Squier CV Telecaster ‘Nashville Summers’
Since I bought this guitar for £250 S/H it has experienced a few changes. The first of which was turning it into somewhat of a replica of Kurt Cobain’s final favourite guitar, his sunburst ‘62 telecaster custom with a 6-saddle humbucker bridge, open coil black humbucker and covered neck humbucker in the neck position. However, since then I have installed a Fender ‘Tex-Mex’ strat pickup in the middle position, changed the 3-way switch out for a 5-way ‘superswitch’ to allow for the ‘nashville’ wiring configuration and a mini switch to allow the humbucker to be split. However, I recently decided to change the neck for a Squier CV 50s one, which makes the guitar sound far more percussive and bright for country/funk tones. I like to play country and lots of Prince tones on this guitar, and the 5-way switch provides a lot of flexibility.Â
I have changed the Gotoh 6-saddle humbucker bridge for the standard single coil version. The current bridge pickup is a Bare Knuckle ‘Yardbird’, which has a little bit of extra grunt to it, but still provides the classic tele sound. Since there is no longer a humbucker in the bridge position, I have wired the split switch to the Seymour Duncan ‘Pearly Gates’ in the neck position. Being a fairly vintage/low-output humbucker, the split does not make too much of a difference. However, it does it make it less muddy, which is useful for when you want a clearer tone for funk/country, and for the neck and middle position.Â
One last point to mention is that the black tape on the top of the body is covering the gaps below the bridge. After changing the humbucker bridge to a standard one, it became apparent that the standard is smaller and exposed the gaps below. I don’t think it makes any significant difference to the tone and being a relatively cheap guitar, I won’t bother repairing it.Â
