After 30 years of playing an ES335 almost exclusively, I became a Telecaster convert around 10 years ago. Originally, I was just looking for something smaller and lighter to take to gigs around town. It took awhile to make the transition, but I eventually became hooked on the possibilities of one of the original electric guitar designs.
This baby is a USA Custom (RIP) body and neck, finished by Starr Guitars. The body is lightweight mahogany with a flame maple top. The neck is rosewood with MOP inlays, and they did a great job on it! This Tele features traditional output Harmonic Design pickups, and Callaham hardware. It was assembled by Matt at 30th Street Guitars in NYC. Flawless work!
Since I’m playing jazz almost exclusively these days, I’ve been using a tiny solid state power amp made by Quilter and run a DIY preamp and effects into that to create a complete setup. It’s easily loud enough for most jazz situations and stays clean. It’s visible on the pic of my gigging board below.
After constructing over 200 DIY effects pedals, I have succumbed to the allure and convenience of tiny IR-based effects and amplification. I use a Tonex One on a Klone setting as my primary effects chain. I use it as a switchable preamp for a midrange-heavy jazz sound and a brighter JC-120 setting for everything else. I also use two Valeton pedals as stompable overdrive and modulation, respectively. The beautiful thing about these pedals is that one can tweak the EQ for each different modulation effect so they never get muddy. If you ever saw David Gilmour’s pedal setup from back in the day, each mod effect had a dedicated graphic EQ pedal. Luckily he had roadies!
I still use Strymon reverb, delay, and modulation for recording—I love the sound quality.