The Chopper TL is a more classic, mid-century riff on the Chopper concept that marries Schroeder’s aura of handcrafted loveliness with semi-hollow tones.
No longer just an up-and-comer in the custom guitar universe, Jason Schroeder is a luthier whose instruments have found their way into the hands of players from Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham to Eric Gales, Tomo Fujita, and Matt Schofield. And his wraparound bridges are now sold through Stewart-MacDonald— all evidence that the Schroeder name is likely stick around for some time.
One of the latest creations from Jason’s Redding, California, shop—the Chopper TL “T-Pine”—is also one of his most traditional. It’s a cousin to the Chopper, a Tele-/PRS-inspired 6-string that’s found favor among blues and rock guitarists looking for a modern spin on a traditional platform. But the Chopper TL is a more classic, mid-century riff on the Chopper concept that marries Schroeder’s aura of handcrafted loveliness with semi-hollow tones. And, in all, it’s an extraordinarily capable guitar.
Grace and Power
The T-Pine manages the cool trick of looking
practical, elegant, luxurious, and understated
all at once. The natural, straight-grained
pine body is decked out with
ivoroid binding on front and back, while a
curvaceous ivoroid pickguard winks at traditional
Fender thinline pickguard shapes.
The roasted bird’s-eye maple bolt-on neck is
topped with a bone nut and capped with an
Indian rosewood fretboard and super-shiny,
jumbo stainless-steel frets. The visual sum
of those parts gives it a vaguely Western
appearance—a little like a nice leather saddle
or a pair of handmade boots. The hardware
is traditional but, like everything else,
a little fancy—locking vintage-style tuners,
Lollar Special T pickups, a Callaham bridge
with compensated saddles, and Schroeder’s
signature S-shaped jack.
Craftsmanship in the T-Pine is excellent, and it’s especially evident when cradling the neck: The rounded, medium-thick C shape has a comfortable, late-’50s Gibson feel, with fretboard edges that have a broken-in feel and exquisite fretwork that’s precise, ultra polished, and icy smooth. As a result, playability is super fast right up to the 22nd fret, which is easy to get to thanks to a cleverly sculpted heel. The 2-piece pine body is light too, which makes the T-Pine extra comfortable to hold whether you’re standing or seated.
Ride It Like You Stole It
Even without an amp, the T-Pine’s lively
resonance makes it easy to discern subtle
sonic differences in the softer pine body. It
has a bright, ebullient sound that’ s just a
bit rounder in the midrange than a traditional
ash Tele, with a slightly softened top
end. Individual notes sustain beautifully, a
likely result of the beefy Callaham bridge
and sturdy neck joint. Even up at the fretboard’s
upper reaches, chords have surprising
air and body.
These same fundamental flavors come alive when plugged into a dimed Fender Champ. With the guitar’s volume rolled back a bit, the tones from the Lollar Special T were fat and funky, with noticeably more punch than you typically hear from a bridge single-coil—almost a cross of T-style tone and P-90 attack that’s perfect for rhythm sounds. Turning the guitar’s volume back up yielded a detailed, slightly aggressive and bluesy clean tone. The Schroeder will drive a small tube amp deliciously in these situations—conjuring tones that are at once rich, airy, and replete with harmonic overtones. Really digging in with a flatpick produced some of the rudest sounds I’ve ever heard from a single-coil—percussive, visceral, and gritty.
Ratings
Pros:
Amazing fretwork. Beefed-up T-style tones.
excellent build quality.
Cons:
A little expensive.
Tones:
Playability/Ease of Use:
Build:
Value:
Street:
$2,850
Schroeder Guitars
schroederguitars.com
Switching to the middle position drives home the T-Pine’s versatility. With the volume wide open, I got a tasty, toothsome bark that was punchy and a bit more compressed than I expected. And I only had to back off the volume a touch to get the plucky clean sweetness you expect from the middle position on a T-style instrument.
Plugged into a Jackson Ampworks NewCastle, with its higher-gain Britishstyle tones, the T-Pine delivered midrangey, rock-flavored country lead tones (think Keith Urban) that bordered on spectacular. And with a few tweaks, I got convincingly Marshall-like rock tones that highlighted the Lollars’ low-end potency and high-end clarity. Fiery, Billy Gibbons-like pinch harmonics popped off the strings with ease, and the pickups exhibited a cool compression that helped me hold distorted bends and coax cool controlled feedback out of the amp. But even in these more aggressive environs, it only took a roll-back of the volume knob to get a cleaned-up, Andy Summers-like sound with a dusting of crunch and nice presence.
