Best damn guitar channel on KZfaq. Honest, funny and informative. Scar it up!

Sounds good. I have several Indio (Monoprice) guitars that I used for modification platforms. I gotta admit that I love 'em. I have 3 of their T model and 3 S models and I like 'em a lot. Yes. they do sometimes have to have a little work on them (cleaning up the frets, intonation, a little nut work), but once all that is sorted out they play great... and they are definitely great mod platforms. I will note that ALL of them required a little rehydration on the fretboard, but I assume these probably sat in a warehouse for a while. The hardware is not the greatest out of the box, but the wood is good and I have yet to get a bad one in terms of good wood. Great video and thanks for sharing. Keep up the great work.

Hey Sean Monoprice also makes a solid ash brass saddles tele I belive with Wilkinson bridge & pick ups, maple neck. Under $200. Great review on the Monoprice Cheers Doug 😎

LOVE Monoprice. So glad you finally checked 'em out. Their S-style are a lot of fun, too - and a great value.

Thanks to your inspiration, I purchased, what I think, is everything I've seen you use to work on necks and frets. Most of those tools, I found because of links to Amazon from you. This video is among your best, quick summaries I've seen that touches on how to use a lot of those tools. I've replayed it many times and taken notes with screenshots. I've learned more useful stuff from your channel than every other on KZfaq channel combined. Thank you very much. #NotificationSquad.

I am glad you are well. I am tempted on buying one. I have more than enough guitard. I have always wanted a Tele, then the ones I want are to expensive. If these are 1/2 way decent, they sure fit just about anyones budget.-Thank you-Great video.

Don't they always loosen the strings for shipping,? It's been that way for years. I think. I really like your channel, thanks for all you do.

Before I start doing any fretwork I always make sure the frets are well seated. I have solved some high spots on frets just by using my fret hammer. Saves a fair amount of time and work.

I want to see what you do in future videos on this one. Ordering one today to have a way to learn even at my late age in life. Wish I knew of you in 1972. Oh well, Casey in AZ

That's a great deal! I already have a bunch of guitars, but $88 makes it tempting!👍😎🎸🎶

Good review. I'm glad that you used your small box opener, to avoid injury! Seriously I like how clear you are on what you think on the instrument. My thanks for sharing.

Lol. Best guitar I ever purchased was a Lyon for $80 at target! All I did was put thick assed strings on it tuned down to D and run it through a Boss distortion peddle. SRV percussion hammer Road House Blues all day long! Going on 15 yrs and still going strong!

Hi Sean Waiting for the headstock fix need to do mine great channel.

I live in a house a family member moved out of several years ago, He left several instruments here that looked like they had been hit by a bus. I spent time working on them to get them playable, working with them is what made me confident enough to buy my own guitar. He recently came to visit and saw his old Strat copy, picked it up and said "man this is a great guitar, it's in tune and everything! nothing wrong with it!" and left with it lol. I hope he knows he didn't leave a good guitar here, that thing was left here with only two rusty strings, 4 rusty saddles, 5 tuners and the input jack hanging out like a gutted animal, all covered in a sticky cake of dust and who knows what else. I have my own guitars now, but it's kind of sad that something I put work into (and something that provides a different sound and feel from my guitars) just up and walked off, but I saw one of these for 66$, and I haven't tried messing with a tele style guitar before and said "why the hell not?" I hope I can turn it into something worth having the way I did to that shitty beat up Silvertone.

hey brother... truly pleased to hear that you and yours are all good man! i kinda like that knife! i kinda really like what yalll up to... haha thats the closest i can get to a southern accent typing... but i do live in Southern NH! does that count? KC

I purchased the Indeo Strat copy from Monoprice (Indeo is their house brand guitars) on a Christmas Sale 2 years ago and I was very impressed with it so far. It was a lot better than I expected. I did need to dress the frets on it tho. I felt it was well worth the $60 some odd dollars I paid for it.

