Fender American Performer Telecaster Hum - Satin Surf Green with Rosewood Fingerboard Reviews

Great telecaster, neck is nice and smooth, push pull pot for the humbucker

love my fender its up there in tone and well my es355 gibson and flyin v from sweetwater are just what the funkmaster needed..hey playin wipeout is so hot with my nemesis delay system also from sweetwater just makes my day as telea marketers call my home //// watin 4 my other fender hollow body 2 come n THAKS 2 DERICK pepole ya don?t have ta wait a yr. for ure guitars just call DERICK at sweetwater n 2 days JUST 2 days O yes it will be at your door mercy thank u all so much/////

I like having the S/H combo...and with the coil splitting, it offers some very nice combinations! The Rosewood fingerboard is beautiful! As always, James Wroblewski was most helpful!! Couldn't do this without him!!!

This guitar fits like a glove. I love the shape of the neck and the satin finish on the back. I wasn't too sure about the Humbucker in the neck but now that I've had some time to play with it I made the right choice. When you split it you get the single coil tone you've come to expect from a Tele. Great guitar!

Great guitar, exactly what I was looking for. Very good quality.

These American Performer guitars are the best Telecasters on the planet! Everything about them is so good! The satin finish and feel of the neck is awesome. The pickups sound so well balanced, no bad sounds, even the bridge is so full and rich. The Holy Grail of true single coil Tele pickups! No ice pick tones with these babies! The vintage style tuners with the ratio upgrade are amazing - coolest tuners for a Tele ever. They are the best Telecaster Fender has ever made in my opinion for a standard series, not including custom shop.(I've never had a custom shop, too rich for my blood, but with this guitar I don't even care) I've been waiting for this Telecaster my whole life! Fender freaking nailed it on this one! All the way around amazing instrument. The price is a steal! If you are a Tele fanatic you will love these!

Very nice instrument at a great price. However I had to send the first one back because of strong microphonic noise from the humbucker. The second guitar I received came with the humbucker adjustment screws completely detached on the upper bout side. So much for the 55 point inspection! Draw your own conclusion on that one. The second guitar is also is microphonic (defective) so I guess Fender has an issue with "potting" the pickups or it's just the nature of the beast. I didn't bother to send the second one back and will just have to deal with the "clicking" issue caused by the pick hitting the pickup - then being amplified through my Deluxe. Overall great instrument though - very nice sound with coil tapping -beautiful.

Sweetwater was great in the return/swap but I really am concerned that the "55 point" inspection may be a lot of hype. Sure didn't work in this case. They tried to say the pickup screws just fell out during shipping. Any player of any experience will know that is extremely unlikely if set up with proper tension on the springs and the height set at a specified position before going out.

I've had my American Performer since January. Its a fantastic playing guitar that has a killer satin surf green finish. I was originally drawn to the finish, but now it has become my main telecaster for all things Rock, Alternative, and Blues. The satin surf green finish and three-saddle bridge give it that modern vintage vibe, the neck feels smooth and plays amazing, and I find the Yosemite Bridge Pickup covers my tonal needs for most scenarios. Always like to own gear for a while before hitting the review page. I'm still grabbing this guitar first for gigs.

Now the not-so-good.... Like other reviewers, I've had some pretty serious squeals out of that neck pickup. Like serious eardrum splitting old-school, non-potted single coil microphonic squeals. You would think that a neck humbucker would have zero squeal, but if you add a little gain and/or volume and you'd swear someone stuffed a single coil underneath that nickel humbucker cover!! It will light your ears up if you aren't prepared. That being said the clean tones from the pickup are cool, and as long as you aren't trying to push it hard you'll have no squealing banshee to control. Rolling the tone control off helps some, but whew..... Not sure how Fender dropped the ball on this one, because if they had caught that pickup issue and fixed it before production, this would be a five-star Tele hands down.

And this $1000 guitar ships with a gig bag. If you're gonna be gigging regularly, I'd highly suggest a hard shell case.

It's still a great sounding, great playing Telecaster. And great service from Sweetwater as always.

To start, I just want to say that this guitar is a very well made and great playing guitar. Out of the box it was already set up pretty well and stayed in tune fantastically. It was when I plugged in that I had a few issues...first I start with he personal preference issues. I was not a big fan of the 3 piece bridge, but I had already bought a hipshot modern to replace it, so that won"t factor into the score. The bridge pickup sounded "fine" but a bit dark and not super inspiring to me. Just a minor gripe. Here is where I will detail my big issue...the neck humbucker squealed like crazy on mine with any sort of gain that mid to slightly high. I mean it was unusable in my band settings and it was quite muddy sounding IMO. I have some fender unpotted pickups that don"t squeal near as bad as these. I didn"t feel like making a fuss, so I replaced them and all problems have been fixed. Maybe mine was an isolated incident, but if that"s how the neck humbucker really is, it"s not useable for anything beyond clean and low gain.