Best Fender Electric Guitar (2024 Update)

As attested to by all the reviews on the Capri Orange MX Player Tele, it is a great playing guitar in its original factory form. However, I chose this guitar as the platform for Sweetwater to custom mod. In collusion with friend and Sales Engineer Jeff Jent, we determined the component upgrades of choice for the project. The oem wiring harness was replaced with the Emerson 4way switch Tele wiring harness. The additional switch position allows for the pups to play in series. The oem pups were replaced with Fender Custom Shop Twisted Tele pups. All this modification under the hood was covered up by a Fender black pearloid moto pickguard. The oem string guide was replaced with the Fender American Standard string guide. The oem control plate and knobs were kept as was the oem bridge with box saddles. I prefer the 6 box saddles bridge to the 3 saddles bridge – just a personal choice. Upon receipt of the Tele, from my personal parts box I installed Fender all short post locking tuners and Fender locking strap buttons. Since the MX Player Tele doesn't come with either a case or gig bag, I had the guitar shipped in a new Fender Elite hard case. I provided Jeff with my preferred set-up specs by the numbers and he forwarded those to the guitar technician for the final modified product set-up. Guitar technician Brandon Harper did exemplary work in putting the mod guitar together and tech supervisor Marty Flaley verified the completed modifications "nailed" by Brandon. If you desire modifications on a new guitar, don't be hesitant to turn the Sweetwater guitar technicians loose on your vision project. The techs know their trade. But in full disclosure, modified guitars are non returnable so be sure of the modifications you desire. The standard Sweetwater warranty is in place though. All of these details can be gone over with your Sales Engineer to be certain, just in case I have misspoken the rules of engagement. Thanks to Brandon for his tech expertise and Marty for the oversight (prior to his promotion, Marty was my tech of choice for set-ups on new guitar purchases). Can't say enough about my excellent relationship with my Sales Engineer Jeff Jent. He knows his gear! If you don't have an assigned Sales Engineer, call Sweetwater and ask for Jeff. If you are ever on the Sweetwater campus, ask to personally meet your Sales Engineer and guitar tech. I've had that pleasure and glad to call them friends. OH, and what about the orange Tele? It feels, handles and plays great. It is on par with my Elite and Ultra Teles (except slightly less expensive) as a fine crafted guitar. If you have ever wanted to do a mod guitar, pick any platform and turn the guitar techs loose. My new Tele is a Sweetwater Custom Mod!

This is a really great deal. Unless you get lucky on Reverb or whatever you won't find a deal like this anywhere else. And let's face it–you need a Telecaster! It's as basic as a Stratocaster. Even more so. It's so versatile and has a bright (but not too bright) sound. It's HIGHLY customizable. The shape of the neck is very comfortable for both rhythm and lead play. I'd even go so far as to tell you to make this your kids' (or YOUR) first guitar. For one thing, it's a Fender. The build quality is rock solid. It's really designed to be a lifetime instrument. Cons–really just the shade of the neck itself. It's a little pale. But that's just me. Not only that, but later on you can purchase another Fender neck and just replace it. (It's easy.) Don't let this absolute steal for a real Fender Tele get away from you. You'll thank me.

