Fender American Ultra Telecaster

Experience the American Ultra

Since the day Leo Fender snipped the word "Broadcaster" off the Fender headstock logo and shipped his first Nocaster out the door in 1951, Fender has made instruments that work beautifully as tools for the working musician. Perhaps no instrument better exemplifies Fender's working-man ethos than the Telecaster, a stripped-down, no-frills design that has endured for almost six decades. The secret to its staying power is its versatility, its playability, and its simplicity; after all, you don't have to fiddle with too many knobs to get a great sound out of a Tele!

Now, Fender has introduced an updated American Telecaster that showcases all the things that made the Tele great in the first place while providing discerning modern guitarists with player-friendly appointments that enhance the music-making experience considerably. Wildwoodians, we are proud to introduce the American Ultra Telecaster.

Style and Grace

The American Ultra Telecaster is a workhorse that will get the job done in style. Fender has decked these guitars out in a variety of brand-new finishes sure to induce much drooling, and they have also contoured the body to optimize the player's comfort. When you pick one of these terrific Teles up, it feels like you're playing the six-string equivalent of a souped-up Corvette because of its sleek lines and superior ergonomics.

Supreme Speed and Comfort

Speaking of speed and comfort, let's talk about the fretboard, which has a compound 10"-14" radius and 22 medium jumbo frets. The compound radius maximizes each section of the neck for pitch-perfect playability. By the first fret, the fingerboard is flat enough that you can still bend strings easily but rounded enough to allow fluid chording. Around the twelfth fret, the radius becomes much flatter, which makes bending strings a breeze. Wailing Gilmour-esque lines and screaming pedal steel licks suddenly become much easier!

The medium-jumbo frets also do a lot of heavy lifting to improve playability. Their height allows you to bend easily, but you can still feel the wood with your fingers and get a tactile connection to the instrument.

Of course, we have to talk about how comfortable the neck is beneath that fingerboard! Fender has outfitted these guitars with a Modern D-shaped profile, and it is a marvelous example of a slim, fast-playing neck. If you like to keep your thumb closer to the center of the neck, this profile gives you a nice rounded back to anchor on. But, if you like to hang your thumb over, the shoulders of the "D" give you plenty of leverage to bend easily. If you switch back and forth between the two techniques, congratulations--this neck will feel especially buttery to you.

As a result of these enhanced ergonomic features, the American Ultra Telecaster has wonderful handfeel that will suit just about any style of play.

Quiet In Between the Loud Moments

For the longest time, guitar players have waged a war with noise. The original pickups in iconic guitars from the sixties and seventies sounded great and had tons of vibe, but they squealed and made horrible noises in between blasts of loudness. In the eighties and nineties, manufacturers developed noiseless pickups that solved the problem while creating another: the new quiet pickups lacked that "it" factor. So, you could get modern precision, but you had to sacrifice a little bit of mojo.

Now, you no longer have to choose. Our friends at Fender have developed a delectable new set of pickups for the American Ultra series, the aptly-named Ultra Noiseless Single-Coil. These sweet-sounding single-coils have a three-dimensional, dynamic voice that sounds true to the classic sounds of yesteryear. The moment you stop, a Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation occurs and they become quiet as a church mouse. They stay quiet in between the loud moments, and the loud moments sound glorious.

Tele Tone to the Nth Degree

In particular, the Tele pickups are quite well-rounded, and their sound suits just about every genre. The bridge pickup has robust, touch-sensitive midrange that punches with more focus the more you dig in with your right hand. Its low-end response is tight with just the right amount of spaghetti-western twang, and its high-end is lush with sparkly overtones. It's a great rhythm sound, and it cuts right through the mix when you take a solo or lead.

By contrast, the neck pickup is much throatier and smoother. The highs are open yet transparent, the midrange is broad and sonorous, and the lows are warm and deep. For both mellow clean rhythms and distorted thick riffage, it works wonderfully because of its evenness, clarity, and fullness. It also has a vocal quality sure to inspire many expressive, soulful solos.

As an added bonus, you can use the S1 switch on the tone knob to toggle the middle position between series and parallel. In series, the middle position sounds full-bodied, and it has a bit of extra heat. In parallel, it sounds spankier and quackier with a bit less output. Having both of these tones on tap makes the American Ultra Telecaster quite a versatile beast!

Leo Would Be Proud

As you can see, the American Ultra Tele is a versatile, supremely playable, incredibly easy-to-use guitar. It's quite stylish, comfortable to play, it works well in a wide variety of genres, and it offers all of this at an incredible value. In other words, its aim is no different than those original Telecasters and Nocasters from '51: to be a working musician's tool that looks cool, sounds great, and plays easily. Though the American Ultra uses modern technology to achieve that goal, it still carries the spirit of a vintage Fender. We're proud to present the American Ultra Telecaster, and we're sure it will inspire you to make all sorts of joyous noise.