I bought both a tele and a strat a few years ago. Gave 9ne to my nephew, and i kept the other. I was pleasantly surprise by the build and sound. The fret edges were smooth as well.

I have owned three of these exact models and have found them to be pretty dang good for the cheap price. I currently have one that I modified into a baritone guitar with an AllParts neck. I’ve never understood why the most simple and cheapest to make guitar like the telecaster, always sells for such high prices anyway

I have a few Indio guitars. Great necks on all of them. Decent gig bags too.

You're a lucky man. . . I bought an Indio Strat 2 weeks ago, the box looked as if it was dragged behind the UPS truck the whole way to my door, was missing the accessories bag (Wammy bar etc.) The 22nd fret looked like someone drove it into the fret board with a sledge hammer and cracked the thing straight thru! They sent me another one that was worse than the first!!!! I will never buy another Monoprice Item ever again. I'm glad you got a good one brother! I just started following your channel, love you're sense of humor!

I go to that Guitar Center over there in Winter Park. They have some good deals sometimes. I'm looking around for a good Telecaster right now but can't seem to find any that make me want to walk away with it... Thanks for another great review.

$88, one cheap Tele! Nice review Sean! 🤘 #Notificationsquad

I have a Vox floor pedal powered by a tube that would make that sound insane! It is a Vox Tonelab ST. It can emulate a Dumble (guys that owned Dumbles could NOT tell the difference), a Marshall stack, EVH amps, Fender Tweeds, Vox amps, etc, etc. This pedal f's people's minds when they hear it.

Bought an Indio strat copy, was most impressed by the neck...

Very cool, next kid I hear wants to learn to play I’ll keep this in mind.

Very worthwhile tweak, thank you for the learning.

mate, the frets are high cos they're not seated properly. give them a light tap wit a fret hammer at the high spots BEFORE filing them down.

Nice find. Indio is the house brand for monoprice. You should try their stage right brand tube amps. I own the 5 watt with the celestion speaker. It's loud as hell and has classic clean tone for days. You can find them pretty cheap too.

The Partridge Family shaped inline 6 tuner headstock grows on you like a Sterling/Ernie Ball Music Man 4/2 does. I bought a pair of 2021's that are the older spec string thru body Retro Classic Tele. Both were good enough out of the box that I saw no reason to think a Squier, even a Fender Player Series MiM was going to replace. I bought direct from Monoprice in LA, CA, delivered one was $ 82, the other $ 76. At that point in time they were $ 99 String thru Basswood Teles. The 1st was on Father's Day sale in June, the 2nd came on sale for Labor Day sale. The 2nd one was a additional 10% off coupon. They collect the taxes and you wait like anything online & hope FedEx or UPS handles it gently. Out of the box, the 2021's were 7.2K Neck & 6.8K Bridge for the DCR of the ceramics. Specs were supposed to be 6.8K/6.4K (N/B) for a meter measure they appeared to be slightly overwound. Who knows sometimes the meter is relatively +/- accurate. I saw no reason to swap the pickups with an upgrade. The saddles were the modern block 6 individual saddles like the Player Series has. Same thing with the frets & neck, they exceeded expectations, neither of the Teles got fretwork done & the nut was close enough to not worry about cutting anything out of the slots. The 2nd one needed a shim, the 1st one needed nothing done to it. The weights, the guitars are about a lb difference from each other. One is 7 lbs 13 oz, the heavier 8 lbs 13 oz. The tuners are pretty much on par with what one would get with an Epiphone or Squier at the $ 200 price point of Bullet/Affinity/Sonic. Finish seems a little nicer for the Squier & Epiphone, but the Monoprice Indio isn't a horrible finish job.

Did you ever try to turn one of these cheap Tele's into a Baritone by putting on heavy strings? I always wanted a baritone to try out on some good old country tunes ... you know, GOOD music ... but I'm old and ain't got the money for a name-brand guitar, so I might have to try it one day. Also, did you ever try one of them cheap lap steels? I just got an SX ($109 + the ride + tax ... about $150) and I'll tell you what ... I think it sounds AMAZING! Good enough for both kinds of music ... Country AND Western.

