Squier Vintage Modified SH Tele

[t_ross33]

Somehow one of these just followed me home yesterday

Checked out a large music store in "the city" and they just happened to have one of the new Squier Vintage Modified SH Tele's, so I had to give it a try to report to my fellow Fretters.

Loved the neck right away. Nice comfy C shape and 9.5 in radius. No fret sprout, everything seemed nice and tight. Heard so-so reports of the Duncan Designed p'ups, but I found them to be quite good. Stacked "hum cancelling" in the bridge is quite spanky without the single coil hum. The neck humbucker is quite smooth and creamy - very vintage I imagine.

I picked up a Fender Standard Tele ($700) and a Baja Tele ($950) to compare. I liked the VM's neck better than the baseball bat on the Baja. I wasn't impressed with the fit and finish on the Baja either. Certainly not worth the $600 difference IMO. I liked the Standard Tele fine, but again preferred the neck on the Squier. Both sounded good through a Fender Deluxe Reverb, and that neck 'bucker was giving me some sweet tone.

Now, I don't consider myself much of a player but folks were stopping by to check out what guitar I was playing and no one could believe it was a "cheap" Squier. A guitar teacher even came over to check it out! Hey, if any axe can get me THAT much attention, there must be something to it.

Long story short - for 350 bones I brought home an honest to goodness Tele. My Peavey will be heading for consignment sale at my local music store. It's been good to me, but time to move on.

I'll post pics and (hopefully) clips if I ever get the chance - the house is a mess while we're prep'ing it for sale. No room to jam

[sunvalleylaw]

AAHHH, the Peavey cries out in anquish! But sounds like a nice new friend too. Congrats!

[Robert****]

See there - a Squier Tele is a great thing! People ask all the time why I play such a crappy guitar. I just shake my head - they don't know...

[jasongins]

Did they happen to have the SSH Tele in the store as well? I am curious about that one...

[t_ross33]

Did they happen to have the SSH Tele in the store as well? I am curious about that one...

Nope. They won't be available for a month or so (at least in these parts). The SSH piqued my interest as well, but I figured since I rarely use the middle p'up on my Peavey, I probably wouldn't miss it. That and a full humbucker will give you a bit more "meat" than a mini, which sounds just a bit hotter than a standard Tele neck p'up (more like a P90 maybe?).

I was going to wait it out and try the SSH, but this one just felt right. For the price, I couldn't pass it up

Oh, that and my wife let me buy it .

[Sblack]

See there - a Squier Tele is a great thing! People ask all the time why I play such a crappy guitar. I just shake my head - they don't know...

People say the same thing when they see my '51. Once I am jacked in and ripping away on it, I shake my head, too. I love the tone, looks and feel of that guitar through any amp. Squier makes exceptional guitars; they just need a little TLC and a set up.

[t_ross33]

Still in honeymoon phase, and I'm loving this guitar. I did find that the frets will need a little sanding, especially about the 12th fret (but I don't get up that far much ).

The controls are going to have to be changed out. There are some serious dead spots on both the volume and tone pots, but if you dime them both it sounds great. Volume cuts out at about 6 and tone seems to make no difference between 2 and 8. The volume pot is an issue as there is quite a difference in output between the neck and bridge p'ups (the neck is quite a bit hotter). The 3-way switch seems kinda flimsy as well.

So I'm GASin' to mod this little baby now . Here's what I'm thinking:

Wilkinson compensated bridge with brass saddles;
Graph-Tec or brass nut (I like Graph-Tec - haven't tried a brass nut before);
New controls with the greasebucket circuit OR;
Just new controls;
White pearloid pickguard (I have the black guitar with w/b/w 3-ply pg);
Chrome humbucker cover

The wiring diagram on Squier's website for a Standard Fat Tele shows 500K pots for both V and T. Most of the controls I've seen up on FleaBay are 250K pots. Can someone (DVM??) explain the difference, make some recommendations etc.?

Still really happy with the feel and tone of this guitar. I don't think I'll be swapping out the p'ups anytime soon and the neck is just killer! I'm almost feeling guilty that I'm gonna like my Tele more than my HB-30!!

Can a guy love two guitars at the same time. It feels so naughty

Trev

EDIT: Ooo, Ooo, Ooo!! I just stumbled on THIS. American Hot Rod Fat Tele with 5-way switching. BOO-YEAH!

[ShortBuSX]

Can anybody tell me what a "greasebucket circuit" is? Ive been curious for some time now, but unable to get an answer.

[t_ross33]

My understanding is that it allows you to roll off the highs without adding bass or otherwise mudding up your tone as well as eliminating some of the associated gain loss when you dial your tone control back.

I might have to try it out before I commit, but it sounds interesting from a live performance standpoint: it would let you adjust the tone without getting lost in the mix. If I can pick one up on eBay for a reasonable price, it might be worth trying out.

However, after playing for a couple of hours yesterday, both the volume and tone pots seem to have loosened up and are doing what the are supposed to Still, mod'ing a Modified might be fun

[marnold***]

Can anybody tell me what a "greasebucket circuit" is? Ive been curious for some time now, but unable to get an answer.