As attested to by all the reviews on the Capri Orange MX Player Tele, it is a great playing guitar in its original factory form. However, I chose this guitar as the platform for Sweetwater to custom mod. In collusion with friend and Sales Engineer Jeff Jent, we determined the component upgrades of choice for the project. The oem wiring harness was replaced with the Emerson 4way switch Tele wiring harness. The additional switch position allows for the pups to play in series. The oem pups were replaced with Fender Custom Shop Twisted Tele pups. All this modification under the hood was covered up by a Fender black pearloid moto pickguard. The oem string guide was replaced with the Fender American Standard string guide. The oem control plate and knobs were kept as was the oem bridge with box saddles. I prefer the 6 box saddles bridge to the 3 saddles bridge – just a personal choice. Upon receipt of the Tele, from my personal parts box I installed Fender all short post locking tuners and Fender locking strap buttons. Since the MX Player Tele doesn't come with either a case or gig bag, I had the guitar shipped in a new Fender Elite hard case. I provided Jeff with my preferred set-up specs by the numbers and he forwarded those to the guitar technician for the final modified product set-up. Guitar technician Brandon Harper did exemplary work in putting the mod guitar together and tech supervisor Marty Flaley verified the completed modifications "nailed" by Brandon. If you desire modifications on a new guitar, don't be hesitant to turn the Sweetwater guitar technicians loose on your vision project. The techs know their trade. But in full disclosure, modified guitars are non returnable so be sure of the modifications you desire. The standard Sweetwater warranty is in place though. All of these details can be gone over with your Sales Engineer to be certain, just in case I have misspoken the rules of engagement. Thanks to Brandon for his tech expertise and Marty for the oversight (prior to his promotion, Marty was my tech of choice for set-ups on new guitar purchases). Can't say enough about my excellent relationship with my Sales Engineer Jeff Jent. He knows his gear! If you don't have an assigned Sales Engineer, call Sweetwater and ask for Jeff. If you are ever on the Sweetwater campus, ask to personally meet your Sales Engineer and guitar tech. I've had that pleasure and glad to call them friends. OH, and what about the orange Tele? It feels, handles and plays great. It is on par with my Elite and Ultra Teles (except slightly less expensive) as a fine crafted guitar. If you have ever wanted to do a mod guitar, pick any platform and turn the guitar techs loose. My new Tele is a Sweetwater Custom Mod!

This is a really great deal. Unless you get lucky on Reverb or whatever you won't find a deal like this anywhere else. And let's face it–you need a Telecaster! It's as basic as a Stratocaster. Even more so. It's so versatile and has a bright (but not too bright) sound. It's HIGHLY customizable. The shape of the neck is very comfortable for both rhythm and lead play. I'd even go so far as to tell you to make this your kids' (or YOUR) first guitar. For one thing, it's a Fender. The build quality is rock solid. It's really designed to be a lifetime instrument. Cons–really just the shade of the neck itself. It's a little pale. But that's just me. Not only that, but later on you can purchase another Fender neck and just replace it. (It's easy.) Don't let this absolute steal for a real Fender Tele get away from you. You'll thank me.

