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View Full Version : NGD(S): Deluxe Nashville Telecaster



marnold
March 16th, 2019, 04:23 PM
Well, I pulled the trigger. I bought myself a Fender Deluxe Nashville Telecaster (https://shop.fender.com/en-US/electric-guitars/telecaster/deluxe-nashville-tele/0147502301.html). It's the white blonde one pictured on that page. The finish is semi-transparent; you can see the wood grain through it. For some reason I couldn't bond with the one at Guitar Center, but I could with the one at a more local dealer. Good thing because they offered me a good deal on my '51 with a nice discount on the Tele itself.

It's not in my paws right now. They give free setups for a year with a purchase, so I have them doing the normal setup. They didn't have the GHS Boomer gauge I usually use with Eb tuning (.10-.52) but I decided to try the D'Addario NYXL set of the same gauge. Hopefully I like them. I also asked them to check the fret edges. There isn't sprout per se, but they didn't give the frets a lot of attention when they were cut. A quick once-over with a file will fix that. I had them take the strap lock buttons off my 51 and put them on the Tele.

It's a Tele that's bound to be polarizing since it is a thoroughly modern take on one: Vintage Noiseless pups, 12" radius, narrow-tall frets (as tall as jumbo but not as wide), modern bridge, cut-away heel, slightly smaller (by 1mm) nut width. All those features that annoy purists, I like. Clips, pics, et al, after I pick it up on Tuesday.

For some reason that I can't fully define, I liked it quite a bit better than the Deluxe Strat. The Tele sounds louder and clearly sustains better acoustically. Maybe I just have a thing for Teles since my first electric was a t-style Charvel Model 7.

I'm going to leave it unmodded for a while, but at some point I'm definitely adding a switch or push-pull pot for a neck-on mod so I can get the classic Tele bridge and neck combo.

marnold
March 16th, 2019, 05:04 PM
As far as why I bailed on the Jackson and ESP LTD guitars I had looked at, the Jackson was cool but would probably require a pickup swap which would raise the price quite a bit. I also would have preferred a hard tail because I wanted to do some different tunings--nothing major bit it's nearly impossible with a floating Floyd. I turned away from the ESP LTDs because I found absolutely nothing about them anywhere on the Internet. Somebody must be buying the SN-1000 series but I sure didn't find anybody.

This Tele had remedied all the issues I have with typical Fenders (radius, frets, noisy pups). I just wish I had it right now.

duhvoodooman
March 16th, 2019, 08:30 PM
Nice! Still a Tele, but there's obviously a quite a dose of Strat genes in there, too. Enjoy!!

marnold
March 17th, 2019, 11:49 AM
Nice! Still a Tele, but there's obviously a quite a dose of Strat genes in there, too. Enjoy!!

That's pretty much exactly what I was shooting for. I wanted those Strat in-between sounds. One thing that kept me away from the Deluxe Strat was the whammy bar. I've got a Floyd which, for me, is a better setup. But one Floyd to maintain is really enough. Having said that, my Jackson stays in tune better than any guitar I've ever owned. The only time I have tuning issues is when the strings are getting old. I didn't case for the Strat's bent steel saddles. I know some people swear by them but I think I would've just been swearing at them.

This is easily the most money I've ever spent on an instrument, mainly because I got such ridiculous deals on my Jackson and my bass. This was merely a good deal instead of an insane one. I also have to give kudos to the guys at the store. They were all very friendly and helpful.

tjcurtin1
March 17th, 2019, 07:04 PM
Woohoo! a NGD is always a good day! Your fingers must be itching...:hungry

marnold
March 17th, 2019, 07:15 PM
Woohoo! a NGD is always a good day! Your fingers must be itching...:hungry

Itching so badly I decided to restring the floating Floyd on my Jackson. That's itchy.

Jipes
March 18th, 2019, 07:17 AM
That looks like a very cool axe, best of both Strat and Tele world. Congrats !

duhvoodooman
March 18th, 2019, 09:54 AM
...One thing that kept me away from the Deluxe Strat was the whammy bar.
Certainly one of the Strat's most contentious features. I've always found it interesting how, between two of the Stratocaster's foremost proponents, Eric Clapton NEVER uses the whammy bar and Jeff Beck CONSTANTLY does.

Robert
March 18th, 2019, 01:45 PM
Wow, I want one of those! Congrats buddy!

Robert
March 18th, 2019, 01:47 PM
Does it look like this?

https://www.long-mcquade.com/files/47848/lg_0135300367v2_hi.jpg

marnold
March 18th, 2019, 05:49 PM
No, that's an older model. It looks like this:
https://shop.r10s.jp/ikebe/cabinet/gba81/fm_dxn_tl_wh_1.jpg

marnold
March 18th, 2019, 05:50 PM
Certainly one of the Strat's most contentious features. I've always found it interesting how, between two of the Stratocaster's foremost proponents, Eric Clapton NEVER uses the whammy bar and Jeff Beck CONSTANTLY does.

Jeff Beck makes me realize how little I know about the whammy bar. And about the guitar in general.

marnold
March 19th, 2019, 01:18 PM
IT'S HOME!

