Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Sound Check: FrankenTele















Hey Nerds,


My good friend and audio aficionado, Jon Armstrong recently finished a fun little project of resurrecting a cheap, used Squier Thinline Tele and trying to make it sound like a professional working axe. Jon apparently had quite the undertaking, replacing the pickups, pots and all the other guts...quite impressive I must say! To measure his progress, he pitted it against his infamous Epiphone Sheraton II (I've played it, it is awesome).

so can a used Squier be made to sound like an iconic Sheraton II by simply replacing the guts? Well, one thing's for sure; if ever there was a platform for a semi-hollow body "shoot-out", it is certainly THESE TWO GUITARS!

The result is VERY GOOD...I haven't played this FrankenTele, but from these sound clips, I can tell that he succeeded in what he set out to do. It wails! Great work, Jon.


Some quick specs:
-both guitars are "semi-hollow bodies"
-both have dual humbuckers
-both have three-way pickup switching
-both were recorded the exact same way





So the next time you're in the market for a new axe, remember there are plenty of cheap used guitars out there that can really sing with just a little love and little soldering.

Thanks to Jon.

bye for now,
Cutaway Curator

2 comments:

  1. I've been wanting to do this same thing to a standard squire with the pickups replaced with some lindy fralins, or something similar, and the pots and all that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think that would be such a cool project! I've heard to the Lollars are great pickups for Fender as well, but I don't think that I have played with them. If I have played them, I didn't know it.

    ReplyDelete