the ASAT Classic for a more purely Tele like sound).
Excellent variety of sounds. I use either the bridge or neck pickup alone so far, I haven't found a lot of good uses for the middle setting (both pickups combined).

Superb build quality, as good or better than my Fender Custom Shop Tele. Action excellent (moderate-low), pickups well adjusted. The top is 3 piece and joints are flawless. Everything aligned right. A bad input jack caused some buzzing and was replaced right away under warranty (G&L has a 10 year warranty).
This is an impressively made guitar, and especially considering its price

Still relatively new, but seems as sturdy as every Tele I've ever seen; and since this is Leo Fender's successor design to the original Tele I have no reason to doubt it. Hardware looks good, it is a solid instrument and I'd gig without a backup. Have to see how the finish holds up but I think it looks pretty durable.

Had a warranty repair done immediately after purchase (Buzzing input jack). Done in 2 days, no problem. 10 year warranty and G&L has a reputation for high quality and good customer support.

I love this guitar! I have others that are more "valuable" but my G&L ASAT Special is a real 'player.' It and my Heritage 535 are the guitars I take with me to play out. If you want a clone of the classic Tele sound, then the ASAT Classic is the one; otherwise the ASAT Special (I think now just called the ASAT) is a great Tele-like guitar that also covers some warmer, fuller territory. I'd buy another in a second.
I don't hate anything about it. I'm still bonding with the MFD pickups, but so far I really like them. For the price, the ASAT is about the best guitar (Tele style) for the dollar that I've seen, perhaps in any style.

1995 purchased as new in 1998. Solid ash telecaster body and rosewood fretboard. Controls are standard telecaster 3 way switch, 1 volume, 1 tone. The pickups on the classic model are conventional fender tele size and this guitar came equipped with a Seymour Duncan Vintage '54 bridge and an Alnico Pro II neck pickup. Transparent blue finish. Ashtray style bridge with 6 adustable saddles and strings feed through body of guitar. Tuners are slotted with vertical hole for feeding string down into it. Neck is 7.5 inch radius. Hard shell case was included. I am rating the features as 10 because being a telecaster, it has all the features you need and none that you don't need. My guitar is pretty heavy.

The tone of the instrument is fantastic for the styles I play, blues, rock and some country. The guitar has a glassy clarity that is outstanding. I use it with one of several high quality OD pedals and several high quality fender style amps. It sounds particularly fine through my Victoria Bassman 45410. The single coil pickups are not particularly noisy and the shielding is adequate. Being a guitar with a vintage telecaster style it can produce very bright tones. However the heavy weight solid ash body gives the guitar lots of low end depth. With all my amps I can get a fantastic even tone across the entire frequency range from the bottom to the sparkle. The pickups are not wound to be noise cancelling. The neck sound can cover jazz to warm texas strat SRV tones. The bridge sound twangs and cuts like a tele should but is surprisingly well balanced and rich sounding. The middle position is very spanky. Overall I'd say the sound is clear, somewhat scooped in the midrange, and very rich.

The factory action had to be tweaked somewhat at one bridge saddle. I've went up to 11 guage strings and have tightened the truss rod to compensate. That rod adjusts smoothly. The relatively weak Duncan Vintage '54 pickups sounds best and balances well with the neck when set up fairly close to the strings. Tho bodywood was very wall matched and the seams are almost impossible to find. The neck was misaligned and the neck pocket of the guitar was too tight to permit correct alignment. I carefully filed the neck pocket myself to allow better alignment of the neck. Overall the guitar was very playable from the get go but I downrated this catagory to 8 because of the neck pocket.

The quality of everything on this guitar is absolutely top notch. I am amazed at the quality for this price range.

Have not dealt with them since I bought the guitar used. Very slightly used, It was owned by someone else for 2 weeks.

I have been playing for 30 years and presently own a '63 Gibson ES335 and a '97 Squier Protone Thinline Telecaster. The G&L ASAT Classic is a fantastic guitar that I would recommend to anyone.