Unfortunately I don't have a ton of time this week, but I'll try to get some clips and pics posted soon.

Initial impressions: well, I'm in love. I don't understand people who don't like these pickups or say there's no quack to them. The bridge and middle (Knopfler sound) is to die for. I didn't notice before but there's a bit of flame on the neck too. It just plays so nice. It'll be even better when I make a couple of very tiny tweaks to the setup.

The guy at the store did a great job of setting it up with the new strings and taking care of the fret ends. If I ever need major surgery on a guitar, I know I can take it to him. One of the other guys who worked there showed me the Epiphone V he has where a strap lock failed and it broke where the neck and body come together rather violently. I wouldn't have been able to tell anything ever happened.

Let's just say I'm very happy with my purchase. My Jackson and Fender have two clear roles. Both do cool things the other can't.

marnold
March 19th, 2019, 09:54 PM
A couple of points:

If I'm going to pick nits, most of the volume pot's range is in the first 1/3 of its travel. It rolls off quite a bit of high end. I could see a treble bleed in my future. I had heard that for some reason these came with 1M pots. I confirmed that by opening up the control plate. Both volume and tone are 1M audio pots. Odd.

duhvoodooman
March 20th, 2019, 01:09 PM
....It rolls off quite a bit of high end. I could see a treble bleed in my future.
I recently did one of those on a cheap GFS Tele that I picked up during their "moving sale" a couple of months back and then modified extensively. Here are two excellent articles on the subject that I would recommend:

https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/28387-mod-garage-deep-diving-into-treble-bleed-networks

http://drkevguitar.com/2016/11/24/treble-bleed-mod-roundup/

I "auditioned" several resistor/capacitor combos (all with the two components connected in parallel) and decided that the 680 picofarad cap & 150 Kohm resistor combo sounded best to my ear. "YMMV", as they say.


I had heard that for some reason these came with 1M pots. I confirmed that by opening up the control plate. Both volume and tone are 1M audio pots. Odd.
That's interesting. For a Strat or Tele with regular pickups, I would expect 1M pots to be excessively bright when wide open, but maybe the noiseless ones are a bit darker?? I haven't played those, so I wouldn't know.

marnold
March 21st, 2019, 02:41 PM
That's interesting. For a Strat or Tele with regular pickups, I would expect 1M pots to be excessively bright when wide open, but maybe the noiseless ones are a bit darker?? I haven't played those, so I wouldn't know.

Entirely possible. They definitely aren't excessively bright (except for the aforementioned Strat bridge that was not connected to a tone pot). Perhaps this is why some people dislike them, if they install them in a Strat or Tele with stock 250K pups.

tjcurtin1
March 21st, 2019, 06:37 PM
Are noiseless pups really essentially a kind of humbucker? If so, maybe that's why the 1M pots?

marnold
March 22nd, 2019, 09:05 AM
Are noiseless pups really essentially a kind of humbucker? If so, maybe that's why the 1M pots?

I believe, although I'm not 100% sure, that the Vintage Noiseless are a quasi stacked humbucker. I believe the bottom coil is essentially a weaker one to buck hum. I'm sure it doesn't hurt to move the resonant peak up the spectrum a bit.

Regardless, I really like them. Maybe they don't sound purely vintage, but for me that's good because I don't like vintage single coils. Way too shrill and they sound like crap when you add much dirt. But to each their own. I'm clearly in the minority on that, at least if The Gear Page is to be believed.

marnold
March 22nd, 2019, 12:57 PM
OK, at least here's a picture. With the remaining snow and the bright sunshine, it was hard to get a good shot that shows the color accurately without tons of glare. Please pardon the obvious paint issues with my garage.

I can only figure out how to link to it on Box instead of embedding it, but this should work.

https://app.box.com/s/y8fsxe5com167w0pgot55wvst3jcioqo

tjcurtin1
March 22nd, 2019, 01:30 PM
Lovely - happy NGD! I'll have to go on line to give this a listen; sounds like I'd like those pups, too, for the same reason.

Robert
March 22nd, 2019, 02:56 PM
Nice! You park it next to your Ferrari on the driveway? :D

marnold
March 22nd, 2019, 07:14 PM
Nice! You park it next to your Ferrari on the driveway? :D

Heh. More like the '03 Buick :)

I wanted to make sure to get as much natural light as possible. In dim or fluorescent light it almost looks grey. Of course the grain that shows through got washed out.

marnold
March 22nd, 2019, 07:28 PM
OK, as promised, here are some clips so you know for sure it happened. All of them were recorded using my Jet City retubed with JJs. Tone controls are at noon with the presence at about 1:00. The clean on is on the crunch channel with the preamp at about 9:00. The dirty is on the crunch channel with the preamp at about noon. It's the same riff repeated. I go through positions 1 (bridge) through 5 (neck). It's just to give you a taste of the pickups. I'm mic'd with my Rode NT-USB straight into audacity. It's my first time recording with this mic. Please note that this is in a room with fluorescent lighting, a computer, and a space heater going--still no noise :) Please be gentle. I'm a terrible guitarist.

