Silly Fender Esquire questions

MetalDog

Ok any Esquire owners out there want to answer a couple of silly questions I have?

I was playing one in a shop recently, and I gotta say I like the simplicity of the Esquire, just one Pup and a nice maple neck.

Anyhoo,
Question the first - Is there a routing under the pickguard for a neck pup and if so, how easy would it be to rout out and install, say, a p90?
Question 2: Does the selector switch have any real function on an Esquire, I tried it and I didn't really like the tone when it was in the neck position.

Sorry for being longwinded and thanks in advance:o

Ravelleman

The Esquire's switch is a tone selector. In position 1 it deactivates the tone control and engages a capacitor, which gives a darker tone. In position 2, volume and tone work as normal. In position 3 it bypasses the tone control altogether and leaves you with just the volume control.

My Gretsch Annie has a similar tone switch, as well as a pickup selector. To be honest I find it far more usable than the traditional tone control.

As far as I know, there will be space for a neck pickup on the 50s RI Esquire. As for a p90, you'd have to route it out, which can obviously be done well or extremely badly, depending on how you do it.

MetalDog

Thanks for clearing that up, makes more sense now. Really must try one out again.