Which Telecaster is for you? EVERY Fender USA Model Explained!

there are several options now if you're in the market for an american fender telecaster so today we're going to take a closer look and figure out which one works for you [Applause] [Music] hello ladies and gents my name is jack from peach guitars and today we want to offer a little bit of a guide for anyone who's looking to purchase either their first or to add an american fender telecaster instrument to their collection the task can actually be a little bit daunting when you take a look at the shop's website or indeed fenders own website you'll see that there's no longer just the simple option of an american telecaster there's now several different model ranges they have been for several years but for anyone who's brand new to this there's several different model ranges to work your way through and find which one works for you now this fact is further confused by the general consensus that the telecaster is pretty much as simple as an electric guitar design can get so you would think that there's not a lot to change there's not a lot to sort through but actually there are a few things to bear in mind and this guide is going to walk you through what you should consider so what we're going to do is go through each model one by one i'm going to talk you through the benefits the pros and cons of each what may be suited best for your particular playing style you can take this information and apply it to your own decision and we're going to play a few tone clips as well on each guitar and i also want to offer up a back-to-back tone comparison playing the same exact thing so you can hear the distinct character of each guitar a little bit more accurately [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so we're going to start off right here with fenders most affordable way into their american lineup of instruments as of right now this is the american performer telecast and this is the first instance where we see fenders no longer bound by their heritage and tradition what they decided to do here is make an instrument that sort of still conforms to the traditional ideas of a telecaster but allows players to have a lot more experience and input into these designs to give you something that's a lot more comfortable to use whether you're a gigging regular musician or you want something to use in the studio maybe you're not specifically a telecaster player and you just want a good telly that you can rely on this is probably the best way of getting into the brand and the model design without being bound by that tradition and that heritage so considering this is the entry point into the american lineup this is actually a very well stocked guitar the feature set on here really really speaks highly to players who are looking for the most kind of instantly gratifying i would say instrument it's very easy to play very comfortable indeed and it has certain features on it that guitar players have come to appreciate over time and fender have obviously very wisely decided to implement into what is arguably their most wide-reaching model that's going to appeal to the greatest number of players so let's get into some of those features what you've got here is a very comfortable satin finished maple neck modern c profile on this one with a nine and a half inch fingerboard radius radius is one of those things that players probably maybe put a little bit too much focus on and pay a little bit too much attention to but ultimately if it's bang in the middle like that nine and a half is a very comfortable sweet spot that most players will find comfortable it's not super flat like the ultra guitar that we're going to come on to talk about in in the future but it's also not super rounded like a real traditional vintage style telecaster would be it's that comfortable sweet spot and it means that cording and soloing alike are both very comfortable wherever you put your hands on this neck there's a couple of interesting design elements here that i personally really like such as the silver 70s style headstock logo and these very unusual in terms of historical telecaster colors finishes so this one's vintage white there's a couple of other sort of more contemporary options as well so it's not they're not overly flash or anything like that but i do like that they're taking a little bit of a left turn here and they're not just sticking to the tried and true finishes they're really offering players something a little bit different that makes this model line stand out now in terms of the other components going on here it's kind of a nice little mix of more vintage elements with some more modern features as well the vintage stuff comes in the form of the more traditional three saddle brass saddle bridge pieces here so that gives you that nice traditional very bright very open telly tone but you've still got enough tweakability in there to make sure that this thing is properly intonated and set up as it needs to be but it's still got that nice little touch of classic design about it here you've got fenders proprietary yosemite pickups in this lineup and i think these are one of the best sounding pickup sets that they've made in a long long time it's got the right balance of everything they've got this nice sort of tubular quality i think that's the best way to describe it it's got this nice sort of bounce and juice to the tone without being overly hot or distorted they still sound great clean but they sound particularly good if you want to put on a little bit of overdrive and kind of apply a little bit of a bluesy context to your playing and then in terms of the actual electronics themselves you've got fenders grease bucket tone circuit here which essentially allows you to tailor the range of the tone control a little bit better than traditional designs would do in fact that when you turn the tone down you not only remove the high frequencies but it also removes some of the low frequency flub that you might get in a more traditional style tone circuit and lastly something that we often take for granted these days but it's definitely a departure from traditional fender design you get an extra 22nd fret here so that you can really explore all of this guitar's tonal range [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] it's [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] me [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] god [Music] okay moving along to guitar number two and this is definitely the one that most people will think of when they think of an american fender instrument this is the american professional two now in its second guys