LSL T-Bone 52.5 Review - WITH VIDEO!

Specifications

• Lightweight, Handmade Swamp Ash Bodies
• Fully Hand-Made, "C" Profile Maple Necks with Walnut Skunk Strip
• Vintage Style Fender or Joe Barden Bridge with 3, Brass Saddles
  7.25 Radius Maple Fingerboard
• All NC Lacquer, Hand-Rubbed, Butterscotch, Vintage Cream, Blonde or 2-Tone Sunburst Finishes
• Lacquered, Bakelite, Hand-Made, 5-Screw Pickguard, or Vinyl White on Blonde Models
• Our own LSL custom, hand-wound, vintage style pickups
• Vintage Style Tuners
• Medium-High 6105 Frets
• Dome Knobs
• CTS Pots, Orange Drop Capacitors

Features

• All Metal Parts are Manually Aged For a Truly Incomparable Vintage Look and Feel
• Each guitar's fingerboard is manually worn based on photographs of actual vintage instruments. Edges are hand rounded for a silky-smooth feel.
• Vintage style, slot-head screws are used on the pickguards, control plate, tuners and string tree. Phillips head screws are used elsewhere.
• Vintage style, hand-made truss-rods
• Each instrument is individually aged, set-up, signed, numbered and named

Review

The Telecaster, it is a landmark of epic proportions. It holds the distinction of putting the solid body guitar on the map (other solid body guitars had been created, but none took hold like the Tele).  The Telecaster holds a special place in most players hearts, and some place them on an alter and worship them on a regular basis! The twangy tone is as unmistakable as its shape and its distinctive slab like appearance and single cut away. Fender is obviously home to the original design and makes so many variations of the guitar that it is near impossible to count. But many believe that the original Telecaster (or Broadcaster if you prefer) is the perfect guitar that does not need to be improved on, one such devotee is Lance Lerman of LSL Instruments.

The LSL story starts with Lance working for Saga Musical instruments in the shipping/receiving department and doing some basic guitar repairs. That job lead to an apprenticeship with a guitar shop in Berkeley, CA (5th String Music) where he was able to learn the art of the guitar. From there he formed his first company called “D&L Instruments” with a Banjo and acoustic instrument luthier named Joe Deetz. Sadly it all came to an end when his shop in Oakland, CA was robbed leaving him with almost nothing left. After that it he got into the woodworking industry in LA and eventually moved to China to run two woodworking factories.  Upon returning to the US in 2007 he decided to start building his own guitars and with the steady rise in the popularity of his Tele’s he started LSL Instruments.

I came to know LSL via the “Destroy All Guitars” website that I check almost daily to see what the latest and greatest guitars are (you really need to check out all of the amazing guitars that are for sale!) I watched a bunch of the LSL videos and was hooked but the amazing tone that these guitars were producing (seeing Carl Verheyen playing one didn’t hurt either!) So I dropped Lance an e-mail to see if he could send one up for us to look at, but there was an issue – all the guitars were already sold! That is how popular they are! But thankfully Lance was able to free up one that was heading over to a gentleman at Line 6, provided we could turn it around quickly. Seeing as this was my only chance to get my grubby hands on one I moved a few dates around and cleared the weekend’s schedule so we could have the whole weekend with it.

The guitar arrived in a nice tweed case packed securely in a LSL box with the name of the guitar on the front “Gretchen” see Lance names each and every single guitar because he loves them all that much. Each guitar imparts it’s own character, these are not built by the numbers guitars, each one is lovingly crafted and hand aged. The very first thing that struck me was just how light the guitar was, it was truly feather light with a perfect butterscotch finish that looked as though it had been played by a touring musician for his career – loved, used, but not abused. The acoustic volume of the guitar was also very impressive, it had a good amount of projection and you could really feel the effect of the finish – the body resonates with each note, it was like you didn’t even need to hear it because you could feel it.

