Quick Look : Fender Acoustasonic Telecaster
Fender announced the Acoustasonic late in 2018 I think but I only saw one in real life for the first time about a month ago. The concept is very interesting. It’s an acoustic body with a soundhole, although very shallow, that also has a Telecaster style pickup near a definitely acoustic bridge setup. There’s a volume control, a mod control and a 5 position switch. At first glance it appears a bit confused about what it is, but what it is pretty darn agile.The guitar, according to the folks at Anderton’s Music in the UK was designed by the same fellow who designed the T5 series while at Taylor. Where the T5 was an electric working at being an acoustic, the Acoustasonic is an acoustic working at being an electric. In my view anyway. The header image which is courtesy of Fender’s website, shows four of the variants and goes out of its way to make the point the the Acoustasonic is built in Fender’s California factory. That should mean superior quality, although I have never found an issue with any Fender product out of either the Mexico or outsourced Japan build locations. Being built in America does guarantee one thing, and that is a rather high price tag, relatively speaking.The body shape is very Telecaster like, made from mahogany, but with a hollow interior that is visible via the sound hole. The sound hole is not merely a hole in the top but is interestingly sculpted into a funnel. The neck is a bolt on, and plays like a Telecaster and has the classic Tele headstock. The top of the guitar is Lutz spruce. There are three pickups. The first is a Fender Noiseless at the bridge, the second is a body sensing pickup to gather percussive rhythms as well as provide some ambience, and perhaps most innovative is the Fishman system. When I first played it, I noticed immediately that it was strung with acoustic strings, being Fender Dura-Tone 860CL strings 11-52s. They were a bit sticky, but that happens in guitar stores. A bit of Dunlop string cleaner and a wipe down would make a difference. The fingerboard is highly figured ebony, and I’m going to guess it;’s Macassar ebony because of the range of colouration in it. As I always do with any guitar, I played it completely acoustically for the first while. For me, a guitar has to have a really nice acoustic tone before considering pickups. Over forty years I have not been disappointed by using this method. What surprised me was the powerful acoustic voice that the guitar delivered. The thin body does not allow for the build of booming bass, but also does not create any tinniness in the high end. On its own, it’s really impressive and it is also incredibly lightweight. You could use this easily unamplified as a campfire guitar. Fender calls the design SIRS which stands for Stringed Instrument Resonant System. Whatever they call it, it works quite nicely.The body is not precisely that of a Telecaster but is close. It differs in the chamfered upper rear bout which improves comfort and playability. The neck mount is relieved for easier access to the upper frets. The bridge is ebony with a Tusq saddle as are the bridge pins. The nut is Graph-Tech Tusq. The truss rod is a two way unit. The body finish is urethane.The neck shape is a deep C neck profile, very much like you would find on a common Telecaster neck and has a 12 inch radius. My Teles all have V necks so this is a bit different for me. The satin finish is nice, but I would want to polish it up, and maybe even add some hard wax as I found the sample a bit sticky. I was not fond of the stock strings, but as we all know, string choice is a very personal thing. If it were mine I would likely swap these out for some type of coated acoustic string.Don’t be expecting the sound of a “true” acoustic guitar. Sound needs space and the thin body does a great job but can only do so much. I played this side by side in an acoustic room at The Arts Music Store in Newmarket Ontario with a Boucher OM series acoustic. Both had mahogany bodies ands spruce tops. The Boucher was magical but only in direct comparison did the Acoustasonic come across as wanting. I should note that while I think the Acoustasonic is overpriced at about $2600 CAD, it was still over $1000 less than the Boucher. All things are relative.
