Teisco EP-7

My newest aquisition is a late '60s Teisco EP-7 (the headstock says Teisco Del Rey - it's the same thing). It's a small, double-cut, thinline archtop with two single-coil pickups. When it was made (in Japan), it was a better model by a junky brand - sort of like the best Squiers today. It has a wooden bridge with fixed saddles and adjustable action. The tuners are of some unknown brand but they work very well. The neck is a 3-piece deal with a steel truss rod and what appears to be a rosewood fingerboard. The frets are small, like Strat frets. I'm not sure of the scale, but it's very short.

It has a 3-layer laminated top, and I don't know what kind of wood it is. There is a single volume and tone knob, but the tone knob only seems to have a bright and a mellow setting - nothing in the middle. Pickup slection is by way of two rocker switches (hello vintage vibe!). The neck is bolted on.

It's got all the essentials for a cheap guitar, and it's more solidly made than most cheap guitars today. Adjustable pickup poles would be nice, though.

I bought this guitar looking for a cheap but solid instrument that sounds different from my main guitar (a Guild X-500). I'm running it into an Ampeg J-12T 15W tube amp, usually through a DOD 250 Overdrive pedal. This particular pedal barely clips the signal compared to most overdrive pedals, producing a sound like an overdriven clean channel.

The sound when clean is rather mellow, even on the bridge pickup. The neck pickup (and playing with both pickups on) has a very earthy, woody sound with a pronounced bass spike that makes the guitar sound much larger than it actually is.

However, the guitar really shines when overdriven. The bridge pickup is perfect for slide (though the action is a bit low for it), and I've managed to perfectly duplicate Ry Cooder's signature tone. With both pickups on, I can easily get the sound at the opening to The Stones' "Street Fighting Man". This is my favorite pickup setting because it has a remarkably rich sound and wide range of frequencies when overdriven.

While this guitar could never in a million years hope to match my Guild jazz box when clean, it is a real beauty when overdriven. Most importantly for me, it sounds unique, and it will never be mistaken on record for a Fender or a Gibson.

One small issue is that, like many cheap vintage guitars, the various pickup combinations result in different volumes.

Having bought this guitar about 40 years after it was built, I wouldn't expect much of the action and finish.

The action happened to come exactly as I would want it, and the steel truss rod has done its bit to keep the neck from warping. The adjustable bridge would come in handy if I needed to change the action.

The sunburst finish and frets are fine for a guitar of this quality - functional and no-nonsense. There is one chip in the laquer finish (the result of a knock, no doubt), but remarkably there is no finish chequing [sic?] after all these years. The frets are not perfectly dressed but are close enough for a knock-around guitar. The laminate top, not surprisingly, shows no flame, and the pickguard and binding are simple and intact.

The harp tailpiece is a nice decorative touch, and the strings are easy to change.

I'm giving this a rating of 10 considering how well such a cheaply-made guitar has held up over four decades. There are no structural issues or cracks and I'm pretty sure everything is original to the guitar. The elctronics are a bit scratchy, but 5 minutes with a screwdriver and a can of contact cleaner should clear that all up. The tuners, remarkably, are very reliable and keep the guitar perfectly in tune. The intonation is off by quite a bit, but the bridge is held on by string tension (as on most archtops) so this is an easy fix.

Let's see - the brand name went out in the early '70s. If there is still tech support for this guitar, it's hiding out with Bigfoot and Elvis.

I've played several Teisco models, and they all sound pretty much the same. This particular guitar has several features (tuners, adjustable bridge) that make it more desirable to me than the cheaper models. However, I was very lucky to find such a guitar in near-mint condition.

I only intend to use this guitar when I need something overdriven, but when I do need it, I'm sure it will work fine and give me a great tone.