Fender Acoustasonic Tele
Look closely.
See that? That’s a rosewood bridge with an acoustic saddle on there. But it looks like a Tele bridge. If you’re going to make a hybrid-type guitar from a Tele, that’s a nice touch.
And that’s what this is. The Acoustasonic Tele is fitted with a Fishman Aurasystem to allow realistic, acoustic tones from a Tele. It’s also got a regular, magnetic neck pickup to give more traditional (electric) Tele sounds.
Cool, eh?
The magnetic pickup is a Custom Shop Twisted Tele single-coil. Its controls are on the front plate as per usual – a volume and tone. The acoustic sounds are controlled from the side-mounted preamp. The body is semi-hollow (ash with a spruce centre-block) but otherwise the fare is standard Tele.
Round the back are some extra gubbins for the Fishman system, including a battery compartment for the 18V power supply that that’s required.
The Acoustasonic Tele is available in Olympic White (as shown) or as a three-colour sunburst. Both come with a tortie pickguard. RRP is currently US $1250.
Premier Guitar published this video demonstration on YouTube. I hope they don’t mind my embedding here.