Fender Custom Telecaster FMT HH AM IL 5-stars Reviews

It's a Telecaster but not as we know it!

I'm trying to find something which doesn't exceed expectations with this guitar, after all it is "crafted in Indonesia" so that must be bad, right? Dead wrong! This is a Telecaster on a different level. Let's start with the looks, there are three beautiful colour choices, I chose the transparent amber because the way it reacts with the flamed maple top is unbelievable. The photographs really don't do it anywhere near enough credit. The matching lacquer is used on the neck and head-stock, so you do get a gloss finish on the back of the neck, which will not be to everyone's taste. The body and neck is bound mahogany with a sensuously carved maple top and back. The fret-board is Laurel, which is a new finish for me but feels great. In addition to this the neck has been glued-in (yes a Fender with a glued-in neck joint) and it has been done beautifully. There are stunning mother of pearl dot inlays. All of the metal hardware has a darkened chrome (a sort of stone grey) finish which also looks great.

The tuners are of a very similar quality to my American Strat plus and it is a hard-tail strung-through bridge with 6 saddles to allow fine tuning of intonation and action. There is a graphite nut which is really premium feature and the factory setup is pretty good and completely playable out of the box.

So obviously the tone must be a let-down. Well, all I will say is that it doesn't really sound like a stock telecaster. But, it has dual coil-tapped Seymour Duncan humbuckers which absolutely sing. There is so much tonal colour, cleans and driven tones are both fabulous on both pickups. I'm playing through my Bugera Infinium v55 for the cleans and using a tube screamer in front to give me a good crunch and driven tones and I can't wipe the smile off my face!

In summary it looks, feels and sounds every bit a Fender custom-shop quality guitar and is such a novel twist on the Telecaster, that every guitar lover should have a look at one, because it really isn't like anything else. Coupled with it's super-model looks, it is truly versatile and is already my number one axe of choice!