New Squier Vintage Modified '72 Telecaster Thinline

A couple years back I bought a Squier Vintage Modified '72 Telecaster Thinline electric guitar from the good people at Sweetwater. It was the last they had on hand and I was lucky to jump on it because a few days after I purchased it, Fender announced that they were shutting down the Vintage Modified line because it had become too expensive to produce them in Indonesia, and that, additionally, they were discontinuing most of their ash bodied guitar models due to the scarcity of wood. I got in just under the wire to purchase Otis.

Skip ahead if you don't care about my reasons for wanting one and what shaped my decision to purchase:

Preamble - A Platform for Modification and an Education in Personal Preference

At the time, I was looking for an electric guitar that I could use as a platform for modification; something that would let me try something that felt and sounded different from my Hagstrom Swede (Ember) to get a better idea of the qualities I like in a guitar, and help me to extrapolate changes from there that would let me chase a personal fit and playing style.

I looked at a lot of different guitars as I was considering what I wanted to do -- a process I documented in this earlier post. I built a lot of guitar bodies on the Warmoth website and had some clear ideas of what I might want to do, but I was still not entirely sure what I wanted to do with some of the options. I joined the Unofficial Warmoth forum and did Ye Olde Lurk & Search and saw some of the experienced builders there advising the noobs not to start by trying to build their dream guitar, but starting with something a little more humble that they could use as a learning platform. That made a lot of sense to me and shifted what I was considering...um...considerably. I began thinking that maybe I should start with a complete guitar and then work through the modifications I was considering one-at-a-time.

I knew I wanted a semi-hollow, and I knew I wanted one with a bolt-on neck in case I decided to get a conversion neck for some other scale length from Warmoth. Likewise, I wanted something with a four-bolt attachment to keep my options open where neck construction was concerned, and it needed to be a Fender or a Squier because they had a highly standardized and well supported neck pocket profile that would leave me a lot of options for replacement parts for a very long time. If I did opt for the baritone conversion, it would need to be Warmoth's vintage modern construction, which means four-bolt mounting. That set of parameters pretty much pointed me at a Squier Thinline Tele of some kind, and of the available Squier Thinlines, the '72 Thinline seemed like it would give me the most options for swapping pickups without having to do much re-routing. It came equipped with the Fender Wide Range reissues, so there would be plenty of room if I wanted to swap those out for Something'trons (or for Lace Alumitones, should I decide to go with that baritone build idea.

Beyond that, I was excited to try something with a 25.5" scale length. All of my guitars to this point had been 24.75" or shorter, and I wanted some idea of how much difference the scale length would make in terms of playing experience. I figured that if I didn't like the extra stretch of a Fender scale guitar, I'd definitely not want to go to a 28.625" baritone scale. And I was really curious about the "modern C" neck profile. I had made friends with the slimness of my Hagstrom's neck profile, but I still liked the feel of my Seagull acoustic's neck better and found it more comfortable in the hand. I wanted to see how the modern C felt with the longer scale and the slightly shorter nut width before I even began to contemplate what sort of profile I wanted on a conversion neck that I would likely have to custom order to get the combination of features that I wanted.

So, yeah, Squier Vintage Modified '72 Telecaster Thinline. It was full steam ahead for purchase the day that my wife looked at my computer and said: "just go ahead and get the damn thing. It's been up on your computer every day for the last month."

The Review, Already

The Tele arrived on a cool, rainy day after a long trip by truck through sub-zero weather. Waiting to open the box was hard, but I let it sit until the air temp in the boxes matched the temp in the house. The Tele came out in its usual mostly ready state following its pre-ship check from Sweetwater: strings were near in tune; action was usable; intonation was spot-on. But I'm getting ahead of myself a bit...

First impression: holy freakin' hell was that thing light!! And, man, did that top resonate, what with the chamber and f-hole!! Even unplugged, that made me want to play the crap out of it. The guitar was a little neck-heavy, so it dove a bit with a slick strap, but I didn't want to add weight to the body to counterbalance that because the lightness is otherwise so inviting. I just switched to a wider leather strap and put the slicker the one I had ordered with it on my nicely balanced Yamaha bass.

The knobs, pots and switches all felt light and cheap, but there was absolutely no hum, so I was prtty satisfied with that. Pots had about 50% usable sweep as expected. It was pretty easy to tell where the cost cutting happened in production, and that's all reasonably easy to remedy. The Bridge was completely functional with no buzzing or loose parts. I didn't like the look of the white pearl pickguard, so I picked up a black pearl pickguard to replace it, and that really made it look less like a "country" guitar. Holes all line up exactly the same as they would for a Fender Classic '72 Thinline reissue.

At the other end of the scale, the nut was plastic and it was a little rough and tight (ping!) on the unwound strings, but it was still usable as cut with a bit of lube in the slots to reduce binding. Tuning machines are adequate, but a bit low ratio for my taste. I figure on replacing them at some point, but they are low priority for that.

Surprise! I loved the neck on this guitar. It's smooth and easy to play. The 9.5" radius makes chording a little easier and there's plenty of room. The neck profile also felt a surprisingly comfortable in hand, with a bit more wood than my Hagstrom due to a little more shoulder and a slightly more round edge. And the difference in scale length really never made a difference for me. This is probably obvious to most seasoned players, but it was non-obvious to me given my lack of experience playing a lot of different instruments.

People tend to hate on the non-CuNiFe Wide Range pickups as being not very wide range-y and sounding like underwound humbuckers. To me they sounded fine, if not altogether exciting. They do the job. They handle gain just fine as long as you keep them backed off a bit and dial in the gain from the amp/pre-amp. The Hagstrom does just fine as a metal guitar (even with the less hot Alnico 2 Tonerider in the bridge - it's a versatile pickup). A lot of the time I'm playing Otis unplugged, anyway, trying to get some expression into my playing through my hands. Still, Ola would be proud. Otis will chug.

Next up: Playing and More Plans