and a few years ago fender decided this would be the successor to their long-standing american standard lineup if you've ever played an american fender instrument before chances are you will have played a standard or a derivative of some sort of the standard lineup this is basically fender expressing everything that they've learned throughout the 70 plus years of guitar building that they've been doing it for and it's kind of the amalgamation of all the components that they figured out work best for the most number the greatest number of different players so you see quite a significant jump up here over the entry-level performer in terms of the specs and the technical kind of expertise that's gone into this design as i said a lot of different trial and error over the course of several decades have gone into this exact model which make it the most probably the most wide-reaching guitar here there's a lot of variety as well within the american pro 2 lineup you see guitars with humbucking options as well as the more traditional two single coil style that we're focusing on here today a ton of different finish options available a couple of different body wood options even we've got the older wood body here today but there's also a couple of uh finish specific models that have a pine body as well okay so starting neck end first you've got fenders deep sea neck profile which is extremely comfortable once again it's got the rolled edges that kind of satin finish a noticeably darker piece of maple for this for this neck they don't go through any roasting process or staining or anything like that but it's just i would say it feels like a higher grade more premium piece of tone wood for the neck that they use and it's sculpted very very comfortably you've got a slightly flatter radius here you've got tall narrow frets which once again feel very comfortable but they just add a little bit more of a kind of precision element than the jumbos do on the american performer you feel like you can kind of really get into the nitty-gritty of chord shapes and stuff like that a little bit easier in my opinion than you can necessarily on either really small frets or really big frets is that once again that nice sweet spot in the middle you've then got 22 frets once again on this particular maple neck variant as well as the rosewood version as well of course you've got v mod 2 pickups in here which are proprietary to the american pro lineup these were recently redesigned for these for these lineups for this model great sounding set of pickups really just kind of covers all bases it's got a little bit of that sort of traditional tele twang to it but also a nice dose of fatness which a lot of players look for out of their tellys everyone talks about the great virtues of how bright and clear and cutting telecasters are but actually in practice a lot of players want a slightly more rolled off kind of a tonal profile and that's where fender's very nice tone circuit comes in once again you also get the option on this guitar for the first time of a push pull push push control on the tone control here which gives you series and parallel options for the in-between pickup position so you've got four total tones out of this instrument and that series option in the middle really adds something different to the telecaster dimension that a lot of players may not have experienced before it kind of turns this also almost into a pseudo p90 kind of equipped guitar that kind of tone so it really adds something different and if you're not a traditionalist and you're not all about the not crazy about those three typical tele-position tones that fourth position might just convince you that this is something you need for your collection you also see a couple of uh sort of more modern features starting to creep in here like i said the years of expertise have just suggested certain design changes to fenders team so you've got a contoured sculpted neck heel for the first time which really makes it a lot more comfortable when you're up in the upper register you've also got a very clever design here with the bridge plate where it's slightly recessed around the edge of the pickup so it's a little bit easier to get sort of nuanced picking happening it makes it a little bit more comfortable to rest your hand on and for the first time as well you start to see a couple of different stringing options you can either go for the traditional through body design or you have the option of going as a top loader bridge as well which adds a slightly different tonal character and it's just very nice for players to have both options on board and when you move on up to the american professional lineup of guitars this is the first time you see a fender molded hard shell case come with the purchase as well [Music] [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] do right so slap bang in the middle of today's selections is this the american original line now this guitar a few years ago fender decided to revise their american vintage selection which a few of you may remember as being kind of the ultimate historically accurate model so this is kind of the halfway house between fenders standard american offerings and the more premium historically accurate custom shop line of guitars the american original now fills that fills that void perfectly for the player who's looking for the most accurate vintage style instrument so if you've ever seen pictures or videos or referred to your favorite players who've played teles in the past chances are this will most closely resemble the instruments that you're used to seeing so the original lineup uh essentially references each decade of fenders history starting in the 50s and the 60s and going into the 70s as well this guitar i've got here today is actually a limited edition version of 60s model in this limited surf green color with the matching headstock so this one is a little bit more ornate and visually different than what you would see from the standard lineup but the principle of the original lineup stays the same with this guitar what they decided to do with the original was to bundle all that stuff together and just make a general decade specific model so this 60s american original guitars comprises all those different elements together and makes for what fender considered to be the best mix of all those elements while still remaining faithful to the idea of a 60s instrument so just to delve a little deeper into what specifically makes up this american original 60s guitar you've got several components that refer to specs throughout the 60s like i say so what they've decided to go for with this is a 60s mid 