I got one of these for $85 used on Amazon, came with a busted strap button and they gave me a refund of $40, so I got this bad boy for $45. Reshaped the headstock, dropped in a hot rail in the bridge, and now she screams. Interesting that my routes look larger than this one. The bridge route is much larger and stepped for a traditional humbucker. Mine also came with a traditional tele bridge.

Bought that exact guitar about two years ago for $99 delivered. Got it out of the box, knocked out the nut, shimmed it with a couple inches of wooden coffee-stirrer and set it up for dedicated slide. Works great.

Looks pretty cool. This is another budget brand for me to add to my list of stuff to try out. I wasn't expecting such a decent gig bag. Sounds alright too.

Another thought slash suggestion to make room for larger pots. Get a set of forstner bits from harbor freight tools and use a small drill press to carve out the cavity for the pots. Easier to control rather than trying to use a router.

After watching this a few times, I hit Amazon and scored a return (in old man burst) for 90 bucks. Mine came perfectly intonated as well, decently level frets, and a six saddle top loader. I’ll fix that. Thanks for the heads up on these affordable guitars. This is gonna be a fantastic mod platform.

I bought the light blue Cali Classing in 2022, it came perfectly intonated, played great out the box.

$!06 total on Amazon now, jus bought one! Thanks Bro you ROCK!

We have got a very good luthier here in Spain that the first treatment for frets a little higher than spected is a nice massage using a soft hammer...all other methods later LOL

Nothing wrong with small pots if they’re of good quality.

happy to hear your doing well now and hey i kinda like that knife ! i really like what your up to on your videos man! KC

Hey Shawn, would you consider modding this guitar for your youtube subscribers? Maybe show us how to dremel that bridge cavity so it would take a cts pot. And replace the pickups. I would really love to see what I know you could do for this guitar. Thanks for all your videos. I truly love each one.

Interesting that a value guitar can still be found these days. A few years ago, I bought (online) a New York Pro Strat copy for $200. I've been quite impressed overall with its performance and playability. Can't find them anymore. Have you ever come across one, or even heard of them? Thanks for your video!

I can't wait to see what you are going to do to that headstock

I believe that Monoprice is the company that markets Indio guitars, mush as Thomann sells Harley Bentons. The same Europe/China relationship for both.

Sean maybe you could do a follow up video fixing the headstock and installing string thru ferrules. Thanks

My nephew got me the exact same guitar on sale for 52$ as he just wanted to pay me back for work I’ve done on his guitars. He wanted the black pickguard for his idio Tele he bought a couple years earlier. His is string thru the body. My yellow Tele was a mess. Cheap nut cut way too high and bridge saddles high too. It had a severe back bow in the neck. One side of the neck fret ends not bad but the other was terrible. I took it apart got the neck straightened which took a few tries with the truss rod and frets leveled up. Installed a tusq nut too. Many more frets wrong than right. I ordered Wilkinson PU’s Fender 4way switch and Hipshot staggered locking tuners. Put it all together and now isn’t too bad. Love that 4way switch. I hate the weight of the guitar it’s dead dog heavy. You lucked out. I also added a .5 degree shim…

For $88 that's one heck of a starter guitar.

I followed the link you provided to the guitar and ordered one. The specs DO say it has a Rosewood neck. I also bought the Jim Dunlop 6502 Formula 65 Guitar Fingerboard Care kit (with both 01 and 02). I hope you are getting a spiff from Amazon for all this stuff I keep buying.

I have one, the through body version, totally awesome guitar for the money

These guitars are a great beginner instrument! Good to see you again Sean. #NotificationSquad

Hey, Shawn! Ever fill the Dreaded Hole with a dowel? Have you ever heard of Webb Wilder or Omar Dykes? Keep up the good work and Rock On!

