Keith Urban tele..heres your big chance!

[GuitarJonz]

Looks like the body you'd need for an Urbancaster. You'll save money too, since you won't need a neck or middle pickup! No affiliation, I just saw this one on ebay and thought it was a cool tele body.



See it on eBay...click here





*

[jlrich]

Originally Posted by GuitarJonz

you won't need a neck or middle pickup! *

Might as well have an esquire.

[Stefan]

thats a nice body... BUT I dont´t care much for Keith Urban.

[CharlieO]

Wow, what a poorly-matched top. Doesn't it seem that it should have been simple to match the grain on the two pieces, especially since it's foto-flame? I wouldn't buy it.

[Mark Davis]

Thats a foto flame body not real top thats why its not matched its just a photo of flame.

Keiths is a CS model that is real wood.

[Mikey3]

I do not know much about Keith Urban...I heard he was a pretty good guitar player from a few people. Im gonna catch his show this weekend though and see how it goes.

[Sarge]

If I had an upcomming tele project, that would be a definate purchase. The color, binding and routing would make a nice Nashville Custom.

[CharlieO]

Originally Posted by Mark Davis

Thats a foto flame body not real top thats why its not matched its just a photo of flame.

Keiths is a CS model that is real wood.

I understand that it's a photo, Mark. That's why I'm surprised that it's not matched. Why wouldn't they use a photo of a beautifully-bookmatched body like JohnS has, for example? If this top is a photo of poorly-matched veneer, they should have been able to cut the photo right down the middle along the seam, and shift the pieces so they match.

I'd think that if they planned to make hundreds or thousands of these guitars it would have been worth the time to get it right.

I suppose there could be a reason why the top isn't matched. Maybe Fender thought that it looked better this way. I don't.

[esquirej]

...since Waaaay back in the Ranch days.

I actually had the opportunity to sing backups with him back when I lived in Nashville. It was a small club that was closing it's doors. Keith and I were talking about the Ranch album and he asked, "So...do you know 'em all?"

I said I did and he said, "Well, let's see about that. How 'bout you get up there with me and sing 'My Last Name'."

I did and he was quite a great guy to hang out with that evening.

Anyways...thought I'd share that.

Going back to the Tele body, I've always thought of building an "Urbancaster" ever since those days. He's been playing that thing forever.

However, as mentioned above...I don't know why they didn't bookmatch that dang picture of wood! Oh well...maybe one of these days.

J

[GuitarJonz]

I never thought that flame had to match exactly to be considered correct, YMMV. I'm no flametop expert by any means, but a cursory looks at Google images of PRS guitars shows unmatched flame as apparently not that uncommon.

[img]

[esquirej]

Originally Posted by GuitarJonz

I never thought that flame had to match exactly to be considered correct, YMMV. I'm no flametop expert by any means, but a cursory looks at Google images of PRS guitars shows unmatched flame as apparently not that uncommon.

[img]

I think (oh, oh...shouldn't do that) that the general idea is that there's flame and then there's bookmatched flame. And in general "bookmatched" just means top attention to detail and all that stuff. Much more effort to make that look happen...therefore, sought after.

Then when you consider that foto-flame is a generated "picture" of flame, bookmatching wouldn't be that hard to do and would give the guitar that little extra special touch.

Then again, the mindset for NOT matching up the flames on a foto-flame body would be to be even more convincing as the "real deal"?

Personally, I think it's a killer cool body either way.

Who knows. I should just go back to bed.

[CharlieO]

Originally Posted by GuitarJonz

I never thought that flame had to match exactly to be considered correct, YMMV. I'm no flametop expert by any means, but a cursory looks at Google images of PRS guitars shows unmatched flame as apparently not that uncommon.

I've seen plenty of unmatched tops, too, on various brands of guitars. I guess maybe some people think it looks good that way, especially with flame. I don't.

I have a $300 Raven PRS-style guitar with a flame top that isn't matched, but it isn't really noticeable because the finish is pretty dark. If I was paying PRS prices, I'd want a well-matched top.

[ramseybella]

And to think Keith was a Bus Boy at the Radio Cafe in Nashville years ago in his Grunge days!!
Now he's a big deal
Goes to show, if U be a pretty boy and can sing these days, you’re almost in the door.