I looked at the wiring diagram for the Highway One Texas Tele on Fender's site. If I'm reading it correctly, they've got a 4.7K resister in between the .02uF tone cap and the ground. There's also a .100uF cap between the first two lugs on the tone pot.

By nature, every tone pot rolls off highs without adding bass. A passive control can't "add" anything. From what I've read it is both a high-end and low-end filter. That way if you roll the tone pot all the way down to zero, it will also roll off the low end so it won't be all muddy. That's the theory anyway. DVM can correct me if my understanding is incorrect.

From my limited experience with the Highway One Texas Tele pickups, you certainly wouldn't want to add mud, because those pups are muddy enough as it is.

Attached is a picture with the standard Tele wiring on top and the Greasebucket wiring on the bottom. The yellow cap is the .02uF and the orange one is the .100uF. The resister is the thing that looks like a resister

[Brian Krashpad]

Did they happen to have the SSH Tele in the store as well? I am curious about that one...

Just a note-- my understanding is that the SSH Squier Tele only looks like an SSH. The two "singles" are really both stacked humbuckers. Which for me kinda defeats the purpose.

[t_ross33]

Yep. My SH has a Duncan Designed "Tele Stack" in the bridge. The SSH has a "Tele Stack" in the bridge and "Stack for Strat" in the middle.

Even in this config, the "Tele Stack" provides plenty of spank for me. It may have more output than a traditional s/c, but it isn't really in humbucker territory as far as output and tone go - still a lot closer to Tele than PAF. It isn't noiseless or hum cancelling either - I still get plenty

I A/B'd my SH with a Fender Standard Tele at the store before I bought it, playing through a Fender Deluxe Reverb amp (suh-weet) and I couldn't tell much of a difference. At least not $400 worth.

Still, I may swap the stockers out, probably with GFS p'ups at somepoint just for fun.

Trev

[SuperSwede]

I am interested in the SSH tele, but I had not noticed that it had stacked buckers instead of singles. How much tonal differences are there between a "normal" single coil and a stacked HB?

[duhvoodooman***]

The Duncan site has plenty of audio samples you can check out, Swede. They're short, but give some idea of the tone. Click on the model of choice and then select the audio clip you want to hear on that page:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/compareTones/matrix.asp

[Brian Krashpad]

The Duncan site has plenty of audio samples you can check out, Swede. They're short, but give some idea of the tone. Click on the model of choice and then select the audio clip you want to hear on that page:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/compareTones/matrix.asp

I'm not a pickup expert, much less a Duncan expert, but that Duncan page appears to me to be all actual US-made Seymour Duncan pickups. The Squier Tele's pickups are Duncan Designed, which are import approximations of USA Seymour Duncans, so if you go by the samples on that page and get Designed pups instead, ymmv.

Fwiw, I don't mean this to come off like US-only type snobbism, I have some guitars with US Duncans and one with DD's.

[t_ross33]

No worries, Krash. I think the idea behind DD's was to give OEM's a chance to offer quality guitars while maintaining a specific price point (and profit margin). It's not the holy grail of guitars, but for well under $500, it offers pretty good bang for the buck.

SS, in my experience the Tele Stack didn't sound much different than the stock p'up in a Fender Standard Tele. But as Krashpad says, YMMV.

All you can do is try it. If you like it, PLAY IT!

[Brian Krashpad]

All you can do is try it. If you like it, PLAY IT!

Perfect advice. Last night at band practice we had a guest guitarist sit in, playing a beautiful Les Paul Standard. I have a couple LP's myself (as well a couple other nice guitars by Fender USA, Hamer USA, Ric, etc.), but I played what was handy, which happened to be a Frankentele I'd bought for $100 off a buddy.

Although, by odd coincidence, that beater Tele did have a Seymour Duncan mini-hum in the neck! Maybe I was subconsciously thinking of this thread.

[duhvoodooman***]

I'm not a pickup expert, much less a Duncan expert, but that Duncan page appears to me to be all actual US-made Seymour Duncan pickups. The Squier Tele's pickups are Duncan Designed, which are import approximations of USA Seymour Duncans, so if you go by the samples on that page and get Designed pups instead, ymmv.

Fwiw, I don't mean this to come off like US-only type snobbism, I have some guitars with US Duncans and one with DD's.

Sorry--I didn't mean to intimate that any of these Duncan clips would demonstrate the particular sound of the Squier Vintage Modified Tele p'ups. Merely intended to give a source of comparative audio samples between Tele single coils and stacked 'buckers.

BTW, the VM Tele SSH model was reviewed a couple of months ago in Guitar Player magazine along with 30 or so other sub-$500 guitars, and their opinion seemed to be that the pickups were the weakest part of the guitar, FWIW....

[Brian Krashpad]

Sorry--I didn't mean to intimate that any of these Duncan clips would demonstrate the particular sound of the Squier Vintage Modified Tele p'ups. Merely intended to give a source of comparative audio samples between Tele single coils and stacked 'buckers.

No worries, just trying to keep things clear.

Like calling everyone "Bruce."

(sorry, extremely obscure Monty Python reference)