Late 2011 or early 2012 model, in excellent condition, only used in church. Upgraded with TUSQ saddle. Professionally set up at Greg Ginter’s Guitar Shop in Madison, WI. Includes original stereo Y-cord to separate Acoustic and Electric signals, 2 owner’s manuals and locking hardshell case.

Brand: Fender

Model: Acoustasonic Telecaster

Finish: 3-Color Sunburst, polyester gloss finish

Body Material: Chambered Ash with Spruce top and center block

Body Type: Semi-Hollow Body

Bridge/Tailpiece: Rosewood, String-Through

Fretboard: Rosewood

Neck: Bolt-On, modern “C” shape, 25.5” scale, 12” radius

Neck Material: Maple, satin urethane finish

Number of Frets: 21, medium jumbo

Pickups: Twisted Tele magnetic neck pickup, Fishman piezo acoustic bridge pickup with Aura preamp

Overview

The Fender Acoustasonic Tele, quite frankly, has a ton going for it. First, the acoustic tones are all usable and sound great. Each has its own unique strength, making the Acoustasonic Tele a fantastic choice for the studio pro or the touring musician. Second, the ability to expand your musical possibilities with the blending options makes it a blast to play. It’s a difficult task to meld the electric and acoustic worlds, but Fender has found a great balance with this guitar. Designed to emulate the full sound of an acoustic with the playability of an electric, the Acoustasonic Telecaster combines a Fishman Piezo pickup and chambered body along with the design of a Telecaster.

Review from PREMIERGuitar magazine, 2010:

The Acoustasonic Tele produces solid electric, acoustic, and mixed tones for the gigging musician. The Acoustasonic combines several acoustic and electric traits, with the intent of delivering convincing acoustic and electric tones that you can use either individually or together.

Fender has chambered the body and inserted a center block made of spruce, which lightens the load. Spruce is, of course, perhaps the preeminent tonewood for acoustic guitar tops. It’s rather lightweight and has powerful projection qualities. The sunburst-finished body is topped with a rosewood bridge shaped roughly like a Tele’s standard bridge assembly. Taking sustain issues into consideration, Fender designed the body and bridge combination to take advantage of a string-through setup. The 21-fret maple neck has a modern C shape and is capped with a rosewood fretboard that has a nice, deep hue.

A Fishman undersaddle piezo pickup is embedded underneath the compensated plastic saddle (has been upgraded to TUSQ), and it’s controlled by a Fishman Aura preamp. Like a standard acoustic-electric, the preamp controls—Volume and Tone knobs and a four-way Image switch—are conveniently located on the upper bout. The Image switch allows you to select between four digital emulations of popular acoustic sounds: dark folk, bright folk, dreadnought, and jumbo.

The guitar’s top features a three-position selector, a master volume knob, and a concentric knob that controls the magnetic neck pickup’s tone and volume. In its leftmost position, the selector switch activates the neck pickup only, in its rightmost position it activates the piezo and Aura preamp, and in the middle it’s both. The battery compartment around back has a small DIP switch to flip between mono and stereo output, which means you can use a standard cable to route acoustic and electric tones through one amp, or use the included Y-cable to send the Aura tones to an acoustic amp (or a PA) and the neck pickup tones to a dedicated electric amp.

Traditional Tele neck-pickup tones can be found by flipping to the neck pickup, which is a Fender Twisted Tele model. The Twisted Tele is a fantastic pickup. It can feel a little strange if you’re used to the subdued tones of some traditional Tele neck pickups. It’s extremely usable and versatile, and its output blends nicely with the piezo to yield a fantastic, three-dimensional tone. 

The concentric volume-and-tone knob is a really great feature, because it allows you to mix in just the right amount of electric guitar tone with the acoustic sound when you’re using both.

The magnetic pickup frequencies never fought the piezos, they always seemed to complement them—and extremely well, I might add. The voicing that Fender and Fishman engineered is exemplary, with a near perfect balance.

4/5 picks rating