I want to compliment you on your skills . Really appreciate your taking the time to go through the guitars you show us. I was gonna put my name in for the giveaway but I forgot the hashing. Party on

Just bought this thing, ready for customizing! #NotificationSquad

That is well worth the price. The cool thing is it is playable with a setup. And a rout on that control slot, full size pots would be right, some hotter pickups. You could fix that headstock and remark it Scarred. I agree with you that is the best upgrade material you can get.

That's insane for $88, great video shuan, love your no nonsense approach. I have two Tajima guitars, maybe you will check out the brand some day, stay well brother.

Monoprice has an Indio Tele that has a full thickness, string through, ash body with Wilkinson bridge and pickups for under $180.

I have the blue and white Indio Strat. The necks on these are awesome. I cut the headstock made it more modern. I will say their specs on the Strat for fretboard are wrong. It even says on site 9.5 radius. But it is a 12 radius. I don't know how you screw up your own specs lol. I'd be interested to know if the tele is 9.5 like it says.

Hey fun to watch ! I get that you liked the Dunlop cleaning stuff. My'73 Strat needs a goin over. God bless Rock on 🙏🎶🎵❗👀

I bought a tele blonde ,turns out to be an indio by the measurents. Somebody put a roasted neck on it. Pickups are pretty powerful. One of the best teles ive ever had.

Nice video, informative. I have the blue one with maple neck, really like the clean tones but not much tele sound to be had. Super value though, in canada you cant get this for 3x the cost. Paid $99usd for mine. Also bought the dlx tele, its unreal, you should get one, wait for a sale. Then i bought the OS20 for $70, its killer! So are the fret ends 😮

I got one of these last year for $60 when Monoprice was having a sale and I was really surprised at how playable the guitar was

Love your videos Shaun, greetings from the uk, just got an sg style guitar £85 had to do a fair bit of work on it but great for a bit of fun.

Just got one yesterday. It is exactly the way described in your video. With exception of the strings everything about the guitar was really good. Do not understand how they can do this. I see they are currently sold out and are taking orders for 1 to 2 month delivery. Don’t think you could build this yourself for $88.

Try using mineral oil. For the fretboard

Hey buddy, as always mate, love your videos. I’ve just ordered one of these myself. Plan on modding it a little. Maybe you’ve mentioned this on a previous video, but what fret wire do you use, and where do you get it from? Thanks man

Nice looking guitar. Good frets, maybe they have some sort of plec machine.

FYI....Target STILL sells these guitars, just on-line only, AND, I watched Cathy's video, winding (making) pick ups. She's a beast, and I learned more in her one video than 17 of yours! Just kidding.

Hope you're feelin' better man, you seem like your old self so that's a good thing. Maybe we can do something about that headstock tonight :) \m/

Really looking forward to learning how to make it string through!!!!!

I love my indio. I had to do alittle work on it, but Wow!

TY....love your show, you have proved something i have been saying for decades...it ain't the guitar, it is the player.

Didn't know you lived in Florida. Howdy neighbor. 😂

I love this channel man nice job. I got admit I'm a lover of crappy guitars. I'd love to have a real expensive guitar but it just don't make sense to me for what I do for a few theater gigs and some farmers markets I don't need a $5,000 guitar

I have a great modded one, and a stock one. The only thing I wish they had was bigger fret wire instead of that vintage size.

I have a question. Is the bridge on that Monoprice Tele located correctly at 25.5 inches? Mine is 25.625". I modded mine with string throughs before measuring.

Up to $109.99 as of today 12/18 Thanks brother

Yea I bought one cuz of you! and I like the way it sounds too!

#notificationsquad. Brother, I'm just glad you're better! That C word is what took my Dad from me in 2020. I always get chills hearing that word. Keep being awesome, brother!!!

Nice top See you Back, Buddy

Hve you tried the Donner DTC-100S? I just go t one and it had no fret sprout and a slick neck. Yes I did put a couple of erasers on the frets and changed the nasty strings, but it sounds and feels very good (but the bridge pickup is a little microphonic). Try one and lets see what you think of it. Great video!!