The Verdict
Though much of the Chopper T-Pine’s success
is attributable to Schroeder’s knack for
taking the best from proven platforms, his
judiciously chosen tweaks, styling twists,
and penchant for quality and tone make
the T-Pine a very special guitar. It’s a wildly
versatile instrument—country guitarists
will like its ability to nail traditional tones,
and rock or blues players will appreciate the
added midrange power and unruly attitude.
The T-Pine is an instrument that would fit
into almost any player’s arsenal and probably
replace a lot of lesser instruments for
good in the process.
Another day, another pedal! Enter Stompboxtober Day 7 for your chance to win today’s pedal from Effects Bakery!
Effects Bakery MECHA-PAN BAKERY Series MECHA-BAGEL OVERDRIVE
Konnichiwa, guitar lovers! 🎸✨
Are you ready to add some sweetness to your pedalboard? Let’s dive into the adorable world of the Effects Bakery Mecha-Pan Overdrive, part of the super kawaii Mecha-Pan Bakery Series!
🍩 Sweet Treats for Your Ears! 🍩
The Mecha-Pan Overdrive is like a delicious bagel for your guitar tone, but it’s been upgraded to a new level of cuteness and functionality!
Effects Bakery has taken their popular Bagel OverDrive and given it a magical makeover. Imagine your favorite overdrive sound but with more elegance and warmth – it’s like hugging a fluffy cat while playing your guitar!
The riffmeister details why he works best with musical partners and how that's been successful in both Alice in Chains and his solo career, including new album I Want Blood.
This passionate builder designed a custom Strat/Tele pair, both adorned with hand-painted replicas of The Starry Night.
Okay, I plead guilty to having owned over 150 electric guitars in the past 60 years. So, for kicks, with my experience by way of Fender, Gibson, Ricky, Gretsch, PRS, Guild, Teisco, and others, I decided to attempt to make my own axes from scratch. I found that this endeavor was synergistic—much like envisioning, composing, performing, and recording a song. With my long-time San Diego techie, Val Fabela, doing the assembly, I started carefully designing, engineering, and procuring all of the components.
Our winning guitar builder, Edward Sarkis Balian.
The Vincent van Gogh Stratocaster, aka “Vinnie,” was the initial project. Starting with a Canadian alder body, an artist in Italy (who wishes to remain anonymous) applied the Starry Night painting to the front, sides, and back. The heavily flamed, roasted maple neck has the typical 21 frets with a 25.5" scale, and sports yellow pearl-dot inlays. After careful consideration of my playing styles, I went with a configuration using Fender ’57/’62 Stratocaster pickups. I used an upgraded, noiseless, 5-position Switchcraft assembly for the switching circuit. Fender locking tuners, a custom-fitted bone nut, and a Kluson K2PTG 2-point whammy system and brass bridge complete the low-action setup. Overall gold hardware completes the look. Vinnie’s fighting weight is 7.1 pounds.
This is what stars look like from further in space, at least as far as this special build is concerned.
I was so happy with this Strat that I decided it needed a brother, so I started on a Tele. Logically, I named the Tele “Theo,” after Vincent van Gogh’s younger brother. Again, with a Starry Night body painted by the same artist, I coupled a Canadian alder body with a lightly roasted, flamed-maple Stratocaster neck. (Hey, if it was good enough for Jimi to experiment with a Strat neck on a Tele body, why not try it?) And, as expected, my techie Val did a brilliantjob of joining the neck to the body.
The Van Gogh Tele, aka “Theo,” built to similar specs as the Strat and also featuring a lightly roasted, flamed-maple Strat neck.
For pickups, I went with Fender’s vintage-correct ’64 Tele set. As for a harness, the super-quality Hoagland Custom 4-position switching is unique, in that it gives a 15 percent boost and a very killer tone in position 4! Fender locking tuners, a custom-cut bone nut, and a Gotoh GTC201 brass bridge completes its setup. Gold hardware complements the overall look. Strangely enough (or perhaps hereditary?), the Tele matches his Strat brother’s weight exactly, at 7.1 pounds.
It's not in a museum, the the Theo guitar is certainly a work of art.
But how do they sound? Magnificent!Throw in my trusty Keeley compressor, Fulltone OCD, and Fender or Mesa/Boogie tube amps, and the van Gogh boys both easily equal or surpass my White Penguin, White Falcon, PRS Custom 22, Lucille 345 stereo, 335, SG TV, Les Paul Standard, Esquire, or Joan Jett.
I’m hoping the real van Gogh brothers would have been proud of these two magical, musical namesakes.
Beauty and sweet sonority elevate a simple-to-use, streamlined acoustic and vocal amplifier.
