1965 wrote:jingle_jangle wrote:They are wonderful players and address one issue that some players have with the original Teles--weight.
I thought it was more of a fix for the fact that post-CBS Fender was using
very heavy (cheap) wood for teles, and the thinline was a design solution to that problem.
Sorry, Wes--by "original", I intended the meaning to be the heavy Teles that were in production at the time. I know--I owned one (a '67) for a brief period and was greatly disappointed in its sound and feel compared to my early '50s Tele, which preceded it.
Collin, I agree that we're influenced by the instruments we saw when growing up, but I continue to be influenced by the instruments that I see...I suppose I'm not grown up yet! My post was speaking more to the out-of-step nature of the manufacturing community when they tried to read the taste of a customer base fully 30 years or more younger than their management. Toss in a wild card like Rossmeisl, trained in Europe and with an esthetic sensibility based in traditional German luthiery, and you're destined to get some weirdness.
I love offset-waist Fenders (and miss my old bound-neck, block-inlaid '69 JM), Duo-Sonics, Mustangs (though the "competition stripe" was a SMT (Stupid Marketing Trick) that was supposed to tie them in with the bestriped supercars of the day, and IMO failed visually). And the other oddball Fender leftovers all ring my bell, too. I've passed on a couple of Customs; still looking for a real nice one. I'm due to work on one of the Marauder factory prototypes (and the owner has asked me to build a couple of replicas) sometime in the near future, too, so you can believe that I'm going to photograph the heck out of it...neat stuff. And I do own an Antigua Jag, though it's CIJ.
But I am not too crazy about RR's Fender stuff; it just seems to be the wrong thing at the wrong time for the wrong company.
Right now I'm focused on short scale guitars.
