GreatDane
"up yours, baby."
believe it or not, i've owned a Teye. it was a LaLlama "S" series.
there were things about it that i really liked. the "mood" knob is a very clever feature - i could get very convincing single coil tones out of the humbuckers without using a conventional coil-tap. I also had the pleasure of interacting with Teye, himself. he was a very nice gentleman.
there were also things that i didn't enjoy - the guitar was fairly unbalanced and neck-heavy. the neck carve was a very wide C shape with broad shoulders which resulted in a strange feel for my fretting hand. i wanted to like the three-humbucker setup as well, but i just couldn't. the middle humbucker didn't serve enough of a practical purpose to make it worth occupying that amount of space in the general picking area.
lastly, i just didn't think the build quality was as good as the hype that surrounds the brand. it looked great from about 6 feet away, but there were were areas (albeit minor) of shoddy quality throughout the instrument that left me disappointed (examples include poor routing of the body which left large and irregular gaps around the binding and metal inset pieces, the finish around the neck heel was slightly buggered, the binding in certain areas was poorly applied). it definitely had that craft vibe to it that some people are willing to pay a ton of money for. it wasn't the guitar for me, so i sold it (with appropriate full disclosure, of course). the new owner was super happy with it. he bought another. go figure.
i played and owned one example of Teye's work. only one. i am not condemning the entire brand, so please don't misunderstand. i am, however, unlikely to get another one. even after overlooking the various production "quirks" found on this particular example, i didn't click with basic functional aspects of the instrument (balance, neck feel). here's a pic. ain't she a beauty?
there were things about it that i really liked. the "mood" knob is a very clever feature - i could get very convincing single coil tones out of the humbuckers without using a conventional coil-tap. I also had the pleasure of interacting with Teye, himself. he was a very nice gentleman.
there were also things that i didn't enjoy - the guitar was fairly unbalanced and neck-heavy. the neck carve was a very wide C shape with broad shoulders which resulted in a strange feel for my fretting hand. i wanted to like the three-humbucker setup as well, but i just couldn't. the middle humbucker didn't serve enough of a practical purpose to make it worth occupying that amount of space in the general picking area.
lastly, i just didn't think the build quality was as good as the hype that surrounds the brand. it looked great from about 6 feet away, but there were were areas (albeit minor) of shoddy quality throughout the instrument that left me disappointed (examples include poor routing of the body which left large and irregular gaps around the binding and metal inset pieces, the finish around the neck heel was slightly buggered, the binding in certain areas was poorly applied). it definitely had that craft vibe to it that some people are willing to pay a ton of money for. it wasn't the guitar for me, so i sold it (with appropriate full disclosure, of course). the new owner was super happy with it. he bought another. go figure.
i played and owned one example of Teye's work. only one. i am not condemning the entire brand, so please don't misunderstand. i am, however, unlikely to get another one. even after overlooking the various production "quirks" found on this particular example, i didn't click with basic functional aspects of the instrument (balance, neck feel). here's a pic. ain't she a beauty?
