In the 50 years since their big, chrome covers first reflected a hot stage light, Fender’s Seth Lover-designed Wide Range humbuckers have gone from maligned to revered. The guitars built around Wide Range pickups are legends in their own right, too. Keith Richards’ Telecaster Custom is synonymous with the Stones dynamic and adventurous late-70s-to-early-80s period. Scores of punk and indie guitarists made the Telecaster Deluxe a fixture of those scenes. And Jonny Greenwood almost singlehandedly elevated the Starcaster from a curiosity to an object of collector lust. The fourth member of the Wide Range-based guitar family, the ’72 Telecaster Thinline, lived a comparatively low-profile life. Yet it is a practical, streamlined, uniquely stylish, and multifaceted instrument with a truly original voice—qualities that are plain to see, feel, and hear in this new American Vintage II incarnation. Though the ’72 Thinline re-issue has been a fixture in Fender and Squier lines for years, the pickups in those guitars were mere visual approximations of the Wide Range pickups that made the originals so distinct. But thanks to the introduction of Fender’s new CuNiFe magnet-based Wide Range pickups, the new American Vintage II ’72 Telecaster Thinline now exists in the most vintage-correct guise since the original—right down to the Lover-style Wide Range units, 1 meg potentiometers, and a 7.25" fretboard radius. It’s a lively, exciting, and rich-sounding instrument that spans Fender and Gibson textures while inhabiting a tone world all its own. The Verdict
In terms of function, sound, and style, time is proving kind to the ’72 Telecaster Thinline. And in this American Vintage II incarnation, the improvements to the Wide Range pickup make the Thinline a very real, appealing, and individual alternative to Gibsons and more canonical Fender sounds as well. Idiosyncrasies specific to the Wide Range pickups and 1meg potentiometer configuration won’t be for everyone. The guitar can sound pretty bright. And I suspect players that just want PAF sounds from a Telecaster will have the same complaints they’ve always had. But for any player that loves the feel of a vintage Fender but is interested in a more distinct, individual palette of sounds, the ’72 Telecaster Thinline is a sweet-playing delight
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