Squier by Fender Classic Vibe Telecaster Thinline



I've been on the fence for a few months now having sold off most of my expensive guitars and converting the cash to Fender Squier Classic Vibe guitars and a few Rondo guitars like their 335 copy and their LP clone. The fence part has to do with "should I buy the Classic Vibe Telecaster Thinline" that seems so cool and different but looks so ugly on all the web sites. Well, I made the plunge, the guitar is here, and guess what? It is absolutely stunning in appearance in person. The finish is flawless, the neck is straighter than even my CVC tele and the sustain is incredible. The sustain is almost as long as the CV strats and it's amazing that such a hollow instrument can have so much sustain. You can see in the pics below that I swapped out the three saddle bridge for a 6 position Gotoh bridge. The tone seems the same to my ears with either bridge but the intonation is just about perfect up and down the neck with the six saddle bridge on my strobe tuner and when playing (most important). I put D'Addario bright round wound EXL120 strings on it after changing the bridge (.009 - .011 - .016 - .024 - .032 - .042). One of most noticeable things about this guitar is how easily you can mimic a real tremolo by changing the pressure on the back of the neck. In the sound samples below you can easily hear this. You will also see that I had to move the new bridge saddles almost to the end of their adjustment range, toward the neck, to achieve proper intonation. The closeup of the bridge below (last pic) shows my final bridge saddle adjustments. My recording setup is: Guitar > Carbon Copy Delay > Boss RV-5 Reverb > Blackface Fender Vibro Champ > Shure SM-57 > Studio Projects Preamp > Zoom R24 > export to Reaper > render to .mp3.

Link To Guitar At Musician's Friend

Here's a list of all the parts:




A few last minute comments

If you are considering purchasing this guitar then do it now! If I was to start buying a Classic Vibe tele, I would go with the CV custom first, the 50's CV second and this guitar third. They are all great but this guitar is so unique and well made, up with the best guitars I have ever owned. Some of the accoustic tone does come through the pickups when plugged into an amp. It's so light to pick up and loud enough that you can practice without plugging it into anything! The neck on mine is super straight and I didn't touch the truss rod to get a few thousands dip in the neck. I did have to lower the bridge pickup and raise the neck pickup to get the sound I wanted while evening out the volume.




Audio Samples

Treble Pickup Only

Middle Pickup

Sound Sample 3

Sound Sample 4

Sound Sample 5

Sound Sample 6

Sound Sample 7

Sound Sample 8




Pictures! Click on them to see full sized pics. (Sorry about the flash, I am working on improving my photo quality)









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