Leo Fender progressed from repairing amps to making them, along with steel guitars, through the 1940s. His wooden-slab, electric-steel guitars led to his breakthrough solidbody electric guitar, the Esquire model, in 1950. The 1-pickup Esquire and 2-pickup Broadcaster (renamed Telecaster in 1951) transformed guitar playing forever. Esquires and Teles continued to evolve through the ’50s, with black pickguards changing to white in late 1954, and with 1-piece maple necks adding rosewood fretboards in mid 1959.
By 1962, several more Fender models, including the famed Stratocaster and Jazzmaster, had joined the Esquire and Telecaster, but they remained very popular. The 1962 company catalog explained: “The originals of solidbody guitars and the favorites of countless guitarists. The 2-pickup Telecaster and the Esquire, with a single-pickup, afford wide tone response—from ringing ‘take-off’ to very soft rhythm tones.”
Wear marks and scratches across the body reveal a guitar that’s been well employed since it rolled off Fender’s production line 56 years ago.
The well-played 1962 Fender Telecaster we’re writing about this month is a sterling example, with the features common to that year. These include a slab-rosewood fretboard on the maple neck, a silver “spaghetti” Fender decal on the headstock, and volume and tone knobs, with a 3-way switch controlling two single-coil pickups. Due to its opaque Fiesta Red custom color, this Telecaster has an alder body rather than the usual ash. It also has the 3-ply greenish celluloid pickguard reserved only for Telecaster Customs and custom-color Teles. Standard Teles continued to use a single-ply white pickguard until the end of 1963. The 1962 list price was $209.50, plus 5 percent for the custom finish. The current value for one in excellent all-original condition is $20,000.
In addition to its “spaghetti” style logo, this Tele has an alder body and a 3-ply celluloid pickguard, making it a bit of a rarity.
The amp behind the guitar is a 1962 Model 6G8-A Fender Twin. The normal channel has three white knobs for volume, treble, and bass. The vibrato channel has volume, treble, bass, speed, and intensity. The presence control on the right side works for both channels. Four 5881 power tubes push 80 watts through two 12" speakers. The 1962 list price was $429.50. The current value for the amp is $7,500.
Sources for this article include Fender: The Sound Heard ’Round the World by Richard R. Smith, The Fender Telecaster: The Detailed Story of America’s Senior Solid Body Electric Guitar by A.R. Duchossoir, Fender Amps: The First Fifty Years by John Teagle and John Sprung, and The Soul of Tone: Celebrating 60 Years of Fender Amps by Tom Wheeler.
Revv G3 Purple Channel Preamp/Overdrive/Distortion Pedal - Anniversary Edition
The Revv G3 revolutionized high gain pedals in 2018 with its tube-like response & tight, clear high gain tones. Suddenly the same boutique tones used by metal artists & producers worldwide were available to anyone in a compact pedal. Now the G3 returns with a new V2 circuit revision that raises the bar again.
If 3 Were 6
With six times the controls found on the 1 and 2 versions (if you discount the original’s on/off slider switch,) the LPB-3’s control complement offers pre-gain, boost, mid freq, bass, treble, and mid knobs, with a center detent on the latter three so you can find the midpoint easily. A mini-toggle labeled “max” selects between 20 dB and 33 dB of maximum gain, and another labeled “Q” flips the resonance of the mid EQ between high and low. Obviously, this represents a significant expansion of the LPB’s capabilities.
More than just a booster with a passive tone, the LPB-3 boasts a genuine active EQ stage plus parametric midrange section, comprising the two knobs with shaded legends, mid freq and mid level. The gain stages have also been reimagined to include a pre-gain stage before the EQ, which enables up to 20 dB of input gain. The boost stage that follows the EQ is essentially a level control with gain to allow for up to 33 dB of gain through the LPB-3 when the “max” mini toggle is set to 33dB
A slider switch accessible inside the pedal selects between buffered or true bypass for the hard-latch footswitch. An AC adapter is included, which supplies 200mA of DC at 9.6 volts to the center-negative power input, and EHX specifies that nothing supplying less than 120mA or more than 12 volts should be used. There’s no space for an internal battery.
Power-Boosted
The LPB-3 reveals boatloads of range that betters many linear boosts on the market. There’s lots of tone-shaping power here. Uncolored boost is available when you want it, and the preamp gain knob colors and fattens your signal as you crank it up—even before you tap into the massive flexibility in the EQ stage.
“The preamp gain knob colors and fattens your signal as you crank it up—even before you tap into the massive flexibility in the EQ stage.”
I found the two mid controls work best when used judiciously, and my guitars and amps preferred subtle changes pretty close to the midpoint on each. However, there are still tremendous variations in your mid boost (or scoop, for that matter) within just 15 or 20 percent range in either direction from the center detent. Pushing the boost and pre-gain too far, particularly with the 33 dB setting engaged, can lead to some harsh sounds, but they are easy to avoid and might even be desirable for some users that like to work at more creative extremes.
The Verdict
The new LPB-3 has much, much more range than its predecessors, providing flexible preamp, boost, and overdrive sounds that can be reshaped in significant ways via the powerful EQ. It gives precise tone-tuning flexibility to sticklers that like to match a guitar and amp to a song in a very precise way, but also opens up more radical paths for experimentalists. That it does all this at a $129 price is beyond reasonable.
Electro-Harmonix Lpb-3 Linear Power Booster & Eq Effect Pedal Silver And Blue