Clean (https://app.box.com/s/q33q0lrfshx65ysh1c31aslmbd14dr6n)

Dirty (https://app.box.com/s/9ar6vkvdqi6gl3r5zwi5evmcwpdwwd4g)

Next I go back to the clean tone but I add some reverb from my Digitech Polara's plate setting. I ham-fist my way through the beginning of Sultans of Swing. As you can tell I am struggling with string muting and keeping my volume even. I can play it much more cleanly with a pick but that's not very Knopfler-esque, is it. Once again, please be gentle. I LOVE how this sounds, even if my ability can't match the sound. (After listening again, I should've cut back on the gain a bit to make it cleaner. Ah, well.)

Sultans test (https://app.box.com/s/w2u1q4mc58w0s6c327iqcjn0v97b3nw0) (apologies to Mark Knopfler, et al)

tjcurtin1
March 22nd, 2019, 07:45 PM
Hey Rev - nice going! The Sultan's clip has just the right sound to my ears, and your mastery of it is coming along really well. Big points to you for putting it out there. I know myself how different it feels and how things go once you hit that 'record' button. If you're anything like me, I sound better 'when no one is listening' ;)

marnold
March 22nd, 2019, 07:53 PM
Hey Rev - nice going! The Sultan's clip has just the right sound to my ears, and your mastery of it is coming along really well. Big points to you for putting it out there. I know myself how different it feels and how things go once you hit that 'record' button. If you're anything like me, I sound better 'when no one is listening' ;)Thanks!

Absolutely. When record is hit or I'm in a guitar store, it's like I've suffered a minor stroke :)

I should have mentioned that the guitar is tuned to E flat in case anyone has perfect pitch.

tjcurtin1
March 23rd, 2019, 06:37 PM
When ... I'm in a guitar store, it's like I've suffered a minor stroke :)


I laughed out loud at that one - I know too well what you mean!

marnold
March 24th, 2019, 09:55 PM
I "auditioned" several resistor/capacitor combos (all with the two components connected in parallel) and decided that the 680 picofarad cap & 150 Kohm resistor combo sounded best to my ear. "YMMV", as they say.

I'm beginning to think that the volume pot taper is fine but the treble roll off is so severe that it makes the volume drop seem worse. The problem is that I don't have a stash of caps and resistors to try. I went cap-only on my Jackson and it can actually get shrill, but I can back off the tone to compensate. I'm going to do the neck-on thing at the same time. Kill two birds.

marnold
March 28th, 2019, 11:46 AM
I'm working with the place where I bought the guitar for a push-pull and treble bleed. I can try a number of different things that way. I'm also tweaking the setup a bit. It needed more neck relief since it has acclimated to my place. I'm surprised how straight the neck can be but still have minimal buzz. Apart from the minor point with the ends it clearly has very good fretwork.

Zip
April 2nd, 2019, 05:57 PM
Congrats! I own several Tele's, and they're a great working guitar. If not my first, they are always my backup at every gig.

Consider doing a control plate swap. Easy (and reversible) mod. Leo should have figured that out 60 years ago :)

marnold
April 2nd, 2019, 06:00 PM
You mean reversing it so the volume is close and the switch is back further? I might do that since I've accidentally changed pickup selections whilst strumming a couple of times. From a gander under the hood, I should have plenty of wire to play with.

marnold
April 12th, 2019, 03:46 PM
Some minor brain surgery later . . . my Tele now has a Bourne push-pull pot for a neck-on mod and a treble bleed circuit consisting of a .001 uF (1000pF) cap with a 150 Kohm resister. I can use the volume pot as more than an on-off switch now! Very happy with the results and I have the classic Tele bridge-neck sound again which is one of my favorites in guitardom.

marnold
April 13th, 2019, 06:10 PM
I should add that I got to play it through the Marshall JCM900 half stack that they have for sale at the place I bought my guitar. The cleans on that amph are absolutely glorious with my new Tele. The tech there just shook his head and sighed and said, "Great. I'm going to have to buy a Nashville Tele now." Apparently I'm a GAS typhoid Mary.

tjcurtin1
April 14th, 2019, 08:34 PM
that works both ways - sounds like you have to buy a Marshall half stack now...;)

marnold
July 30th, 2020, 09:39 AM
Just wanted to follow up on this thread:

I really love this guitar. All the specs are like they were made for me specifically. I love the taller frets, the flatter radius, and the noiseless pickups. A real eye-opener is the locking tuners. I now wonder why they aren't on every guitar. They make string changes so easy and the tuning stability is great. I worried a bit about being able to detune a half step, but there's plenty of room for that. Adding the push-pull pot for a neck-on mod and adding a treble bleed cap are must-have mods for me. I even like the all-pickups-on setting for a pseudo acoustic sound. The only problem was that I had to fiddle with pickup heights for a long time to get them properly balanced.

My only complaint is the weight. It weighs a metric ton. That probably also explains why it is so loud acoustically and sustains so well. I'm a very happy camper. It also sounds great with my Carvin X-60. That's a great little amph.