New Squier SSH 3C$ Tele, and Thinline... WOW!

[Jim Eaton]

I'm waiting for the Fed-X truck to show up this morning with my new SSH-Tele! I have always wanted the "strat" pick-up set up on a Tele and when this thread started and everyone was giving such glowing reports on the quality of the guitar, G.A.S. reared it's ugly head and I ordered one too!
JE:-)>

[Randy Phelps]

That SSH setup is really great... they seem to keep trying different combinations of stuff and every once in awhile they come up with something that is pretty irrestible.

I saw the comments on the fret sprout issues... when I moved from Colorado to the bay area I had several guitars (many of them old) develop that problem... not too hard to address with a set of good files, a big cup of coffee and a quiet sunday morning listening to KPIG radio.

Some of the big guitar stores like GC sell at such low prices I'm sure they don't budget to have someone setup their guitars which can make it tough to buy one because you can't be sure if it is 'the one' when it has fret sprout and isn't intonate well and the nut needs adjusting and filing....

But for 3 bills the parts alone are worth it to me...

Eric, I loved your comment about the shiny necks! I thought I was the last person who liked shiny necks... so many folks like them all dulled up or sealed in oil.. I actually like the shiny. A few years ago one of my old teles needed a refret and a buddy who works in the Fender custom shop offered to do the job for me... which was really nice, but when I got the guitar back he said, "yeah, I took all the poly off the neck and just did light nitro.. it has way more mojo!" Good lord! I just smiled... my two main teles now are a MIJ Thinline (glossy neck, really nicely built guitar) and a partscaster (also shiny neck)...

There have been pretty good guitars built in just about every country.... the materials seem pretty good except on the very lowest end, but replacing things like pots and pickups is simple and inexpensive enough that nearly anybody can do it at home. When I go to guitar showcase I try all kinds of guitars in all kinds of price ranges because you just can't tell which one will feel and sound the best... but, that squier ssh is a great design.. I may have to pick one up!

[Jim Eaton]

Well I'm sold! Took 10min's to set the intonation and adjust the action and my SSH just plays like butter. Oh boy do I like the finish on the neck and they must have taken Eric's advise and got the wiring straighted too.
JE:-)>

[Bill Dobkins]

American manufacture's had better quit sending thier products out of the country to be built,Thier kicking our a--es. I just bought a Martin acoustic,cutaway with fishman electronics for 650.00
it sounds better than any Martin I ever heard. I played it a lot at the convention. Had nothing but compliments, could have sold it several times. One guy in the Derby room had a old D-28. He couldn't beleave how good mine sounded and played.

[David Mason]

There's this weird, ingrained-human-nature idea that progress just can't or shouldn't happen {at least faster than in my lifetime}. In the case of guitar manufacturing, I think it's dead wrong - the old ones aren't better.... of course big rock stars have rooms full of old guitars, but in critical situations they play their prototype or even brand new signature models. Of course people who have thousands/millions of dollars tied up in old guitars (cars, furniture, paintings...) want you to think they're intrinsically valuable.

There must be a least a dozen companies that know how to make really well-voiced, non-microphonic, musical-sounding guitar pickups these days, and I count Ibanez and Philippines-made Kent Armstrong/Bartolini among them. Hand-winding is a bad way to make a pickup - would you buy a hand-cast toilet, or a hand-built one-of-a-kind toaster? Because of the accuracy of the CNC computer routers, the better companies can put far more of their own investment into wood and parts and far less into skilled labor - not good for the laborers, but take a look at the best Ibanez "Prestige" line, or the inlays on an Asian D'Angelico.

Of course there are stunning, handmade high-end guitars, always have been and there are more today than ever, but the midprice guitars can take advantage of the same advances in knowledge and construction that affect everyone. Today's student, midrange and high-end guitars are the best that have ever been built. There is an issue of old wood - it's running out - but I've never seen any quantified research that shows the effects it has on solidbody tone. Less-dense maple just sounds a but more like mahogany, no?

[Ricky Newman]

I've also had a ton of luck with a recent Epiphone Les Paul. Mine was a $150 "special" picked up at a pawn shop. A used Gibson humbucker (off an SG that got T.V. Jones-ed) at the neck position, quick run over the nut and saddles with a set of gauged files and a truss rod adjustment has it playing like the real deal.
I was going to dovetail the neck into the body, but the bolt-on is really doing the job just fine.

I trimmed down a couple of photos and podged them over the headstock and pickguard areas to make it look "custom".

Now, if Reece would just farm out the work on a $500 MSA Millennium U-12 to Korea, I'd be in business.