I then plugged the Acoustasonic into one of Fender’s own Acoustasonic amplifiers. Here’s where some work needs to be done. The Acoustasonic needs a well-trained sales professional to take prospective buyers through its capabilities. It’s ability to have many voices when amplified reminds me very much of the Fishman Aura that I have in my acoustics rig. There is a lot in the guitar that is not immediately evident. I had to go online to really understand the capabilities and the video by Fender’s John Dreyer is a good start, but I also recommend the episode of Anderton’s TV featuring Lee and Danish Pete.Fender calls the five position blade switch the voice selector. Each switch position can have two distinct voices controlled by the Mod knob, where one would normally find a tone control. The combination of the voice selector and mod knob is what makes me think of the Fishman Aura unit. The Mod knob offers an A and B voice and as you sweep from one end to the other, you mix the two voices. This is not click stop movements, it’s very smooth so you have great fine control for the room and the amp.Position 5A emulates a dreadnought body with rosewood back and sides and sitka spruce top. Rolling into position 5B changes the body emulation to an Auditorium sized body and Alpine spruce top. While the Acoustasonic is really good purely acoustically, this is when you start to get the sense of what this guitar brings to the table.Position 4A takes us to a small body emulation having maple back and side with an Engelmann spruce top. In my opinion, it is very accurate. Moving to position 4B we move to a dreadnought body with mahogany back and sides and a sitka spruce top, again very accurate in my opinion.Position 3A is a dreadnought shape but this time with a Brazilian rosewood sides and back and sitka spruce top. Guitar nerds will say that Braz rosewood does sound different from Indian rosewood and I would agree. My D-28 is an old model made with brazilian rosewood and this emulation comes pretty close to it. Position 3B invokes the body sensor pickup so while the guitar emulation does not change, it now picks up your percussive touches on the body and definitely enhances harmonic overtones in a very pleasing way. In my opinion, if I were going for the sound of the braz rosewood, I would probably live in selection 3B just for those overtones.Position 2A is a mic’d up mahogany dreadnought with sitka spruce top. Rolling to 2B invokes the bridge pickup for an electric tonality. Choice of amp will vary here.Position 1A is a classic Tele sound and for this you will likely prefer an electric guitar amp. Position 1B is the fat Tele sound. The Dreyer video uses a lot of Fender branded effects here and I think we lose the real sense of the capability with the effects overplayed. I found this position, into an electric amp, (the excellent Fender Pro Junior) to sound very processed and I did not care for it myself.It’s all these variants that I think requires a decent sales presentation in your music store. You won’t get this information easily at an online store, and unless you know the instrument already, an online buy could be a challenge for you.There is only one output jack on the guitar, so if you will want to be able to do amp switching, I will recommend a decent ABY switching pedal to be part of your kit. Fender makes one, as one would expect. I use a Radial Bigshot ABY unit and find it to be consistently excellent. Fender’s Dreyer points out that if you do not have an acoustic amp, you can run the guitar directly into your PA rather than getting an acoustic amp and miking it up. I did not try this, but if I get an Acoustasonic for an offsite test, I will definitely do that with my Passport 500.So was there anything that I did not like? I still think it is overpriced. It needs to drop below $2000 CAD to really get a fire under it. I would like to see a bit more attention to the finish on the back of the neck. I would also like to see a gloss option on the body as well as an option to get the guitar without the printed paper top layer. It feels cheap and looks cheap in real life. Colour is a personal decision but that snot green makes my teeth hurt. The sunburst is decent on screen but the sample that I saw live looked like one of those Gibson sunbursts from the early seventies where the sprayers worked blindfolded, it’s really heavy handed. In terms of getting information about the guitar, Fender’s website is terrible. Other than some pictures and a link to a single video, there’s nothing of consequence there. Perhaps they believe that there is margin in mystery, but it bugs me regardless.I don’t think this is an every person’s guitar. My opinion, despite its work to be so many things is that the buyer is going to be a narrow vertical market. The price will encourage this. I am also disappointed that despite pricing it the same as their top line factory guitars, this guitar only comes with a gig bag* and not a proper hardshell case. Like the finish, it feels to me like they ran out of money about 85% of the way through the project and started skimping. I liked the guitar, although not enough to consider adding one to my collection. I wish Fender good fortune with it, because it is a step away from just doing the same things that they have always done. I also want to thank The Arts Music Store team for their patience while I did my research and test playing.*please see my long review published in September 2019 for clarification of this