This vintage Tele’s neck and frets show lots of road wear, but it’s straight and dry.
Let me start with a story. I once had a 1969 Telecaster neck covered in polyester finish that was really thick. We stripped the finish off the neck, and the neck literally started to come apart. The skunk stripe in the back started to shrink and come loose. Basically, the neck was built with really wet wood, and it had been encased in polyester for decades—like a swimming pool..
This was not something that could be seen at the point of purchase. But at some point, that company wasn’t drying the wood, because my experience with instruments built around 1964 is that they didn’t have this problem. I’ve never seen a vintage Fender built before 1964 where the frets were sticking out the side of the neck because they hadn’t dried the fretboard well enough, and it shrank.
For the most part, there’s an extraordinary amount of trust when you’re buying an instrument. For example, customers trust that the frets are installed in the correct positions without checking each fret position with a tuner. This trust is mostly deserved, as most frets are generally installed in the right places. What’s sometimes not installed in the correct place is the nut. This controls how open chords play in tune down in the first position. I’m going to make a list of the things I believe you cansee when you buy a guitar, and the things you can’t. My hope is that it helps you make your next purchase with confidence.
Tuning pegs are among the easy-to-inspect items when shopping for a guitar. The peg at far left has clearly seen better days.
In general, here’s a list of what you can see:
- Tuning pegs and how they operate
- If the nut was cut well in terms of string height over the frets
- The neck shape as regarding how it is comfortable in your hand
- How the truss rod adjusts
- How well the instrument was inlaid in the fretboard
- How the side dots look
- How professional the binding is
- If the neck angle is generally acceptable
- If you like the shape and comfort of the body
- The beauty of the finish
- Overall aesthetic quality
- The sound of the pickups
- The electronic controllability
- Comfort of the bridge
- If the guitar intonates at the 12th fret
- How well is the guitar set up
The “skunk stripe” on this old Tele’s neck remains well-seated.
In general, here’s a list of what you can’t see:
- Are the woods wet under the finish
- How well are the woods dried?
- Will the fretboard shrink so the frets stick out of the neck over time?
- Are the tuning pegs deadening the tone?
- What’s the nut made of and how well it is glued on?
- Are the nut slots too narrow, creating tuning problems?
- Are the frets level?
- Is the truss rod deadening the neck?
- Do the pickups squeal at really high volume? (You may not know this until testing the guitar in a live setting.)
- How thick and how soft is the finish?
- Will the finish last a lifetime?
- Will all the glue joints hold up over time?
- How well does the instrument record?
- Will the frets move over time from reactions to things like sweat?
So, it comes down to trust. Did the guitar-making company tend to all the things that you can’t see when you buy the instrument?
“My goal, as a guitar maker, is that you can take the guitar out of the case and play a gig or a recording session without a repairman working on it first.”
The best way to tell if you want to buy a guitar is to play it! If an instrument is built really well, your experience of playing it will give you a good indication of how well the things you can’t see were done. If the instrument is really trebly and has no bass or midrange, maybe you should walk away from that purchase. If you strum the instrument and go, “Oh my god, that sounds great,” and then you plug it in, and it sounds beautiful—buy it. By the way, online shopping has made this process fairly painless as well, so you can play guitars in stores as well as shop as on the internet.
My goal, as a guitar maker, is that you can take the guitar out of the case and play a gig or a recording session without a repairman working on it first. That said, my personal guitars are often in our PTC (tech center) because of little tweaks that I want done. To tinker, in my mind, is normal. To have to pay for a setup on a brand-new guitar is not. Happy shopping.
Huge shocker incoming: Zach Broyles made a Tube Screamer. The Mythos Envy Pro Overdrive is Zach’s take on the green apple of his eye, with some special tweaks including increased output, more drive sounds, and a low-end boost option. Does this mean he can clear out his collection of TS-9s? Of course not.
This time on Dipped in Tone, Rhett and Zach welcome Tyler Bryant, the Texas-bred and Nashville-based rocker who has made waves with his band the Shakedown, who Rhett credits as one of his favorite groups. Bryant, it turns out, is a TS-head himself, having learned to love the pedal thanks to its being found everywhere in Texas guitar circles.Bryant shares how he scraped together a band after dropping out of high school and moving to Nashville, including the rigors of 15-hour drives for 30-minute sets in a trusty Ford Expedition. He’s lived the dream (or nightmare, depending on the day) and has the wisdom to show it.
Throughout the chat, the gang covers modeling amps and why modern rock bands still need amps on stage; the ins and outs of recording-gear rabbit holes and getting great sounds; and the differences between American and European audiences. Tune in to hear it all.
Get 10% off your order at stewmac.com/dippedintone
Hats off to Carmen Vandenberg of Bones UK, our celebrity Question of the Month respondent.
Guest Picker - Carmen Vandenberg, Bones UK
The cover of Soft, Bones UK’s new album, due in mid-September.
A: My favorite method these days (and to be honest, from when I started playing) is to put on my favorite blues records, listen with my eyes closed, and, at the end, see what my brain compartmentalizes and keeps stored away. Then, I try and play back what I heard and what my fingers or brain decided they liked!
Bone UK’s labelmade, Des Rocks.
Obsession: Right now, I am into anyone trying to create sounds that haven’t been made before—bands like Queens of the Stone Age, Jack White, and our labelmate, Des Rocs! There’s a Colombian band called Diamanté Electrico who I’ve been really into recently. Really anyone who’s trying to create innovative and inspiring sounds.
Reader of the Month - Sam C. Schiff.
Sam spent endless hours trying to learn the solo Leslie West played on “Long Red,” off of The Road Goes Ever On.
A: The best way to learn guitar is to listen to some good guitar playing! Put on a record, hear something tasty, and play on repeat until it comes out of your fingers. For me, it was Leslie West playing “Long Red” on the Mountain album, The Road Goes Ever On. I stayed up all night listening to that track until I could match Leslie’s phrasing. I still can’t, no one can, but I learned a lot!
Smith’s own low-wattage amp build.
Obsession: My latest musical obsession is low-wattage tube amps like the 5-watt Fender Champ heard on the Laylaalbum. Crank it up all the way for great tube distortion and sustain, and it’s still not loud enough to wake up the neighbors!
Gear Editor - Charles Saufley
Charles Saufley takes to gear like a duck to water!
A: Learning by ear and feel is most fun for me. I write and free-form jam more than I learn other people’s licks. When I do want to learn something specific, I’ll poke around on YouTube for a demo or a lesson or watch films of a player I like, and then typically mangle that in my own “special” way that yields something else. But I rarely have patience for tabs or notation.
The Grateful Dead’s 1967 debut album.
Obsession: Distorted and overdriven sounds with very little sustain—Keith Richards’ Between the Buttons tones, for example. Jerry Garcia’s plonky tones on the first Grateful Dead LP are another cool, less-fuzzy version of that texture.
Publisher - Jon Levy
A: I’m a primitive beast: The only way I can learn new music is by ear, so it’s a good thing I find that method enjoyable. I’m entirely illiterate with staff notation. Put sheet music in front of me and I’ll stare at it with twitchy, fearful incomprehension like an ape gaping at the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I’m almost as clueless with tab, but I can follow along with chord charts if I’m under duress.
The two-hit wonders behind the early ’70s soft-rock hits, “Fallin’ in Love” and “Don't Pull Your Love.”
Obsession: Revisiting and learning AM-radio pop hits circa 1966–1972. The Grass Roots, Edison Lighthouse, the Association, the Archies, and Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds—nothing is too cheesy for me to dissect and savor. Yes, I admit I have a serious problem.
