The Black Keys Fan Lounge Forum

Rufus - 14 minutes ago  » 
I gotta agree with your purchase!
I myself just trade in my old line 6 spider and got a squier affinity series tele (butterscotch blonde) and a fender vibro champ xd. Couldn't find one bad review on it and it sounds really good to me. Thinking of upgrading the pickups though in time

First of all, whenever you start a sentence with "just traded in a Line 6..." you're doing well! Heh. Sorry, I just don't prefer their amps and their whole "modeling" philosophy. They do make a great delay pedal but anyhow...

Yeah Squiers are underrated guitars. I've owned several over the years and yes the Affinity series aren't the best guitar in the world but they are a great starting point for a guy like me who only plays at home and occasionally with friends (no gigging/touring). The beauty of the Squier is that you can buy one in your price range, and then do your upgrades as you go along (depending on what's important/needed). You might consider a professional setup and a bone nut. The electronics on the low-end Squiers can be kinda iffy so those are another good thing to consider replacing (pickups, pots, switch, jack, capacitor). The bridge and saddles would be good things to consider. The tuners (if they give you problems). But none of that is really required. My very first electric was a Squier Strat and it never saw any upgrades and I played it for years. I was only 14 or so when I got it, but it served its purpose and put me on the path.

Oops, apparently the 50's Classic Vibe Tele has Alnico III pickups. Not Alnico II's. My mistake.

Alnico III pickups are what the early 50's blackguard teles and esquires. They are supposed to have a pretty good and pronounced midrange. I have also heard that they can get pretty bright and steely in a pine body.

Well I got it, and it's pretty slick. The neck is especially nice.

Cons- the nut is supposedly synthetic bone, but it's soft like plastic and should probably be replaced with a properly cut bone nut for maximum sustain and twang and tune-ability.

Jesus fucking christ my god damned smoke detector won't shut the fuck up. For christ sakes man... I just put a new battery in the thing because it was chirping and now it's still going fucking haywire and saying "Fire! Fire!" I'm gonna smash that goddamn piece of shit in about 5 seconds...

Anyhow, back to the cons- the only other major gripe is the output jack and traditional Telecaster jack cup are garbage. They put a cheap ass jack in there, and the jack cup on all Tele's I've ever seen is shit. It was loose and didn't feel very solid. But I installed an Electrosocket from StewMac and a proper Switchcraft mono 1/4" jack and we're off to the races.

Pros- the bridge is solid and the brass saddles are nice. The tuners are solid, although they are too sensitive for my tastes. If you barely turn the tuner at all it makes a large impact on the string/tuning. It's a minor gripe though. The neck and frets are really nice and solid. The finish on the neck looks amazing, but it is a little sticky at first, might have just been sweaty palms though, heh.

The electronics- the switch and both pots are Alpha brand, which is pretty good. That's what I use when I build pedals. The jack was garbage/cheapy though. The wiring looks tidy enough, and the tone cap is a .033 cheapo cap. I replaced it with a .022 Mallory and I like the tone a bit better now, subtle difference but I dig it.

The neck pickup sounds better than average but not great. I should probably try to adjust the height but you have to take the pickguard off to do so. Which means changing all the strings which I don't want to do yet. Oh the strings are Daddarios judging by the colored ball ends. They're 9's though and I like 11's so I'll be changing them soon enough. I could also maybe remove the chrome neck pickup cover and see how that sounds but I'm pretty set on getting a new pickguard from Warmoth, that's routed for humbucker in the neck pos. Then I'm probably going to drop a GFS Dream 90 in there (P90 pickup). The bridge pickup sounds great though. I'll leave it for a while but it might end up getting replaced someday. No hurry though. The big issue that I'm having with the pickups is the major difference in output - the neck pup measures 6.9k and the bridge measures 8.8k and that is too great of a difference for a guitar with one volume and one tone control. Because when I use them both at the same time, the bridge pup drowns out the neck pup, and if i switch between just the bridge pup and just the neck pup, there is a noticeable volume change. I'll get it straightened out though. The GFS Dream 90 has an output of 8.2k in the neck version so that should be a much better match.

Overall this is a fabulous guitar and an incredible value. Only minor tweaks are needed. It was setup very nicely at the factory. It even came with a hang tag that showed the measurements of the string height and whatnot, handwritten and initialed like someone was checking it personally by hand before each one shipped out of the factory. That's not bad for $350 shipped.

Changed the strings and checked under the hood. It's routed for humbucker in the neck pos of the body so that's good. Now I can go ahead and order a new neck pickup and a pickguard.

I moved the neck pickup closer to the strings while I was in there, and it made an improvement but not enough to justify keeping the pickup. I couldn't get the chrome cover off easily either. So I left it on.

One modification I made that I didn't mention, is that I replaced the vintage circular style string tree/retainer with a Graph Tech one that's made from real slippery polymers blah blah blah. They're cheap and they definitely create less friction when bending/tuning a string.

MirbyGnits - 6 hours ago  » 
More info (not that anyone cares)...
I got some REALLY great sounds/tones from this guitar yesterday. All it took was some tweaking the pickup heights to really get it dialed in.
I also ordered a new pickguard and neck pickup. Got a Warmoth pickguard (black gloss, .060, humbucker route, 5-hole) and a GFS Dream 90 with chrome cover. It'll be sportin' that Keith Richards look (and sound hopefully) very soon.

"5 strings
3 chords
2 fingers
1 asshole"
-keef
well i'm sure the last part won't be that hard
i'm guessing.