riffklaw's Reviews

excellent playing guitar with a multitude of tones achievable for a very reasonable price

The tribute series is G&L's more affordable line of instruments. These are not american made, but made in Indonesia (by Cort as far as I know). But the tribute series still features the american made PUs that G&L is famous for. In this ASAT version the PUs are Leo Fenders excellent Magnetic Field Design (MFD) pickups. They offer more power than regular single coils with much less noise. Their unique feature is, that you can adjust every single polepiece, which was formerly impossible on single coil PUs. This enables you to adjust the loudness of every single string, which makes this axe extremely versatile. If you desire a midboost, just raise the polepieces of the two middle strings and so on... You guess the idea... The paintjob on mine was flawless. Intonation was good. The neck is set flush in the pocket and the fretwork is good, but not excellent. No sharp edges, but I guess an american made G&L should show some better fret polishing. The potis run smoothly and the tuners keep the tuning well. The string-through-body-bridge, which sports adjustable barrel-style brass riders for every string, delivers great sustain. The maple neck is glossy painted but does not slow movement like I experienced with other painted necks on other guitars. I didn't measure the weight but it feels rather lightweight to me. My Slick SL50 is a good chunk heavier...

Although the ASATs are Leo Fenders last take-on on the Telecaster, the sound out of the box is not as icepicky as we are used from a typical Telly. It's a bit more rounded. If that is good or bad for you, you have to decide on your own... I'm pretty shure, one can get a good bit more icepick by some adjustments like raising the right strings and playing with the volume knob. To my understanding the G&Ls are made for possibilities, for experimenting, for giving you lots of options on your quest for your personal tone.

For the ones who are too lazy to google, I post here the features like given on the manufacturers website (https://glguitars.com/product/asat-classic-tribute-series/)

CONSTRUCTION: bolt-on SCALE: 25 1/2" PICKUPS: Leo Fender†-designed G&L MFD™ single coils made in Fullerton, California BODY WOOD: Swamp Ash on translucent and burst finishes, Basswood on solid finishes NECK WOOD: Hard-Rock Maple with Maple fingerboard NECK WIDTH AT NUT: 1 5/8" NECK RADIUS: 9 1/2" NECK PROFILE: medium C FRETS: 22 medium jumbo, nickel TUNING KEYS: 18:1 ratio, sealed-back BRIDGE: traditional boxed-steel bridge with individual brass saddles CONTROLS: 3-position pickup selector, volume, tone