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Fender TC-90 Slimline

 

Review of the Fender TC-90 Slimline by The Man in the Jar

A gorgeous semi-hollow take on the Telecaster design.

Features of the Fender TC-90 Slimline

Tuners - Unbranded sealed mini-tuners worked smoothly and held solid. The finish on these and the other pieces of hardware is a very sultry smoked chrome effect.

Headstock - The celebrated Telecaster headstock. It might be a bit pikey but you wouldn't want to argue with it. Two trees guide the upper four strings and the Fender logo looks lush in silver against the vintage white finish.

Nut - The black plastic nut is the set-in-slot type and is finished well.

Neck - The set maple neck has a very comfortable C profile which gives a nice feeling of width across the fretboard. The vintage white finish continues up the back of the neck giving a glossy smooth surface under your hand. Being a set neck, the heel is well-rounded and comfortable. 

Fretboard - The medium-dark rosewood fretboard has a nice subtle grain and is lightly lacquered, which improves both the looks and the playability. The dot markers are inlaid with a lovely colourful abalone that winks at you from the guitar stand.

Frets - Big, fat, well-polished frets make for a superb playing experience.

Action - Quite high out of the box. I suspect that this is due to a poor factory set-up as I was able to drop the action quite considerably with no onset of fret buzz.

Body - A double-cut Telecaster is normally heresy and can only ever be allowed on a semi-hollow body. Here that semi-hollow body is made from ash and it retains the width and lack of comfort contouring of a traditional Telecaster. But it has lost mass, and the hollowing out of the body had resulted in a slightly neck heavy instrument. This is easily cured by the use of a wide leather guitar strap that has a rough underside.

Bridge - This is the Fender version of the Tune-o-matic bridge that they have decided to call the Adjusto-matic. For all intents and purposes it's a Gibson-style Tune-o-matic with separate bridge and tailpiece. The bridge has individual saddles that are adjustable for string length (intonation) but the string height (action) is adjustable only by raising or lowering the whole bridge assembly. This is normally done by a large screw at each end of the bridge. But the Adjusto-matic has dispensed with the screws in favour of knurled wheels that you need to turn with your fingers. No this is a bit fiddly and is best done with string tension reduced by slightly detuning the guitar. Even then it's a bit harsh on your fingers (explaining why the factory set-up wasn't perfect). But once it's done it will rarely need to be touched unless you change string gauge or set up for slide playing.

Pickups - Two delicious Seymour Duncan soap-bar single-coils sit under black plastic housings. The neck pickup is a vintage P-90 and the bridge is a custom P-90.  

Controls - One volume, one tone and a three-way selector for the pickups. These are grouped below the bridge and are rear-mounted.

Scratchplate - Simple three-ply black/white/black teardrop that extends onto the lower horn.

Strap-buttons - Good generous strap buttons, one on the base of the body and one on the upper horn.

Output Jack - On the lower edge of the body in an oval plate.

Finish - Korean-made, very good finish.

 

Sound of the Fender TC-90 Slimline

The P-90 soap-bar doesn't get the kind of exposure in popular music that the tone it delivers would suggest it deserves. I think that is down to the prejudice of guitar players themselves going for the cleaner, more "modern" visual appearance of single coils or humbuckers. Ok, the P-90 is never going to strut the stage with a heavy metal band, but 90% of all other popular music could benefit by adopting these lovely guitar tones. Set to bridge pickup through the AC30 channel on my Flextone the brash clarity of an ordinary single-coil is underlaid with something more solid and the P-90's willingness to break-up means the aggression levels required for even modern Punk are easy to nail. Switch to the neck pickup and the tones are more vintage in nature and necessarily deeper in the mid and low range. Stay here for rock 'n' roll or blues. Combine the two through a clean amp for bright, scooped out funk, pop or even country.  

Overall Impressions of the Fender TC-90 Slimline

This guitar is full of character in its construction, playability and tone. Perfect as a main guitar for modern punk players or as a second guitar for a humbucker player who wants to change his tone for a few classic rock numbers. I'd love one of these to set up for slide, I'm sure the beautiful cutting tones of that bridge pickup would be perfect for some vintage Thorogood. But the TC-90 deserves more attention than it will get because of guitar player's conservative views about pickups. Why not break the mould today...? 

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