CVC v. CS Nocaster?
Is it a fair comparison you ask? I don't care, it happened the other day at my house... My buddy comes over every Tuesday and we eat a sit down dinner and play a little bit. Last Tuesday he brought his Custom Shop Nocaster.
That Nocaster is a beautiful guitar, full of pure Tele Goodness. Big fat neck, blond finish and blackguard with those very tasty Nocaster pickups. It's still got the weird vintage wiring, so the 'neck' switch position sounds weak and muddy, but the bridge is one of my favorite Tele pickups.
I pulled out my Classic Vibe Custom. Which is one of the most beautiful Telecasters I've ever seen. Now that I've tweaked the pickup height on thee pickups, I'm not so sure I'll ever swap them out.
So, we plugged into my SuperChamp and my Deluxe Reverb and compared sounds...
Bridge pickups: I give the nod tot he Nocaster, but barely. There was just a little more bass response. I think they are hotter pickups and they have just a hair better note separation. But not a lot... the CVC pickups were right there with the Nocaster pickups.
Middle Position: Liked the CVC better. It had more clarity. There was a wider tone spectrum with the CVC. A little more separation of high and low frequencies. It sounded a little more like what I want in a Tele. Now, this is really his neck pickup with no tone control... I didn't really like it all that much... it seemed a tad flat.
Neck position: well, there wasn't much competition. His neck position is a weird wiring that sounds like doo-doo. I know his wiring is different and we should have compared the back position with the tone control rolled up to compare them properly and my neck to his middle position (which I'm bummed I didn't understand how his guitar worked or I would have).
But what I'm really getting at is that other than the thickness of the neck, and aesthetics, there wasn't a lot of difference. They pretty much both sounded like good telecasters should! They were close enough I was very happy with my CVC. I wasn't sure how they'd compare. I was afraid I'd be disgusted by my Squier pickups, but I wasn't! Not one little bit!
I'm a sucker for Nitro (I think it feels better) and a thicker neck, but the look of my CVC? Oh that double bound 3 tone sunburst is such a classic look... I find I like Rosewood boards too.
Bottom line is, this is the first Telecaster I've totally bonded with. It's great guitar, light as a feather, tone and sustain for days and with 10's and a little pickup height adjustment and an electrosocket, I think it's not gonna get messed with for a while! Well, other than getting played to death.
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