Cheap Tele for customisation - suggestions please!

[Sada Yairi]

In Aus I can get a Modern Player Tele for $585 or a Blacktop Tele for $654 (although average price for both is more like $750-800). I can get a Standard Tele for $690. The Modern Player Tele is HSS which is completely different to anything I currently have, so that's appealing. Problem is that if I'm spending in the region of $600 then it becomes a guitar that I care about and won't want to mod. If I spend $200 (shipped) for an SX or Rondo then I won't care about it and won't mimd mucking around with it (the Agile isn't worth it when you include shipping - might as well buy a Fender). I'm very much in two minds. I have a Wildkat that I love and given that in Aus they cost around $800 I wouldn't dare modifiy it at all. On the other hand I have an old Dot that I've had for years, and I've enjoyed doing some re-finishing work etc on it, knowing that it's not really worth anything financially so even if I botch it up it won't matter.

I haven't played the Modern Player yet, so that'll be worth doing. And the SX and Rondo will be a significant gamble cos I can't play one before ordering it. Psychologically that actually helps cos I have to be prepared for the $200 or so to be a complete loss given that I'd be ordering it blind. If it's already a complete loss, then whatever does get delivered is already a bonus!

[Duffy]

If you bought the Modern Player with the full humbucker bridge, strat middle, and tele neck, which is a cool guitar I think, you could over time replace the pickups with really good ones. Such as, I just put a Dimarzio Super Distortion nickel covered humbucker in the bridge of my Epi LP Standard plus top and it transformed the sound of that guitar a lot. It just really sounds great and overdriven easily thru a good tube amp.

My Fender MIM tele standard came with real junk pickups - noisy and without excellent tele tone. I salvaged it by putting in Seymour Duncan real nice Alnico II Pro tele pickups that give it a classic sound - what a difference. These guitars are really enjoyable to play because they feel and sound so good.

I also have a Fender Nashville Tele that has Tex Mex pickups; tele neck and bridge pickups and a strat pickup in the middle. It is a really cool guitar, stock, in my opinion. The Modern Player tele with the HSS pickups sounds like it would also be super cool, with a lot of great tonal options, and any improvements would only make it better, over time.

That's what I mean about starting with something really nice and then building it up where you want to in order to make it super awesome to play.

I wouldn't hesitate to try to find something real nice used either. Sometimes you can find some incredible deals. I just missed getting a mint MIM tele with a Seymour Duncan Hot Rail in the bridge for 200, but I decided to wait until morning to go get it and the dude backed out of the deal. I was not happy about that. Sometimes you have to be ready to move fast when you are looking for deals.

Good luck.

[Sada Yairi]

Yeah, I reckon the various combinations of an HSS setup would make for some interesting tones, and importantly, quite different to what I already have (Epi humbuckers and P90s). I've been looking around at used Fenders but in Aus they aren't cheap. On ebay at the moment the cheapest one is a 1994 MIM Tele for $350. It looks to be in not great condition, plus it's about 500 miles away and pickup only. Next cheapest is a modified MIM Standard at $450 incl freight, but it's also that distance away and I'd want to check it before I buy it. I think new is gonna be the only realistic option, partuclarly given that the Modern Player is $585 and available within 15mins of home.

It's true what you say about starting with quality. I'm not worried about resale value because I hang on to my guitars - I currently have 3 and have never sold one. It's more a matter of having something that I can have a relationship with in the long term. Each of my guitars (an SY classical, a Dot and the Wildkat) has taken a lot of checking and trying and research before buying and I've been very pleased with all three. That Fender would (I assume) have a nice body and neck and then I have the options with 3 pickups to do what I like down the track. Hmmmm...

[Sada Yairi]

On another forum someone suggested a Harley Benton - ever heard of them? I'd never heard of the brand (which seems to be an in-house tag for Chinese made guitars). This '52 style Tele looks a treat:

http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_hbt1952.htm

Does anyone have any experience with these guitars? This Tele would cost me $200 incl shipping to Australia which is incredibly cheap. I love the look of the body, but then the pictures on the company's own website will always look amazing. Seems it might be a good platform to work with though. Any thoughts?

[FrankenFretter***]

On another forum someone suggested a Harley Benton - ever heard of them? I'd never heard of the brand (which seems to be an in-house tag for Chinese made guitars). This '52 style Tele looks a treat:

http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_hbt1952.htm

Does anyone have any experience with these guitars? This Tele would cost me $200 incl shipping to Australia which is incredibly cheap. I love the look of the body, but then the pictures on the company's own website will always look amazing. Seems it might be a good platform to work with though. Any thoughts?

A Tele is probably one of the hardest guitars to mess up. It's dead simple. As long as the neck is decent, I think almost any company can put out a fairly good Tele-ish guitar. I have one made for White Bridge Music, a music store on the East Coast of the US that went under a couple years ago. Chinese made, nice neck, decent pickups, and it was very inexpensive. If the company you're buying from has a good return policy, I say go ahead and dive in. Good luck!