Want this guitar? It’s for sale! If you mention Worship Tutorial, you’ll get 10% off. Click here to purchase and view specs and photos. While you’re there, make sure to check out all their Shelton guitars for sale.
We recently had the privilege of reviewing a truly unique and very high quality guitar Shelton Electric Instruments. This guitar is from their TimeFlite series, which is based of a T-style guitar.
Shelton guitars are based off very popular vintage designs, and their tagline is ‘Remember The Future’. It’s fitting, because while these guitars look like and have the vibe of a vintage instrument, they are very modern in terms of their features and playability. It’s like you took your favorite 50’s or 60’s Fender, along with all the mojo and stories it might have from being played in countless gigs over the years, and made it play as good as any high end modern guitar you can think of.
Playability
We love the playability of the guitar. The setup, fret work, and attention to detail are impressive. It honestly plays as well as any guitar I’ve ever played, and that includes some very nice and very, very expensive instruments. Shelton uses only the highest quality parts on his instruments with extremely high production standards. You can be assured that any guitar you get from them will be light weight, resonant, and built to last. You get personal touches like hand polished frets and a pro setup.
This guitar has a fat C neck, and it’s big and chunky. Think 50’s Fender Esquire. We found it didn’t get in the way of playability, and it helped the guitar feel extremely solid. The back of the neck has a slight gloss finish, but it’s not sticky. Finger board edges are rolled and feel great, and again, the fret work is some of the best we’ve ever seen.
Tone
All Shelton guitars come with Porter pickups, and you know that we are massive fans of Porters around here. Brian Porter makes some of the best pickups you can buy. This guitar features a Custom Tele bridge and a Classic Humbucker neck. Together these pickups sound great, and really give you a lot of tonal options. The bridge has that classic Tele bridge tone, and it’s pretty high output, which pairs well with the neck. The neck pickup is very warm, but still retains clarity and punch.
This guitar’s wiring is also unique. Sheltons all feature Emerson Custom wiring, and this one has a 5-way switch. The first 3 positions are your typical bridge, middle, and neck. Position 4 is the neck with a tone roll-off cap, which is basically like rolling your tone off. You get a very warm tone great for darker sounds (jazz, anyone?), and we found it useful in a variety of settings. The great thing about the tone roll-off being a pickup switch position is you don’t have to remember where your tone knob was before you rolled it off, and you don’t have to guesstimate on how much roll-off you want. It’s all there at the flick of a switch. The 5th position is the neck and bridge in series, which gives you a higher output signal with more midrange.
Final Thoughts
One of the best things about Shelton Electric Instruments is just how unique they are. Shelton has a very good eye for design, and his guitars don’t look like your typical relic’d vintage re-issue. He uses interesting combinations of colors, pick guard colors, and other design elements (like racing stripes) to create truly unique but still vintage looking guitars. Combine that with ultimate tone and playability, and you would be hard pressed to find a better guitar at any price. Shelton also has very good customer service. He and his team have been helping guitar players find great vintage guitars for years, and now he is bringing guitars to the table that he feels give players the look and feel of a great old guitar, but with the features and playability only found in the best of the best modern guitars. If you are interested, head over to Shelton Electric Instruments and drop them a line.