The next step was to plug it in to see what tones the guitar was going to conjure up for my listening pleasure. I am use to seeing and hearing people play Tele’s dry (no reverb) to really emphasize the twang of the instrument, but most of the LSL videos features the guitar bathed in reverb, so I figured that would be a good place to start. I plugged the LSL in and ensured that the reverb was more than half way up, flipped the 3 way to the front and dug in. Let me say this up front, I was not much of a Tele man when it came to guitars, and I am saying this in the past tense for a reason,  after about two minutes with the LSL I was officially a convert. The neck pick up on the LSL is nothing short of amazing. It is not a bell-like Strat tone, not really like a traditional single coil, and not a humbucker – it was its own world. I find that some vintage voiced single coil pickups will give out a little when you throw a healthy amount of gain at them, this was not the case with the LSL. I’m not saying it is like a PAF or a high gain single coil (read: Lace sensor) but it was able to take the gain (we are talking about a Mesa Roadster here in the Vintage channel with the Gain at 12 o’clock) and produce a perfect tone. I loved it; every last instance of sound was better than the last – and I hadn’t even left the bridge pickup!

For the middle position I decided to move back to the clean setting with plenty of reverb and opt for big chords to really hear the tone of the pickups. The middle position provided just the right amount of “spank” that left me with an ear-to-ear grin on my face. Adding some dirt (via a Keeley modded TS808) as opposed to the roar of the Mesa really allowed the LSL’s tone to shine trough. What struck me was how each note was perfectly articulated even when playing a chord - you could really feel each string ringing through. The tone of the middle position was full and round without being undefined, this is a dream come true for any rhythm guitar player. 

The bridge pickup was my last stop on this epic aural journey and it did not disappoint. The tone was very rich in the treble (as expected) but also had a clear and defined midrange that really added to the tonal character of the guitar. I only wish I has some more time with it so I could hear it through a variety of amps, but as I had said previously, the guitar already had a home to go to, and that was the sad part of the review. I found that the bridge not only covered all the important territory for a Tele but also was well suited to most any style of music you want to play. To that end I wonder if Lance will look to offer a NOS version of the T-Bone for those Jazz players who don’t mercilessly beat on their instruments.

Lance has informed me that at some point in the future there will be a rosewood fretboard option, but that will have to wait until after he has completed work on the next line of LSL Instruments – a Strat style guitar that will debut at Winter NAMM. And that little nugget of information made my Monday a whole hell of a lot brighter. Seeing what Lance and the LSL crew were able to pull off with this guitar makes me pine endlessly for the Strat version.

The price of an LSL T-bone is $1949, and in my opinion is a steal. What you are getting is a Master Built quality guitar for THOUSANDS less than you would pay to get one from Fender. The guitars are hand made from the bottom up, the necks are all hand shaped, the finishes are hand rubbed and all aged individually by hand. Everything for the guitar is made in house (minus the metal parts) including the amazing vintage voiced pickups.

The Final Word

There are endless amounts of Tele style guitars out there these days offered not only by Fender. What Leo created is both classic and timeless in its design and most importantly in its sound. Most guitar nuts agree that a vintage, pre CBS Fender is the Holy Grail by which all others are compared. But the LSL is all-together in a league of its own and I believe it can stand beside a vintage Telecaster in quality, solid construction, and tone.

You need to get one of these guitars NOW. The demand for them is only going to go up and I guarantee you that one-day you will proudly say that you got one of the early ones. To me, it is like the 1950’s again and you have the opportunity to buy what is sure to be a future classic.  I can't say enough good things about this guitar, and as soon as you play one you will understand why.

I am happy to say that the LSL 52.4 T-Bone has been given Guitar Fixation’s first ever Editor’s Award in recognition of an exceptional product. This guitar not only exceeded my expectations, it redefined them. Congratulations to Lance and the entire LSL team, this guitar is among the finest I have ever played.