A Guitar And Gear Support Forum

t100d wrote: ↑Wed Jun 23, 2021 11:04 pm Pulled the trigger last night on Monoprice's butterscotch Tele, on sale for $84.99—looked at Amazon Prime, two vendors asking $152.99 … like, I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid!!
Free shipping, 30-day money back return, what's not to like?

I've been hankerin' for some Tele goodness for a while now, and this offer came up right before my birhday next week—did a quick CL sale on a VOX AD15, plus $25 from last gig's tip jar. The boss was somewhat peeved at first, but came around finally (phew!)

Due to have shipped today, can't wait to see what I'm getting for my $$—reviews overall are very good …
Anybody out there have one, and what was your experience? Expecting to do some setup and maybe fret polishing, of course.

Would have preferred maple board, but that only comes on the other colors (was thinking about getting one of each and switching necks, but that won't fly!)

Mods? Baja? Nashville? 5-way switch? P90's? Gold foils, etc?

BatUtilityBelt wrote: ↑Wed Jun 23, 2021 11:16 pm Happy pending NGD! If it sounds like a tele, that's the important thing. As for tele mods, the one I can't rave enough about is the 4-way switch mod. Instead of just 1-Bridge, 2-Bridge+neck in parallel, 3-Neck, it adds a 4th - Bridge+neck in series. Fantastic rich tone.

ID10t wrote: ↑Wed Jun 23, 2021 11:26 pm
I have a green one. I like it. It required a lot of work on frets. Sprouts, level et al, I also recently and to mallot down 2 frets (I think 19 &20) that worked up. I put in the 4-way switch. I put in a set of Dragonfire pickups because I could.
For the price it is great for me because I've learned a lot on it and how bad could I screw it up?
It was my first and only tele tele, I have a double cut tele too.
I think you'll like it or will at least be worth it.

sabasgr68 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 23, 2021 11:34 pm

ID10t wrote: ↑Wed Jun 23, 2021 11:26 pm
I have a green one. I like it. It required a lot of work on frets. Sprouts, level et al, I also recently and to mallot down 2 frets (I think 19 &20) that worked up. I put in the 4-way switch. I put in a set of Dragonfire pickups because I could.
For the price it is great for me because I've learned a lot on it and how bad could I screw it up?
It was my first and only tele tele, I have a double cut tele too.
I think you'll like it or will at least be worth it.

Did you show yours here, Brian? Not sure if I remember...

ID10t wrote: ↑Wed Jun 23, 2021 11:59 pm

sabasgr68 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 23, 2021 11:34 pm

ID10t wrote: ↑Wed Jun 23, 2021 11:26 pm
I have a green one. I like it. It required a lot of work on frets. Sprouts, level et al, I also recently and to mallot down 2 frets (I think 19 &20) that worked up. I put in the 4-way switch. I put in a set of Dragonfire pickups because I could.
For the price it is great for me because I've learned a lot on it and how bad could I screw it up?
It was my first and only tele tele, I have a double cut tele too.
I think you'll like it or will at least be worth it.

Did you show yours here, Brian? Not sure if I remember...

I've had it a while and I'm not big on NGD for myself, I'm not worth listening to or reading.

jtcnj wrote: ↑Thu Jun 24, 2021 11:36 am For those that have these - do they balance well standing - no neck dive?

EDIT: I have one en route as well..

t100d wrote: ↑Fri Jun 25, 2021 6:58 pm Ordered mine on the evening of the 23rd, and it came this afternoon (25th)!
Do you really need pics? We've all seen them ad, right? https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=610261
In my OP I said it was Butterscotch, but actually it's "Blonde", kind of a 1950's kitchen-remodel rich cream—maybe I'll send pics when I'm done setting it up …

Gig bag is great value, well padded.
As expected, frets were level but minimally dressed—spent a happy half hour with my trusty FretGuru file and made a first pass at the fret ends and also softened the ends of the nut, which was protruding a bit at the high E end.
Adjusted the action—D was high, lowered it and the A and E, and intonated the bridge which was a fair amount off, but no issue with low E as some have experienced. Love the 6-saddle bridge, I wasn't looking for Ur-Tele format …

Strings are serviceable, and I played for 2-3 hours—fast neck, nice pickups (no noticeable hum), good pot action, selector switch solid. Nice tonal range, plays well through my Mustang III, can't wait to try it with the '51 Fender 5A3 Deluxe. All my other guitars are humbuckers, except for the Guild Slim Jim with those marvelous Franz P90's, so am enjoying the single coil experience—my wife says she can't hear the difference, but to me it's really apparent.

Jack socket is really tight, but I guess that's a plus …

Balance is perfect, not too heavy, not too light, right in the Goldilocks zone for me.
When I have a little more time I will take off the stock strings (which aren't bad), moisturize the fingerboard, check fret leveling, which seems to be good, and major chore will be to touch up crowning and give the frets a badly-needed polishing, then throw on a set of Thomastik-Infeld Power Bright 10's (stock are 10-46)

Tuners seem to be good so far, might put on some Kluson string trees and Dunlop StrapLocks—don't know if I'll mess with the headstock shape, I can live with it for now.

Still can't believe I only paid $84.99 plus tax, and with free shipping and a gig bag? Sheesh!