Sound: Today's guitars are all made on cnc's unless you get something like a US made G&L, those are cut out with bandsaws and routers, like fenders in the 50s up to the 70s. The neck pocket in mine is very clean and neat, the body routing is very clean, the frets were nice out of the box, no misaligned screws or parts, no blemishes in the finish or anything. Features: The least useful feature for a majority of people will be the rhythm circuit, it has its own volume and tone pots and is neck pickup only, with a much darker tone than the neck pickup on the lead circuit, leave the switch in the down position, and you never have to worry about it unless you want an old school jazz guitar tone. Then push that switch up. (It does old jazz guitar really well) Ease of Use: The jazzmaster has quite a bright bridge pickup, makes it well suited for surf, or spaghetti western guitar, but it also means distortion on the bridge pickup will cut through rather well. the neck pickup is strat like, but bigger and thicker. Like a strat neck pickup on steroids. Both pickups together results in a sweet soft sort of quack tone, due to the pickups being so far apart, it's not the same as a strat quack tone, but its very nice sounding. Then of course there's the neck only rhythm circuit which is very much like an old jazz tone (hence the name Jazzmaster)The pickups are generally higher output than most other fender pickups, and work well with distortion. A lot of people still think jazzmaster pickups are p90s. Nope, real jazzmaster pickups are roughly the same size, but thats where the similarities end. They don't even sound similar. This confusion is furthered by the old mexican player jazzmasters, the j mascius, and others that have P90's. Quality: Fender mexico didn't skimp on the electronic parts, the pickups are very much like a mid 60s jazzmaster in sound, even down to the gray bobbins and enamel coated coil wire. Pots are CTS, both switches and the jack are switchcraft, just like they are supposed to be. They should last forever. The trem is built well, but not exactly the same as the old ones, the trem arm is screw in, it really should be a push in arm, like all the old ones. Also, I think the hole of the trem arm in the top plate is way way too big, it only needs to be slightly bigger than the trem arm collet.The tuners are kluson like split shaft, loke fender used from the very earliest days until 68, they're not made by kluson but it doesn't matter the design is too simple to screw up. The frets are vintage, they're always described as tall and thin. They're not tall, but they are thin, it is a 60s styled guitar after all. But I think a lot of people used to 9.5 and flatter radiuses will have problems, it's a 7.25" radius fretboard, requires a bit higher action but a half hour or so of playing, you get used to it. It also has a truss rod nut at the heel of the neck, its a correct feature for all fender's prior to 1971, but man was that a bad design choice on leo fender's part. You either have to loosen the neck a lot or take it completely off to adjust neck relief, and hope you got it right.Now when I got my guitar I took it completely apart (I always do). What I found on the inside could be improved. First was an excessive amount of wire. There is a lot of wire in a jazzmaster, but they didn't even bother cutting the pickup leads to length. Both pickups had about a foot of unnecessary lead wire, so I fixed that.The other issue was a bad conductive paint job in the cavities. The jazzmaster is an electrically noisy guitar, they need all the shielding they can get. The conductive paint was one thin coat, and didn't even go up the sides of the cavities, it wasn't doing anything. From 1958 to the end of the original run around 1980 each jazzmaster had brass tubs in all the cavities, all soldered together and grounded. I don't expect that in a new jazzmaster, but they knew then that it needed shielding. The pickguard in 58 was also gold anodized aluminum, which was excellent for shielding. But the anodizing wasn't good, and the gold wore off after a few months so and looked awful. In 59 fender switched to plastic tort pickguards, with a thin pickguard sized aluminum shield underneath. Anyway I properly shielded the cavities. Also the pickguard only had aluminum tape for the toggle switch to the jack, and another piece for piece for rhythm circuit switch and pots. That ain't going to do it. I added more shielding, put it all back together and it was a major improvement. Recently I decided to see what a proper gold anodized aluminum pickguard would look like on ice blue metallic, and its VERY cool, looks like a 1960s california speed shop modded my guitar, might put some tele knobs on it sometime.I also made another modification, I had a 65 reissue trem and bridge laying around, so I put them on it. In the old days, the lock button, trem

Overall: This is a great American built Telecaster at its price point. I'm not sure what the other review was downing it so much for. The pick ups are Yoseminee, as advertised, so why the down review on the pick ups? The pick ups are well known for great telecaster sound. The 3 bridge system he called cheap is what was used on the first Telecaster and this model was made to look and sound original. It's NOT a cheap model, it's a good guitar at its price point. I've seen some reviews on it saying it sounds better than the Professional and at it's price point…… how can you complain about the American built Performer. I own a Les Paul classic and this is my second guitar purchased. I wanted to own a Fender as well as a Gibson. I'm happy with it. I now own 2 classic guitars with classic sound.

I just got a grey ssh aerodyne. I Never gelled with a fender before. This aerodyne is just too good. After playing my first gig with this thing I'm so impressed. The neck is amazing. Looks are a amazing. The weight is perfect. That top contouring is so comfortable. The controls… I thought I would want to swap the metal knobs out for traditional plastic knobs because the were smooth, however I had no issues making adjustments to the volume and tone mid song… and they look amazing. The knobs are staying. The pickups. wow. just wow. The traditional strat sounds are here, but they offer more to my ears. More aggression when I needed it. The neck and middle pickups worked perfectly with that bridge humbucker. Switching to the bridge for leads was so satisfying. The sound guy came over after we finished and complimented my tone. He asked me what pedals I was using, and was surprised when I told him I just used delay and reverb. Everything else was adjusting the controls. These pickups… even when I roll off the tone they somehow still retain clarity. The right kind of clarity. I've played other strats, even American strats (but never custom shop), and these aerodyne pickups are in a league of their own. Bottom line… I've never bought a guitar and wanted to immediately go out and buy another if the same guitar "just in case" something happens to the first one. This guitar is THAT good.