Fender Player Series Telecaster Maple Fingerboard Limited-Edition Electric Guitar Surf Pearl

Most Liked Positive Review

My Favorite Guitar

I wanted to give a full review from a year in. When I first bought this guitar, I decided to finally get serious about playing, and so far, I've done some jamming and a little playing with experienced to professional musicians, and it's never let me down. I've picked up two other guitars since (a Squier Classic Vibe Jaguar and a Gretsch Electromatic), and while they're great guitars in their own right, this one manages to be the one that's the least fuss: stays in tune, dead simple controls, clear, bright sound. I love that it is a solid, classic telecaster, and delivers its trademark sound. I've done work on all of my guitars - the Jaguar needed a shim, a really common adjustment, and the Gretsch needed some sanding down to fix the oddly fitted backplate, but all this needed was some fret filing, which was fixed by $15 worth of tools from StewMac, and maybe an hour of work. Admittedly, the tele I chose had some of the better fretting than others in the players series (there are some with quite sharp frets), but I went and filed down the sharp ends and rounded them off, and now it's very smooth and comfortable to slide your hand down. Honestly, with just that little tool investment and an hour of time, it's more like having a guitar in the next range of what Fender offers. However, since I know this guitar is more expensive than quite a few mid-range series, I'll have to deduct some points for what I otherwise really feel is a five-star guitar, since many others offer very comfortable frets from the get-go - but not too many points, since looking at what I have played and bought in a year, it still outshines them in other areas of quality and sound. I play through a Marshall DSL40CR, with a fairly standard pedal chain: compressor, tube screamer/boost, distortion, reverb, chorus, etc., along with the built in gain channels, and as a telecaster is a real workhorse of a guitar, it sounds great in a wide variety of genres. Love this guitar!