[OrovilleTim]

Originally Posted by ramseybella

And to think Keith was a Bus Boy at the Radio Cafe in Nashville years ago in his Grunge days!!
Now he's a big deal
Goes to show, if U be a pretty boy and can sing these days, you’re almost in the door.

Somebody bring Keith a flower, he's a robot (obscure reference to a song by Kev Russel's Junker.)

I had a very similar guitar to Urban (although mine had it's pickups.) I never quite got the tone I wanted out of it. It wasn't the flame top though, it was just like his. A 1997 Telecaster Plus.

[Mark Davis]

There is a fotoflame Orville its not matched.

[CharlieO]

Originally Posted by Mark Davis

There is a fotoflame Orville its not matched.

That doesn't look too bad, but it's on a darker-colored guitar, just like my Raven. It looks better than the fotoflame Tele body or the PRS, in my opinion.

[teledude66]

He married Nicole Kidman, I think I'll saunter my 5'6" 260lb mantastic self up to her, woo her away with my southern drawl then get her to divorce him, and then in the settlement I'll have her get his whole rig. That my friends is surely a fool proof way to get an authentic Urbancaster.....

[garcia]

Okay, here is a stupid question.......Which pickups does his guitar not have? I always thought it was a 3 pup Tele.

[esquirej]

...empty holes in the middle and neck.

[Mark Davis]

Keith has used it this way along time now 1 single EMG pickup in the bridge is all he uses.

[Tom S]

A few points (that I'll probably regret sharing):

The "flame" that you see is wood figure, not grain. For the most part, it's an optical illusion, a result of the underlying structure of wood fibers, their pattern, and the way the wood was cut. The short story is that the variations in light and dark areas are caused by light either being absorbed by the fibers or reflected. These variations will change depending on the angle and direction the guitar is being viewed.

The Foto-flame may look poorly matched, but it's done that way for a reason. The reason is an attempt to mimic actual "flame-top" guitars.

Take a close look at any guitar with a real figured top (flamed, quilted, etc.), walk around it and vary the angle as you concentrate on any give spot. This works best at the center seam because you can compare the matched figure changing, but it will work anywhere on the body. You will see light areas turn to dark and vica versa. At certain angles, some figure will seem to completely disappear. Because of this, even a perfectly bookmatched top will not appear to be perfectly bookmatched in different places. Change the angle and those places may now appear bookmatched, while the areas that previously looked bookmatched don't anymore. Bookmatched figure (to a large degree) will often look as though it doesn't match up (at least in parts) because depending on the angle of viewing and the light, the figure will appear to change.

This effect does not occur with Foto-flame, because there you're not looking at actual wood fibers that can reflect or absorb light. Since it's just a photographic film representation of real wood figure, the "figure" will look exactly the same at any angle or direction.

If you took a photo of a bookmatched, figured top (flame, quilt, whatever) you will have captured it as it looks from that specific camera angle in that specific light. It can't change after that, but if you changed the angle or location of the camera, you'd see a different pattern. The Fender Foto-flame demonstrates this, and while they could have matched it up after the fact, it would look to most people to be very fake. What looks more realsitic, compared to actual flamed bodies, the top or the bottom?



While the aesthetics are debatable, the bottom body represents what you'd expect to see in an actual bookmatched flamed body from a given angle. The top body, with its perfect alignment, looks very phony. Neither looks very good to me, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, I would bet that the PRS shown is almost certainly bookmatched, and a photo from a different angle would reveal this. Off hand, I can't recall seeing a single highly figured guitar that wasn't bookmatched, whether veneered or solid. (I have owned more than a few examples.) The figure would look awfully odd if it wasn't.

The Foto-flame on the Orville shown is most definitely meant to appear bookmatched. Look at the figure on either side of the bridge and just below. Overall, it's what you'd expect to see on an actual figured wood top, where depending on the light, not everything appears to match. Problem is, it will never change; it will look that way from every angle. (And also look like every other Foto-flame Orville that uses the same film.) Fender only uses a very few different films too, on both teles and strats, so there's a lot of Foto-flame guitars that have identical "figure."

[JohnS]

Wasn't there a recent thread about the photo flame layer lifting up off the body on a bunch of MIJ Teles?

[GuitarJonz]

Its all this guy's fault...hold onto your burgers




*