TE-90FLT VW Deluxe Series : Same as Filtertron pickups, measured and compared.

After researching different Tele and Gretsch clones, single coils and humbuckers, I found optimal point between different worlds, something universal.

Pros: Guitar sounds very clear on clean with no hum and has something "brand" in its sound, after what I decided to measure frequency responce on both pickups using white noise and multimeter. I've found 99,5% coincidence whith Filtertrons (AC/DC rythm tone) in all parameters, even resonance frequency peaks. I have Ibanez RG-8 with great sustain, compared to Gibson's. That little Tele has sustain compared to my 8-string wide neck guitar, and far more sustain than my old 1991 Japanese Charvel STX Custom. I was very impressed. Frets are polished, neck is smooth and total feeleng of guitar is frendly for fingerstyle, strings do not out of tune when You push accords on the neck. I think it depends on coming by default strings (9-48 combined d'Addario set). Dirty sounds on bridge are also very good, close to EMG 81, but a bit less fizzy. Neck is good for overdriven solos whithout annoing grit, very careful sound, neck also is useble to play riffs. On both pickups You get a very good clean sound for plaing acoustic-like rythm patterns. All three pickup's combinations are great and useful for clean and overdrive sounds. And one thing more: this guitar has phenomenal distortion sound beeng dropped! That's why I bought it.

Cons: It was needed to tighten the tuner's screws on the bottom and tighten the nuts on the top sides of the neck for guitar to stay in tune. After it was done all came to normal. Tone potentiometer is ALPHA, Volume pot is standard cheap. I think I need to swap them, ALPHA is very good long-live non-crispy pot, it should be on Volume position. Pot's knobes are good-looking, but

do not hold well on, I put two balls of paper inside the knobs so that they do not fail.

Averall I recommend this guitar for every style of music, from jazz to metal. It sits perfect in the mix.