Why All The Love/Hate For The Nashville Deluxe Tele?

Tele guy Cons:
– The Nashville pickup physically gets in the way.
– The control cavity is a bit cramped to accommodate all the wiring and pots needed to take best advantage of said pickup.
– The added pickup, and it's wiring options, add complexity, and jeopardize the simple elegance we know and love.


Tele guy Pros:
– It's the quack, stupid. Middle, in parallel with neck or bridge, is a fantastic sound that is normally found ONLY on a Strat. There may only be two pickups involved, but they must be placed closer together than your normal two-pickup guitar, to get those sounds.


Strat guy Cons:
– Tele neck pickup is no Strat pickup.
– Hardcore Strat guy may not be a fan of the Tele bridge and bridge pickup.
– No trem (though many users deck or block it)
– No third pot (though many complain that the Volume pot is too close, or the two-tones-for-three-pickups is confusing)
– No contour body

Strat guy Pros:
– Often overlooked, but you can change wiring all day long without touching the pickguard, or the strings.


As a Tele player, my love/hate revolves around quack/complexity. My recent build wound up with 10 separate sounds, plus bass and treble cuts. I've got OC Duff pickups in it (Buckaroo Teles, and Fillmore middle, quacky as all get out). 7.25" radius, all vintage spec, with the fattest V neck I've ever seen, and a total weight just over 6.5 lbs.

 

Every guitar out there will find some people, somewhere, to hate them.

I like the Nashville and the middle pickup hasn't ever gotten in my way. Versatile tone machine. I wired it to include neck & bridge pickups combined.

Of course I've also installed some of my favorite options for pickups.
-Cavalier Wolf,
-Fender CS Fat '50s Strat,
-Bootstrap Palo Duro bridge


BUT, my favorite 3-pickup Tele is the Fender CS-designed Triple Tele.


I've stocked this one with
-Cavalier Bakersfield bridge pickup at the neck,
-Cavalier 50/51 bridge pickup in the middle,
-Fender CS Nocaster bridge pickup at the bridge.

It's also wired to offer a position for neck & bridge pickups combined. I love the tones!

Plus, the neck I put on this Triple Tele is a, drumroll..... Fender Nashville Deluxe Rosewood neck!

 

1. The middle pickup is something that gets in the way for some folks - that's a major reason why some people hate strats, and they might never even know it.
2. The default nashville switching leaves out neck + bridge which is where a lot of folks live. It's my favorite pos at the mo.
3. 5 positions on a single switch can be hard to keep straight / use on the fly, on the stage, while one is singing and rocking out. 3 positions, MV MT has a practical advantage.
4. Do you really like that "quack tone"? Meh. In certain kinds of bands, sure, or if you are covering some specific songs ok. But overall it's a terrible tone that we've all convinced ourselves is amazing for some reason. There are other ways to cancel hum that are not thin and hollowed out - again that's a great sound in some settings, but it's not a fundamentally needed tone. And you can approximate it with a pedal if you need to.
5. You don't really need "versatility" in guitar pickups - it's kind of a sham. Real versatility is in the player.

 

It's amazing what a variety of tones you can create just with your fingers and how you hold and use a pick - and in concert with different combinations of pickups.

 

Yes!

 

I count Tim and Harry as friends. And, they do great work!

I initially had them make the body and neck, and I was going to assemble. I got all of the parts, then had to go on the road for work. After it sat dormant for a couple of years, I took everything back to them and had them assemble the parts they made and the parts I got, and made that. Roasted maple neck with a ting oil finish. Incredibly smooth.

 

I really like that!

 

Naturally, there isn't one general consensus to explain either the love or the hate or the both. Personally, I don't get the idea of hating any guitar. I mean, really? Yeah, we speak figuratively, and I do enjoy passionate approaches. But I've been playing all kinds of guitars for too long and have seen people do wonderful things with all kinds of guitars, I just don't feel hate at all, even for goofy stuff. Just me, I guess.

