Late to this thread. I love my CVC tele. I liked it stock well enough. The neck pickup sounded very much like my neck pickup in my 60th anniversary MIM start, which is a slightly hot strat pickup, texas special style. But I did not love the bridge pickup. Too shrill for me. Not fat enough.
So I put some pickups I wanted to try into it, wound by Bryan Gunsher of BG Pickups. I did a whole thread on it somewhere here. Now it seems like I play that guitar more than any other. So I agree that tone is in the fingers, but putting a good set of pickups in a Classic Vibe can influence your tone too.
Steve Thompson
Sun Valley, Idaho
Guitars: Fender 60th Anniversary Std. Strat, Squier CVC Tele Hagstrom Viking Semi-hollow, Joshua beach guitar, Martin SPD-16TR Dreadnought
Amphs: Peavey Classic 30, '61 Fender Concert
Effects and such: Boss: DS-1, CE-5, NS-2 and RC20XL looper, Digitech Bad Monkey, Korg AX1G Multi-effects, Berhinger: TU100 tuner, PB100 Clean Boost, Line 6 Toneport UX2, Electro Harmonix Little Big Muff Pi, DuhVoodooMan's Rabid Rodent Rat Clone, Zonkin Yellow Screamer Mk. II, MXR Carbon Copy Delay
love is the answer, at least for most of the questions in my heart. . .
- j. johnson