60s medium c profile neck so this kind of harks back to the 64 65 profile here it's a nice fairly slim profile without the excessive heft of the 50s and early 60s guitars but also not super skinny like the later 60s and 70s guitars became we've also got a pair of pure vintage 64 single coil pickups which have the nice balance of the traditional fender tele spank but also a little bit more of the mellowness that came in towards the end of the 60s i think these have a great sort of mid-range punchy character they sound fantastic clean really nice and chimey but also when you put on some overdrive they stay quite fat and the tone circuit works really really well in kind of traditional telecaster format here it doesn't have any treble bleed circuitry it doesn't have any of those kind of modern quirks it's just a great classic design with all the elements in exactly the right place obviously rosewood fingerboard as standard on the 60s variant of this guitar the 50s version will have the maple fingerboard this version as i said is a limited edition with the matching surf green headstock but usually you'd see a couple of 60s specific colors namely i think lake placid blue and three-tone sunburst on this guitar and the touch that i like the most about this particular 60s version of the american original is that they decided to adorn it with the custom tele double binding on the body so that's a nice little touch that once again was just a specific sort of small portion of 60s telecaster designs but they decided to amalgamate that with those other components i talked about to make a guitar that literally didn't exist in the past and yet still feels very familiar to those who know their stuff about fenders history [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] hmm [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] um [Applause] um [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] okay moving along to the fourth guitar in today's lineup we're going to talk about the american ultra and this is where things start to get maybe a little bit murkier and potentially a little bit more confusing for some people because up to this point we've kind of covered pretty much all bases we've got the slightly more contemporary design in the performer we've got the more vintage design in the american original and of course we've got the kind of go anywhere catch all of the american performer so where does that leave the ultra well a few years ago well several decades ago in fact guitar builders have started to turn to more boutique alternatives to the mainstream manufacturer's offerings when they want the maximum amount of precision and very specific guitar features that they're looking for and players have been looking more and more for flatter neck profiles and sort of more advanced electronics noiseless pickups and so on which fender answered that call back a few decades ago a few years ago anyway with the american deluxe now most recently the ultra was born out of the deluxe evolving into the american elite and then it became the ultra so the ultra is the latest incarnation of the answer to this demand that players have for the best playing most sleek most electronically capable guitar design that they can that they can offer so that's exactly where the ultra sits and as soon as you pick one of these up you notice all of those differences the guitars we talked about previously all kind of sit within the same relative framework but the ultra is like it's almost a guitar from a totally different brand altogether and yet just by playing it and getting accustomed to it you do still feel fenders dna very thoroughly in this guitar so there's certain features on here that are exclusive to the ultra infender's offerings that make it a very different playing experience so for example this is the first time we're seeing locking tuners this is the first time we're seeing fender's modern d neck profile which is much much flatter in the sides it feels a lot slimmer feels a lot easier to get your hands around coupled with a flatter radius which is a compound radius this time so that means that you've got a 10 inch radius down here flattening out to a 14 inch radius up top so it makes cording very comfortable and nicely rounded and much much flatter profile at the top for soloing this particular guitar obviously has a very very nice rosewood fingerboard but there's also maple neck and maple board variants as well you also see excessive body contouring on the ultra so you can see a nice comfortable belly carve as well as the contoured neck heel here as well very comfortable to navigate this guitar both from the body perspective and wherever you want to go on the neck you're well covered a little bit of a slimmer feeling design as well the body is actually the same thickness but because of that contouring it feels a little bit more sculpted a little bit more like it's kind of a custom fit if you will so in terms of the electronics on this guitar this is where the ultra really starts to pull apart from the crowd and offers you something legitimately different to any of the other models that we've talked about so far so whereas those guitars are well rooted in the more vintage kind of tubey warm sounding pickup camp these pickups offer you something legitimately different than none of those other models do which is true ultra noiseless capability now it's fair to say that their earlier noiseless pickup designs weren't maybe quite up to par but by this point three or four generations in they've really perfected the design and it still gives you that true fender sound but allows you to move into totally different tonal realms that you aren't simply able to do with more traditional noisy single coil designs fenders ultra noiseless pickups work very very well and they pair superbly with fenders s1 switching on this guitar now we've seen a similar thing on the american professional 2 now but this system actually debuted way back on the american deluxe which then turned into the elite which formed into the ultra so this kind of this design was really burst with this model line so it works in a very similar way of giving you the same series and parallel switching option for the in-between pickup position giving you four total tones but it's implemented in a slightly more sleek manner whereas the professional has a push pull tone control this has a simple push button on the volume control so it's a little bit more discreet you also have the introduction of fenders no load tone circuit here so the tone control when it's all the way up you'll hear a slight click which means the tone actually goes out of the circuit