An EQ curve that trades accuracy for warmth. Easy-to-learn, simple-to-use controls. It’s pretty!
Still exhibits some classic acoustic-amplification problems, like brash, unforgiving midrange if you’re not careful.
$1,199
Taylor Circa 74
taylorguitars.com
Save for a few notable (usually expensive) exceptions, acoustic amplifiers are rarely beautiful in a way that matches the intrinsic loveliness of an acoustic flattop. I’ve certainly seen companies try—usually by using brown-colored vinyl to convey … earthiness? Don’t get me wrong, a lot of these amps sound great and even look okay. But the bar for aesthetics, in my admittedly snotty opinion, remains rather low. So, my hat’s off to Taylor for clearing that bar so decisively and with such style. The Circa 74 is, indeed, a pretty piece of work that’s forgiving to work with, ease to use, streamlined, and sharp.
Boxing Beyond Utility
Any discussion of trees or wood with Bob Taylor is a gas, and highly instructive. He loves the stuff and has dabbled before in amplifier designs that made wood an integral feature, rather than just trim. But the Circa 74 is more than just an aesthetic exercise. Because the Taylor gang started to think in a relatively unorthodox way about acoustic sound amplification—eschewing the notion that flat frequency response is the only path to attractive acoustic tone.
I completely get this. I kind of hate flat-response speakers. I hate nice monitors. We used to have a joke at a studio I frequented about a pair of monitors that often made us feel angry and agitated. Except that they really did. Flat sound can be flat-out exhausting and lame. What brings me happiness is listening to Lee “Scratch” Perry—loud—on a lazy Sunday on my secondhand ’70s Klipsch speakers. One kind of listening is like staring at a sun-dappled summer garden gone to riot with flowers. The other sometimes feels like a stale cheese sandwich delivered by robot.
The idea that live acoustic music—and all its best, earthy nuances—can be successfully communicated via a system that imparts its own color is naturally at odds with acoustic culture’s ethos of organic-ness, authenticity, and directness. But where does purity end and begin in an amplified acoustic signal? An undersaddle pickup isn’t made of wood. A PA with flat-response speakers didn’t grow in a forest. So why not build an amp with color—the kind of color that makes listening to music a pleasure and not a chore?
To some extent, that question became the design brief that drove the evolution of the Circa 74. Not coincidentally, the Circa 74 feels as effortless to use as a familiar old hi-fi. It has none of the little buttons for phase correction that make me anxious every time I see one. There’s two channels: one with an XLR/1/4" combo input, which serves as the vocal channel if you are a singer; another with a 1/4" input for your instrument. Each channel consists of just five controls—level, bass, middle, and treble EQ, and a reverb. An 11th chickenhead knob just beneath the jewel lamp governs the master output. That’s it, if you don’t include the Bluetooth pairing button and 1/8" jacks for auxiliary sound sources and headphones. Power, by the way, is rated at 150 watts. That pours forth through a 10" speaker.Pretty in Practice
I don’t want to get carried away with the experiential and aesthetic aspects of the Circa 74. It’s an amplifier with a job to do, after all. But I had fun setting it up—finding a visually harmonious place among a few old black-panel Fender amps and tweed cabinets, where it looked very much at home, and in many respects equally timeless.
Plugging in a vocal mic and getting a balance with my guitar happened in what felt like 60 seconds. Better still, the sound that came from the Circa 74, including an exceedingly croaky, flu-addled human voice, sounded natural and un-abrasive. The Circa 74 isn’t beyond needing an assist. Getting the most accurate picture of a J-45 with a dual-source pickup meant using both the treble and midrange in the lower third of their range. Anything brighter sounded brash. A darker, all-mahogany 00, however, preferred a scooped EQ profile with the treble well into the middle of its range. You still have to do the work of overcoming classic amplification problems like extra-present high mids and boxiness. But the fixes come fast, easily, and intuitively. The sound may not suggest listening to an audiophile copy of Abbey Road, as some discussions of the amp would lead you to expect. But there is a cohesiveness, particularly in the low midrange, that does give it the feel of something mixed, even produced, but still quite organic.
The Verdict
Taylor got one thing right: The aesthetic appeal of the Circa 74 has a way of compelling you to play and sing. Well, actually, they got a bunch of things right. The EQ is responsive and makes it easy to achieve a warm representation of your acoustic, no matter what its tone signature. It’s also genuinely attractive. It’s not perfectly accurate. Instead, it’s rich in low-mid resonance and responsive to treble-frequency tweaks—lending a glow not a million miles away from a soothing home stereo. I think that approach to acoustic amplification is as valid as the quest for transparency. I’m excited to see how that thinking evolves, and how Taylor responds to their discoveries.