 |
 |
| Tele® - Click to Enlarge |
Esquire® - Click to Enlarge |
Brand new, in stock and shipping immediately!
Images shown are from NAMM display units, we'll have more images shortly. The production units differ slightly from those in the images, in that the ones in the images have a 3-position terminal block (the small green block) where the jack attaches, but the production units will have the jack hardwired to the board instead.
Both the Tele® and Esquire® units support multiple switches, with the switch determining the feature set. In other words, you can buy the Tele® unit with a regular 3-way switch, and then in the future if you decide you'd rather have a 4-way, you just buy the 4-way switch to plug into your existing board. Merely plugging in the different switch enables the 4-way functionality (well, you also have to reconfigure the little DIP switches).
Both the Tele® and Esquire® are the same as the Strat: top-quality, USA-made, 4-layer circuit boards, with the two outer layers being ground planes to shield the internal circuitry. This is the state of the art. The pots are CTS 250K audio with solid shafts, custom-made for this application. The switches used are Oak-Grigsby, since the 4-way and 5-way "superswitch" are only available from Oak, and we want to maintain consistency. The jack is a Switchcraft L11, which has a slightly longer threaded bushing than the more-common Switchcraft 11, so that you can get the proper washers on there and still have enough threads to get the nut on. Hey, we think of everything!
Both units feature the ability to enable a volume kit as found on our Strat unit. Additionally, the Tele® supports the Billy mod in all configurations, while the Esquire® supports it in the humbucker mode. Both the volume kit and Billy mod may also be bypassed. There are multiple capacitors built into the boards as well, so you can play with different cap values and dial-in your tone control to your liking.
The Tele® unit offers support for those of you doing the Keith thing (neck humbucker). The Esquire® unit offers traditional Esquire® options, but also offers some of the popular modded options, such as the "cocked wah" mod, and the "Eldred mod" (named after Fender's Mike Eldred). Here are the Tele® switching matrices for the various switches:
Tele® w/ Two Single Coils, 3-Way Switch "A"
Position 1 - Bridge
Position 2 - Bridge / Neck (Parallel)
Position 3 - Neck
Tele® w/ Two Single Coils, 4-Way Switch "A"
Position 1 - Bridge
Position 2 - Bridge / Neck (Parallel)
Position 3 - Bridge / Neck (Series)
Position 4 - Neck
Tele® w/ Bridge Single Coil + Neck Humbucker, 5-Way Switch "B"
Position 1 - Bridge
Position 2 - Neck SC + Bridge (Parallel)
Position 3 - Neck HB + Bridge (Parallel)
Position 4 - Neck SC
Position 5 - Neck HB