giving you a slightly more wide open clearer tone when it's all the way up and then as soon as you bring the control down it comes back into play so aside from all the technical stuff and the obvious design changes i think that the ultra just has a very distinct character and it's probably the most polarizing guitar design here of all the models you're either going to get this or you're not if you're a died in the wool vintage guitar fanatic then this obviously isn't going to do it for you but if you are the kind of player who loves the telecaster and you want to push it forward and use it in more and more musical situations that traditional guitar designs don't permit this is definitely one of the strongest contenders on the market to fill that exact need [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] bye [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] there's [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] okay so the last of the five guitars we're going to talk about today is fender's newest fender's greatest some may say the new ultra lux model so this is obviously a continuation of the ultra that we were just talking about with a couple of specific changes mostly to do with the neck profile and the way the neck feels and operates that make this just for the players who want even more precision and even more accuracy when it comes to certain specs and playability features so the changes with this ultra lux model really all lie in the neck we've got a different neck profile here to the standard american ultra this time we've got an augmented d profile as opposed to the modern d what that offers you is a slight bit of extra heft on the overall neck profile and it also kind of changes as you go up the neck so as you get to the 12th fret you start to notice a little bit more meat to the sides of the neck and as you go beyond that it flattens out again so it's a little bit of a cool hybrid sort of very intuitive feeling neck as you move all the way along it it really just feels like it's perfected for whatever style and whatever kind of note choices you need to make wherever you are on the neck it's very cool i would say this feels a little bit closer back to the american pro 2 than it does the standard ultra so it's a little bit of a middle ground still varying into the modern obviously d profile but it's got a little bit more of a touch of that vintage sort of fatness to it if that's your thing i personally prefer this to the ultra neck but that's just my taste being someone who tends to like more vintage style necks the big change though the big news here is that fender have decided to finally wade into the murky waters of stainless steel threats this is something we haven't seen them do ever before but it's obviously an idea pinched from certain boutique builders that have been doing this for a while and it really appeals to players who want maximum longevity out of their necks so stainless steel frets are much harder wearing than their nickel counterparts they have a different tone as well they're definitely a little bit brighter and more zingy sounding i think they make the guitar sound a little bit more alive that may be your thing that may not but what you can be assured of is that these stainless steel options really provide extra life at the frets you kind of get them to where you like them and you never have to think about them again so that's a really nice piece of kind of assurance for players who just don't want to think about the setup of the guitars once they've got it dialed in they also feel a little bit more substantive so you can really grab into them a little bit more than you can with certain standard nickel options maybe it's just a psychological thing once you know what they are that your brain operates a little bit differently but i do feel that there is a significant difference to the feeling of the neck on this guitar so much so that i do actually prefer the overall playing experience of this guitar but that's just me now so far we've talked all about the neck of this guitar but the other significant spec change here is that fender have returned to the ash body for this model as opposed to the older wood bodies that they're using on pretty much everything else nowadays including the standard american ultra so the ash body provides a slightly lighter weight a little bit more of a more neutral tonal platform i would say it's not quite as mid-range focused as alderwood is it's just a tonal preference thing i'm sure most players will have an opinion of some sort on older versus ashwood bodies but it's nice to see that they have returned to that option here on the ultralux if that's what you're looking for [Music] foreign [Music] boom [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] this [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right folks so there we are there's five distinctly different american telecasters maybe at the start of this video you didn't realize that there was such a variety of different specs and things like that to go through hopefully though we've provided somewhat of a useful guide and if you've enjoyed this video be sure to leave a like down below but i'd very much like to know your thoughts which would you pick of these five guitars that you've seen today let me know in the comments below your choice for your american fender telecaster if you'd like any further information about any of these guitars or indeed to explore the rest of our american fender selection you can head to our website peaceguitars.com check out the full fender inventory that we carry we'll also link off to the individual guitars featured in this video down below as well if you want to find out more about one of these exact models you've seen today so thank you very much as always for watching be sure to stay tuned to the channel hit subscribe if you haven't done so already and ring the bell so you're notified whenever we put out future content so take care of yourselves folks we'll see you next time bye [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Peach Guitars

Views: 286,270

Keywords: guitar, electric, acoustic, shop, boutique, artisan, amplifier, pedal, pedalboard, pedals, strings, pickups, Fender, Fender USA, Telecaster, Fender Tele, Performer, Original, Professional II, Fender Pro, Fender USA Standard, American, USA Made, Ultra, Ultra LUXE, New Guitars, New Gear Day, Guitar comparison, guitar demo, guitar review, guitar collection, guitar overview, gear, guitar unboxing, limited edition, guitar shopping, deal

Id: E5QnOj6bQ-c

Length: 38min 34sec (2314 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 06 2021