In this post, you can find additional info on my ‘Fender Vintera 50s Telecaster Modified: Better than the American Vintage 52?’ video.
In the video, I am comparing Fender’s Vintera 50s Telecaster Modified with the American Vintage 52. I am playing through a Career AF Tube Amp by Felleretta using my Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner, a Fulltone OCD Overdrive V1, the Tube Screamer and Compressor of the Ibanez UE 300 Multi-Effects, and an Elektron Analog Drive
Special thanks to @johnnymchone who let us use his flying birds cartoon.
The Guitars: Vintera 50s vs AV 52
- Fender Vintera 50s Telecaster Modified (2019)
Retrofitted with compensated saddles and a bone nut - Fender American Vintage 52 Telecaster (2014)
Fender American Vintage 52 Telecaster 
Fender Vintera 50s Telecaster Modified 
Thick soft V (Vintera, left) vs U Shape Maple (AV 52, right)
The Pedals: OCD, UE 300, and Analog Drive
The Amp: Career AF by Felleretta
The Career AF tube amp by Felleretta
To find the right amp for this video I did a small amp shootout. I compared the Career Felleretta AF to a Marshall 2525C Mini Jubilee Combo, a 1977 Fender Silverface Princeton non-reverb and a Roland JC40. In the end I decided to go with the Career Felleretta AF. I have uploaded the audio of this comparison to Souncloud:
The Mics and Mic Pre(s)
Fender Vintera Video Mixdown
The mixdown of the audio was done using Logic Pro X. In the previous video, we had problems syncing the audio of my narrative with the image and had to resort to using the cam audio. This time around this wasn’t an issue, the audio quality is way better due to the U87ai microphone. I did some EQing with the FabFilter Q2 and let the Izotope Nectar 2 handle the dynamics.
The Career Felleretta Amp was miced up with a Shure SM 57, and I used the U87ai, which was set up to capture my narrative, as an ambient mic. I summed the two signals together through the UAD Neve 1073 plugin where I pushed the line amp by 5 dB. In addition to that, I did a bit of level adjustment on a region level in Logic.
On the master bus, I used the Fabfilter Pro L2, which I pretty much left on the default settings with the style set to „transparent“. The Pro L2 was pushed by 8 dB.
The Vintera vs the Baja Tele
The Vintera 50s Tele Modified superseded the popular Classic Player Baja Telecaster in 2019. Since I couldn’t include this in the video I want to compare the specs here and highlight the differences:
| The Vintera 50s Telecaster Modified | Fender Classic Player Baja Telecaster |
| Body: Ash | Body: Ash |
| Neck: Maple | Neck: Maple |
| Neck profile: Thick Soft-‘V’ | Neck profile: Soft-‘V’ |
| Fretboard: Maple | Fretboard: Maple |
| Radius: 9,5″ | Radius: 9,5″ |
| Scale length: 25,5″ (64,8 cm) | Scale length: 25,5″ (64,8 cm) |
| Number of frets: 21 | Number of frets: 21 |
| Fret size: Medium Jumbo | Fret size: Medium Jumbo |
| Fretboard inlay: Dot | Fretboard inlay: Dot |
| Nut material: Synthetic Bone | Nut material: Synthetic Bone |
| Nut width: 1.650 ” (42mm) | Nut width: 1.626 ” (41,3mm) |
| Bridge PU: CS Vintage-Style Single Coil | Bridge PU: CS Vintage-Style Single Coil |
| Neck PU: Fender CS “Twisted” Single Coil | Neck PU: Fender CS “Twisted” Single Coil |
| 4-Way Switch | 4-Way Switch |
| Control: Volume (S-1), Tone | Control: Volume (S-1), Tone |
| Bridge: 3-Saddle American Vintage Tele | Bridge: 3-Saddle American Vintage Tele |
| Tuning heads: Vintage-Style | Tuning heads: Vintage-Style |
| Hardware: Nickel/Chrome | Hardware: Chrome |
| Color: Butterscotch Blonde | Color: Vintage Blonde |
The Camera
Names for the video we considered and dismissed…
- The Vintera – Is it a Win-tera??
- Ventures Among the Vintera
- Vintera is Coming