Fender Acoustasonic Player Telecaster

12
GUITARIST MARCH 2022
FENDER ACOUSTASONIC PLAYER TELECASTER
impacts what you hear, not least unplugged.
The Strat, then, has the smallest voice,
the Jazzmaster the largest, and the Tele
sits in between. So whereas the bigger
USA Jazzmaster has considerably more
depth, the unplugged sound here, while
initially seeming a little brash and dare
we say cheaper, really grows on you. Our
perception is that the all-solid guitar does
mature as it gets used to being a guitar –
why wouldn’t it?
The neck dimensions are pretty close to
the USA model, very electric in feel (aside
from the acoustic strings and that wound
third string, of course), and although the
frets are described as narrow/tall, they’re
pretty standard medium, again more
electric-like, nicely installed and buffed on
the 305mm radius fingerboard with lightly
rolled edges. There is a little more flex to
the neck compared with the USA guitar, but
really they feel very similar.
The biggest change, then, is the number
of acoustic sounds. In the ‘neck’ position
on the three-way lever Voice Selector
switch, the mahogany small body 3A
(anticlockwise) sounds very present, very
nicely detailed in the upper frequencies
with tight but not thin basses. This is a
sound that’ll cut through a band mix with
just big chord strums. It’s also a lovely
fingerstyle solo sound – really intimate –
UNDER THE HOOD
Take a look inside this Acoustasonic
Player Telecaster and you might
well see the future!
J
ust as you’ll find with the existing USA Acoustasonic
Telecaster, when you remove the rear control cover plate you
see an expanse of circuit board with zero reference to the
1950s. This is positively space age. “The acoustic voices are based
on actual guitars and different mics,” explains Tim Shaw, “but
their processing is digital and uses the same Fishman technology
that we’ve used on the entire Acoustasonic platform. On the
Acoustasonic Player model, the Lo-Fi piezo and Noiseless Tele
voices started with that ‘blackface’ Deluxe and a pedalboard, and
we basically worked with those the same way you would.
“Our ‘under the hood’ tech works the same across all
Acoustasonic models,” Tim continues, “but we made many
deliberate decisions this time around to give the Acoustasonic
Player Telecaster its own voice and vibe. The Acoustasonic Player
doesn’t have a body sensor and its under-saddle pickup is a
Fishman Sonicore instead of the Fishman Matrix of the other
models. The Sonicore has different sonic properties, so all the
voicing for this model took that into account.”
6. The Player model swaps
to a three-way lever Voice
Selector switch, although
the USA version’s volume
and blend controls are
retained, offering a total
of six voices
and quite the mean acoustic blues voice,
too. As you turn the control up (clockwise)
things get a little fuller and warmer until you
reach the rosewood dreadnought, again a
lovely voice that softens the attack, replacing
it with a rich sweetness. It’s a very good start.
Moving to the middle position on our
three-way switch, there’s not a huge
difference between 2A (Lo-Fi Clean)
and 3A, but this Lo-Fi sound, while less
acoustically accurate, is hugely recognisable
– that under-saddle piezo sound we’ve all
heard at countless concerts and on some
pretty landmark recordings. It has that fast
attack and is definitely acoustic-‘like’ more
than acoustic-‘accurate’ with a slightly
strident character. As you wind in the light
crunch you lose some of that stridency
and there’s an impression of softness in
comparison – it’s the truest ‘hybrid’ sound
on the guitar in that it really does sound
like an electro-acoustic layered on top of a
cleaner-to-lightly-crunchy amp’d electric.
Select ‘bridge’ position on the Voice
Selector and we’re now all electric and,
taking up 33 per cent of this guitar’s sonic
choice, there’s much more of a feeling that
this is a truer magnetic electric/acoustic
hybrid than the USA models, which are
weighted more heavily in favour of the
acoustic sounds – with the magnetic electric
sound almost seeming like an afterthought.
5. With the central rear cover removed, you can
see the Noiseless Telecaster pickup, but there’s
no body sensor, as with the USA models
4. Inside the Acoustasonic
Player. A vintage Tele
this is not!
4
5
6
This Player distills the
versatility of the USA
version into a more
direct instrument
GIT482.rev_fender.indd 12GIT482.rev_fender.indd 12 20/01/2022 12:3420/01/2022 12:34