I had Nashville Deluxe for awhile. Kinda liked it, but can't say I was overwhelmed one way or another. I prefer to be overwhelmed with joy. yeah. Anyway, I had recently joined a house band with a weekly gig and I thought the versatility would come in handy. It sort of did.

I left it stock, and just wasn't excited about any one thing. Traded it off. I can't say I miss it. I have a strat that I enjoy (with Tex Mex pickups) and a James Burton Standard that I love (with Texas specials...is there a theme here...) Guy Clark wrote a song about stuff that works. This approach to a tele didn't work for me, but I can see how others have figured out a way. That's what makes the world go around, right?

Got one crappy cell phone photo of the old Nash Deluxe. Hope someone is enjoying it.

 

I'll throw my hat the ring on the love side. I dont own a Nashville but I can still sorta relate. Even my next strat build fuses tele and strat pups. Middle pickups dont bother me.

 

Because it doesn't look like this.

 

I've got one of these and I love it!

 

True. These days I just say I don’t bond with a specific guitar, amp, pedal or whatever. Particularly since there are a LOT of people out there WAY more talented than me that get amazing sounds out of guitars that I just don’t play well. And in the case of the PRS John Mayer Silver Sky, for example, I love the sounds I get, I cant quite get over the headstock/body combination (yes, yes it is a personal issue...LOL).

 

I’ll jump in. I have one and love it. For the style of music I play I need both a Strat and a Tele. I’m mainly a Tele fan, so for me this works perfectly. I never had an issue with the middle pup getting in the way of my playing, so I can’t comment there. I did however have an issue not having the Neck/ Bridge option on the selector but that was an easy fix with a 7 way switch. I also hate switching guitars in the middle of a show and this solved that for me. I did have problems with the Strat on the volume knob getting in the way of my playing. For me this is a perfect guitar!

 

Do you need everyone to love what you love?

I have 1 Strat. It came with a 5 way switch. Now that it has a 3 way switch I’ll actually use it sometimes.

 

7 way switching, or an actual switch? Rotary, or what? I can't say I've seen many 7-ways, though there are plenty of ways to get there with a second switch.

 

Sorry, Fender Super Switch. Lack of coffee at the time. Lol

 

Cool. With that, and sometimes an S1 or mini-toggle, the options are vast.


When I was going through the wiring options for my Nashville build, I was surprised at two things I found.

Many versions don't offer Neck/Bridge in parallel. WTF. I'd have thought that would be a given.

Also, 99% of wiring schemes don't offer the middle pickup alone. I get it, many people just use it to blend, but I do play middle on my Strat sometimes, and depending on the pickup, it can be quite nice.

The simplest, though most Strat-oriented, wiring seems to be the 7-sound, which uses a regular Strat switch, not super switch, and either a blend pot or toggle / push-pull. With a switch, it can be wired as either bridge-on, or neck-on (same difference, ultimately), and with a pot, it's possible to blend a bit of neck into the others, or a bit of bridge, all with the one extra pot, and one wire.

Either of those give all three singles (so I get my middle pickup alone), plus all three parallel options (including the Tele-centric N+B), and all three pickups in series, which can be very nice.

One thing I noticed, compared to a Strat, position 4 (N+M) isn't as 'soft' sounding with the master tone, because usually there are two pots (resistors) loading the pickups on a Strat. I've noticed it before on my master vol, master tone Strats, but for some reason it really struck me as I was listening to the Nashville. Perhaps the Tele neck pickup vs Strat made me miss the loading more. So, in my latest scheme, which has a super switch to get all three series options in addition to the aforementioned 7 sounds, I've added a 250k resistor to the N+M parallel position. Sounds Strattier than my Strats!

 

Thanks to this thread, I've been spending some time playing my Nashville. Very much enjoying the tones!

 

If you play out, a Nashville has a very handy Swiss Army Knife versatility. A lot of Fender ground covered , sonically, in one guitar, plus you can hum-buck if noise is bad.

 

They look similar to the Nashville B-Bender one.