Squier Vintage Modified Tele SH

Made in India, Mine are White (2), S/S/H pups configuration, Looks sharp, plays well.

Now for the rest of the story, I bought thew first one unplayed. It looked so good, But did it every sound bad! It sat in the corner for six months, then I put a bigsby on it, repaced the pickguard and replace the middle and neck pups, with ceramic strat pups,what a Dream machine. A year later I was a the local shop and I pick one up pluged it in and it was great so I bought it, and use it stock. I have heard this before PLAY it 1st then buy.

Fit & finish are great. Just minor tweeks,but when I put the bigsby on I found out how soft this Indian Cedar really is.

You can take this one anywhere, The hardware is about the same as a mexican Fender, pots feel good and haven't caused any problems yet.
Other than the soft wood no backup needed.

Never had a need to get service with any Fender/Squier products.

Playing 12 years, I have 2 of them, great for project guitars, by the way I have 15 guitars. Remeber you get what you pay for, Always play it first and on a CHEAP amp., it can only sound better on a good amp.

Squier Telecaster vintage modified SSH.Purchased new 2009. Essentially a black telecaster with three Duncan Designed pickups,one in the center like a strat pickup.

The body is a type of indian cedar that seems to be right for the pickups chosen to go with it.

The strings go through the body passing over some fairly wobbely saddles with grub screws that dont sit square.

All other components look good except for frets that are very rough along the edges.

There is some interesting jazz and blues sounds with some standard rock.
Thats a rich, full, bright sound with a bit of crunch that can be put in with the five way switch.
The electrical components all work fine.The bridge pickup is a little noisy used alone but not as bad as some previous straight telecaster models.
From a personal point of view I really liked the sound.I always wanted a strat with a telecaster neck but could never afford it so I like this design.

This guitar says crafted in india and comes with no setup at all.

For a guitarist who is not skilled in doing their own setups this one is a shocker. Leave well alone.

Replace the strings,adjust the truss rod (as it will probably have no tension on it at all),and set the intonation by adjusting the position of the saddles.

The action will need to be set high as there is a lot of buzz on the fret board. The string height will probably need to be adjusted regularly as the grub screws on the saddles are poorly machined, loose and out of square.

I cant see this one falling apart on a gig,but it would need checked each gig to ensure the saddles were not going lop sided.

I havnt checked any warranty yet,but this guitar could use a fret job. A lot of the other stuff I can do myself.

I have played bass most of my life with a little bit of guitar. I am now at retirement age and doing some repairs and modifications as a hobby.
When I heard the tone of this guitar I had to have it.A telecaster neck suits me best and being skilled at setting up guitars means I can overlook some of the faults this one has.

This guitar features a gloss-finished maple neck, black chrome knurble Knobs, Duncan Desingned Tele Stack and and HB-102 humbucking pickup with AlNiCo 5 magnets, a reverse control plate and a vintage six-sadle bridge. THE TUNERS ARE CRAP! You can find it in black or in metallic red. A really good looking guitar!

I play a lot of Blues, Psychedelic Rock and some Country music and this guitar just suits to them all. At the beginning I didn't knew if a Telcaster was the rigth choice to play Blues, but I'm really surprise with it's versatility. I play it trough a Line 6 Spider 30 amp (wich I recomend as well). The only bad thing I have to say is that you don't get much variety of sounds with only an single coil pickup and a humbucker if compare it to the SSH version of this guitar (even though this is not really a problem to me). I must say, this Tele has a killer sound!

You probably won't find better at this price.

This a really solid guitar, I think it will last forever. And would certainly use it on a gig without a backup!

2 Years warranty. Never had to deal with them.

This was my first electric guitar and I really recomend it. If it was stolen I would buy it again for shure. I love it because it's a Telecaster, and it gets better because it'a a VINTAGE Telecaster. The only thing I hate is the tuners.

Features: see Squier website for more details.
Made in India
Indian Cedar body - string through. Gloss black finish. Gloss finished maple neck. Duncan Designed TE-103B (single coil sized stack humbucker) in the bridge, Duncan Designed HB-102 humbucker in the neck position. 3 ply pickguard. 6 barrel type bridge. Black knurled knobs. Generic covered tuners. Control plate is installed in reverse - which is what i do to my other teles (great for volume swells).

Out of the box, the guitar sounds very warm - not what I was expecting from a telecaster (I also have 2 other Fender American Teles and they do not sound like this unplugged!). I was actually scared that this guitar would be too midrangy and too close to an Epiphone type sound with its midrangy feel. Plugged in, the neck humbucker really does sound a bit like the Duncan Jazz that it's purported to sound like. Can't really say how off it is since my Jazz is in a Les Paul... but it's very close. The bridge pickup was disappointing - first, it was advertised as a stack pickup, but came out with a 60hz hum. Moreover, all the trebles were gone - where's my tele sound? Something was wrong - so I opened up the control cavity. While the world may be flattening with call centers and computer software being made in India, but someone out there doesn't know how to follow a wiring diagram (scary). 15 mins - trebles are back, no more hum in the bridge. It sounds great! In fact, I like this Duncan Designed pickup more than the pickups in the 2007 Highway One Tele (very muddy bridge pickup - because they were targeting "high gain" customers... god knows why I bought it...) - it's got more high end bite, no hum, no squeal (does great in my Carvin Legacy). It doesn't sound as clear as ... say Texas Specials... rolled back of course, since it is still a humbucker technically - but it does get most of the single coil type tones. Middle position is bland - never liked hum/hum middle positions.

So for all those who have bought this guitar and found that the bridge just plain sucks - check the wiring. It is supposed to have no hum - and it does sound quite bright - works well with the cedar body.

This is really a backup guitar to fulfill my unending Tele-GAS. I've never had an SH configured Tele and this seemed like a pretty good deal, so off to Music123 with a coupon code I go. When it first arrived, the strings were in really bad shape. Action was good, but intonation was off. Fret ends were VERY sharp. Brought out the files, sandpaper and off to work. Now the neck plays great of course - but I could see why an average guitar player without any building/wood working experience would be deterred from buying such a product - this guitar is $299 - an extra $100 and you'd have a Fender Mexican. Also, the cedar is not of the best quality - it's a softer wood and the holes tend to strip easily. But it does sound good and for a backup/throw around the house type guitar, definitely more than worth its money as long as you have the patience to fix this thing up.

The guitar seems solid enough. I've accidentally dropped it before (by tripping over my guitar cable), nothing broke, no dents/scratches - stayed in tune. Just be careful of the screws - might need to fill the holes or use the toothpick and glue trick if you're going to be changing stuff. The hardware is the el-cheapo hardware, but nothing really wrong with it. Strap buttons seem strong... not going to really try pulling them out :)

I think I already voided the warranty by rewiring the pickup correctly and filing the frets... so why bother...

A good guitar - it's $299 for a guitar with decent pickups - don't expect the best quality of wood. Still, the overall quality isn't relaly that bad - the fret issue is just a recurring thing for most lower end guitars. If I lost it, GAS laws dictate that next time I buy it in a different colour!