Fender lite ashes'sses

david

I know a few of you guys haveor have played these, how do they hold up against, Japanese/US/Mexican models? I'm more interested in build quality/playability over tone, pickups can be changed. I think a vintage white/black pickguard tele could very well be my next guitar.

jcoote

i can only speak for my one but its beautiful..

the best thing about it is how quiet it is doesn't have the hum that the mim/as ones do (in my experience anyway). the neck is really smooth bends and slides are effortless and its really light...the action straight out of the box was spot on for slinky 10s and the pickup switching is impressive too.

Put it this way your not buying a mexican

david

You got a natural strat?

jcoote

thats it there...its good enough to keep when i'm floggin the rest of me gear

david

Funny lookin strat!

edit: you put up the right pic now

jcoote

what???

david

You had a pic of the ibanez up!

jcoote

your goin mad dave

yeah copied the wrong pic from my album...but its all fixed now...the birdseye maple in the neck and the pearloid inlays are just perfect together...they feature on the tele too??

david

Ha I was wondering about the pic for a second alright! Thought I was on the wrong thread.

Yeah AFAIK the tele has birds-eye/pearloid neck. However I've seen pics of them with horrible necks, one had a big knot type thing on the fingerboard, not nice at all. I thing theyre a bit hit and miss if you buy off the net. I want to get a nicely figured one. I'm torn over which model to get!

I've always wanted a tele though so this may be the one.

http://www.thomann.de/thoiw6_fender_telecaster_lite_ash_mn_vwh_prodinfo.html

Not sure which colour

david

It says that it's MIM in the description??? I thought it was MIK...

jcoote

so did i it was mik when i got my one anyway...must double check that one...teles are fantastic i had a mex standard nothing special as far as tele's go but it was as versatile as **** took every distortion and eq i could throw at it...i'm thinkin of gettin a jap tele and sticking single coil buckers in it if i flog some/all of my gear

Johnny Storm

I have one of those light ash strats too and I'm very happy with it.
Good points: - Great tone, nice finish, Duncan pups, excellent sustain (more than you would think for a strat), as jcoote says well shielded with very little hum and no crackle. The neck is a little bit chunkier than I would ideally like but a lot of people prefer them that way so try one out first.
Bad points:- the headstock logo (this bothers me - it does not even say "stratocaster".) The frets - my one definitely needs a levelling and dressing and its not due to wear. The frets are uneven on mine under the treble E string. I didn't notice this when I first got it so I don't know if the frets got worse over time (maybe with change in temperature / humidity) or if I just didn't notice.

Bottom line: they are amazing value guits for the money. Thomann supposedly have a good procedure for returning goods so if you got one with dodgy frets you could have it replaced. Just a bit of extra hastle.