Pasquale Custom Tele in the Works

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Published on Monday, 03 November 2014 00:00

Written by Frank J. Pasquale

In May of 2014 we released our new arsenal of the Pasquale Custom Guitars Metal Series Guitars. We spent countless hours designing and redesigning these metal masterpieces to allow us to develop a truly unique series of guitars that have a modern edge but still hold to the traditions of the classic metal guitars from the 80’s.
Prior to developing the new Metal Series we had spent years refining the classic Stratocaster style guitar. Through this process we came up with the designs for the Pasquale Classic 22 and our Pasquale Classic 24 guitars as well as our most popular design, the Pasquale Modern 24. Now we are taking another step in our development phase and we are finalizing our design for our Pasquale Custom Guitars Telecaster style guitar.


Ted McCarty of Gibson guitars was once quoted as saying that he hated the Fender Telecaster Guitar. This comment was the result of a long rivalry that existed between Gibson and Fender guitars. This rivalry began in the mid 50’s and still exists to this day even though McCarty in now deceased.

Make no mistake about it, the early designs to the electric guitar were not as much about creating a unique classic product as it was about money and crushing the competition. The developmental designs that we see today in electric guitars began as a constant rivalry between Gibson and Fender. Each sought to mass produce a product that would allow them to dominate the market share of this new field of electric guitars. While Les Paul was a great player who helped create a new genre of instruments, neither Leo Fender or Ted McCarty were players. Leo was an engineer and McCarty was a businessman and the goal of each was to crush the other.  To show you how shrewd of a businessman that McCarty was, in the original agreement with Les Paul for his design of the electric guitar, Les would be paid 1 dollar for each guitar sold with his name on it. McCarty later commented saying that if Les had asked for $2 per guitar he would have refused the offer and put someone else’s name on it.

 
In his later years, McCarty was being interviewed by none other than Paul Reed Smith in regards to the early developments of the electric guitar. In the interview Ted stated that Gibson began to do the carved top designs on the classic Les Paul guitars because they knew that Leo Fender didn’t have a carving machine so Fender would not be able to keep up with the design.  He also stated that he hated the Fender Telecaster because “anybody with a bandsaw can make one”.  He stated that it was so simplistic he didn’t understand how anybody could want one.


Well, all these years later we at Pasquale Custom Guitars do understand why someone would want one. The Tele is a very unique guitar. Most of what made the Tele unique was it simplistic design. Its use of common woods and its simple yet effective pickup design added with the unique design of the original style fixed bridge with brass rollers and the Tele is in a world of its own.


The Tele is known for its chameleon like ability to morph tones. From the classic rock of Jeff Beck and Joe Walsh to the deep blues of Albert Collins to twangy country sounds of Steve Wariner, Brad Paisley and every country guitar player in the world, the Classic Telecaster had it all. While the Stratocaster was Leo Fenders crowning improvement on the early Telecaster design, it never replaced the Tele because the Telecaster has a character of its own that is still massively popular today. 

We have taken a look at all the elements that make the Telecaster a great guitar and refined them for our own twisted purposes. It would be very simple to just take our Classic and Modern guitar refinements and just apply them to a body shape that looks like a Telecaster, but that would be a shortcut that would rob the guitar of some of the best characteristics that you expect from the classic Fender designed Tele. We are striving to capture all the classic elements of this early design with the modern style improvements that we have made to our other designs.

 
We revamped the body style and the overall design to capture all the classic elements that you would expect from a Telecaster with a modern Pasquale edge to it. We have redesigned the body to have a slightly more contoured and comfortable feel. As with all of our guitars we offer a full 24 fret neck. We have also added our Pasquale Custom Contour Heel that allows full access to all 24 frets. Most important we searched the market for the best possible pickups and electronics to capture all the original Tele sounds plus our own twisted versions of coil tapping and “mojo circuits”. Our goal is to create a versatile modern guitar that has the chameleon like character of the original design with all the balls you would expect from a Pasquale Custom Guitar.

 
The prototypes are in the works and we should be ready to launch production in early 2015.