Sean I knew you were a Florida boy from the first vid I seen of yours. Life long SC boy knows FloridaMan when they see him. Lol.

Could I ask what mods you would start with just bought 3 of these to play with. Trying to get the hang of DIY since a guitar store screwed up my Martin frets.

New to channel, saw that deal, but have plenty. Got a Harley Benton 52 for $90 used out of some guys pickup truck. Wendy's Chili.

You can fit 2 volumes and 1 tone control in these with a 3 way gibson style switch and the pickups you like and you got a guitar as good as anything.

Thanks for the review. It looks like a good guitar to start with for a nice modding platform. I ordered one a couple of days ago from Monoprice and they cancelled my order😞. Supposedly it is out of stock, but it is still showing on their page available for order. I hope to pick up one someday soon.

Good video Shawn as usual thanks man. Ger well. 👍👋💯🎸🎸. Got to go. No more flip flapping 😂😂✌️✌️

Love your "letter opener!"

Might have to go buy one!! Oooh GIGGY!!🤘🤘🤘🤘

You live in Florida? Cool. Bushnell here (population approximately 3000).

Sean, thanks for the review. Great job, as usual. I bought one of these, too. Yes, they are quite good, espeically for the money. They have a little bit fatter neck than some of the Squier Bullet series guitars. If you like just a bit more beefy neck, these would be perfect. For those of us who like a slimmer neck, this still is a good neck, and very playable. This is quite a deal for that price. PS: My experience with Monoprice (Indio brand) guitars is that the neck. in general, run a bit fatter, than like some Fender style guitars. Also, Monoprice seems to do a good job of setting up the guitars before they are shipped. The ones that I've had, have been playable, right out of the box. I wouldn't hesitate to recomend them.

My first guitar was $88 from eBay course and nothing on its original but the body in the neck tuners bridge pick ups wiring all updated probably in our $200 guitar maybe three

Please get one of them squier sonic guitars! 200 dollars man!

Hey Shawn, you said the bridge cavity wouldn't allow a big cts pot unless a person has a router. Do you think this guitar for the price would be good to mid? New pickups, tuners, nut and maybe saddle? I've watched other videos on KZfaq where this one and other budget guitar telecaster don't really have that nice tele twang. What would you recommend for an entry level telecaster?

I brought a Strat type Indio and a Monoprice tube amp a while back, and I like them both fine. I changed the bridge pu to a P90 and changed the nut and the bridge, but that's all. I may replace the speaker, but I have cabinet that has a gold Celestion, so use that usually. Just curious, did you catch that accent in Orlando, or rather where were you raised? I am Arkie, have lived in So Cal since 1987, and my accent is still as thick as cold grease >(

I see they stopped doing the "through the body" string placement. Sikes, I still have the old "through the body" version, it was the cheapest of their teles at the time. 70 EUR. Plays like a dream, haven't even changed anything on it.

As i continued to watch this video and saw you scrape gunk from the fretboard, i went look at mine. I haven't played or seen it from out the gig bag it's kept in. There is no gunk on the fretboard. Perhaps as the years have gone by, so has quality control.

I had a different experience. my thing was not set up at all. the fret ends were so sharp that the would cut my fingers. . the nut was clamping down on the strings that it was impossible to tune. some strings were buzzing so badly that i had to adjust the truss rod. that was a scary thing to do for an unexperienced beginner. had i kept the damaged box i would have returned the damned thing. still not sure what to do with the plastic nut because i dont have a set of proper nut files. who does? still need to set up the bridge. some one in the factory tried out at random to see what all the little screws in the bridge were good for and then left it at that. what a gong show. well, i think i learned a lot so far and i am not finished jet. definitely got what i paid for, maybe less.

I don't even want one but now feel compelled to order one anyway at that price.

How do you determine if the fret needs to be tapped down vs filed down?

The hole in the neck pocket is to suspend the body on a hook while they paint it in the spray booth.