I Bought A New Tribute Commanche

Hi Guys!

I’m brand new to the forum, and a brand new Tribute Commanche owner. I’ve been wanting a G&L guitar since a few years now. My new emerald blue Tribute Commanche hasn’t been delivered by the courier yet - hopefully it will be within the next two or three days (from the time of this post).

The non-descript tuners sure look like the same kind that I had in another guitar - Jin Ho J-802s. I’ve since upgraded that guitar with a set of Grover 505c6 machine heads. Are the Tribute tuners Jin Ho (Korea) sourced?

Are the potentiometers just cheap, asian mini pots? Is the switch just one of those cheap asian rectangular jobbies? If they are all cheap asian components, then that means I need to put out more money on some CTS pots and a CRL 5-way switch. Would upgraded electrics require the control cavities be routed out more? Speaking of control cavities, are the Tribute guitars well insulated and shielded?

Are the bridges simply “designed by G&L” or are they the same as the Fullerton models? I sure hope it isn’t cheap asian pot metal alloy. Will the USA saddles work on an Indonesian guitar?

I’ve heard lots of good things about the G&L Tributes over the past decade or so, but I absolutely disdain those cheapie asian mini pots and junky switches. After all, $1100 CAD (incl. tax) is not exactly peanuts. Even if the pots are basic full-sized Alpha, and the switch is a common, mid grade Oak Grisgby switch, I wouldn’t complain. But, cheap asian pots and switch would really be disappointing. If I had wanted Squire cheapy quality, I would’ve bought a Squire. . . LOL.

Hi Guys!

I’m brand new to the forum, and a brand new Tribute Commanche owner. I’ve been wanting a G&L guitar since a few years now. My new emerald blue Tribute Commanche hasn’t been delivered by the courier yet - hopefully it will be within the next two or three days (from the time of this post).

The non-descript tuners sure look like the same kind that I had in another guitar - Jin Ho J-802s. I’ve since upgraded that guitar with a set of Grover 505c6 machine heads. Are the Tribute tuners Jin Ho (Korea) sourced?

Are the potentiometers just cheap, asian mini pots? Is the switch just one of those cheap asian rectangular jobbies? If they are all cheap asian components, then that means I need to put out more money on some CTS pots and a CRL 5-way switch. Would upgraded electrics require the control cavities be routed out more? Speaking of control cavities, are the Tribute guitars well insulated and shielded?

Are the bridges simply “designed by G&L” or are they the same as the Fullerton models? I sure hope it isn’t cheap asian pot metal alloy. Will the USA saddles work on an Indonesian guitar?

I’ve heard lots of good things about the G&L Tributes over the past decade or so, but I absolutely disdain those cheapie asian mini pots and junky switches. After all, $1100 CAD (incl. tax) is not exactly peanuts. Even if the pots are basic full-sized Alpha, and the switch is a common, mid grade Oak Grisgby switch, I wouldn’t complain. But, cheap asian pots and switch would really be disappointing. If I had wanted Squire cheapy quality, I would’ve bought a Squire. . . LOL.

Congrats on your new Tribute Comanche! Please post some photos because it does not exist without photos.
Look for the section on posting photos in this post: Welcome! Read This First.

The Tribute Series pots are Mighty Might brand and G&L sells replacements in the G&L On-Line Store.
Here is the link to the ones used in your Tribute Comanche (opens in a new tab): Tribute_Series_short_shaft_pots

You should find that the Tribute Comanche already has shielding paint in the pickup and control cavity with grounding wires connected to the other ground wires.
The G&L Magnetic Field Design™ "Z-coils" are a split-coil type single coil pickup based on Leo's venerable post-1957 P-Bass pickup. The two halves have opposite charges that are hum cancelling. Yet the Z-coil produces a very familiar bell-tone single coil sound with a very flat, neutral response. These pickups allow the player great flexibility for "coloring" the sound with effects, amps or playing style. As with all MFD type pickups, the Z-coils are high output.
Reference post: List of pickups used in G&L guitars

Regarding G&L bridges used in the Tribute Series models, see this post:
http://www.guitarsbyleo.com/FORUM/viewtopic.php?p=42376#p42376

Hope this helps.

I have changed all the electronics, usually including the pickups on my Asian made Epiphone and Squier guitars. However, I own a Tribute ASAT JR-II and found no reason to change any of the components on the guitar. The tuners are fine, pots are quiet, jack and switch are trouble free. The pickups are U.S. sourced, and I believe they are on your Comanche as well. I suggest you just play and enjoy it. You will figure out if there is anything you need to change, but in my experience the original parts are good.

Well, boys,

My new Tribute Comanche finally arrived - she’s a beauty! It needs a few upgrades and tweaks to make it primo, but overall, I am very pleased with her. The guitar sounds amazing! I’ve always really liked playing Strats, but I hated the sharp, ice-pick tones that is so common with them. For this reason, I’ve always luv’d my old ‘92 MiM Strat - it has the old overwound ceramic pickups. For my tastes, it is the most ‘ballsy’ non-ice-pick Strat I’ve ever played. And too, the neck is just awesome on it.

My new Comanche can give me similar tones, but even BETTER! I absolutely luv, luv, luv the MFD z-coils PUs! I am super pleased with the neck on my new G&L. The 12” radius is wonderful, and I don’t mind the somewhat round ‘D-ish’ shaped neck. However, this guitar’s neck width and string spacing feels a wee bit more narrow than that of my Fender necks.

I’m actually not a lover of floating bridges. I tend to play a lot of double stop bends and that requires solid tuning stability. I’ve blocked the guitar’s bridge, but I really like the G&L fulcrum design. It’s a nice big, sturdy trem block - great tone and sustain! It looks really classy to boot.

The switch has gotta go though - it’s just a cheap asian-made piece of junk. The pots feel surprisingly good; actually, they are similar in feel and taper to CTS pots. I’m impressed - the Mighty Mite pots are a lot better than I was expecting. Does anyone know if they are full-sized pots in the Tribute guitars?

Speaking of pots, I really, really wish that the Tribute guitars used the mini toggle switch design to activate the expanded pickup selections. The volume and bass pots feel quite solid, with a nice comfortable degree of resistance/friction, but the treble push/pull feels kinda cheap and flimsy compared to the other two pots.

I’ll be replacing the simple butterfly string tree with a nice new Graph Tech TusQ tree - I have those installed on all my Fenders too. The nut on this guitar seems to be quite good- I don’t think it’s plastic.

The tuners are *almost acceptable, in my little ole two cent opinion. They don’t suck, but they aren’t all that n’ a bag o’ chips either. I’ll be replacing them with a set of Grover 505C6 locking tuners when I can.

I needed to do a setup on my new guitar - the neck needed a bit of relief to bring it to 0.10” @ the 8th fret. The action and intonation were pretty spotty too. The guitar arrived with (dead) D’addario 10s on it, but I now have it nicely setup with Elixir 09s. I use 10s on Gibson type 24.75” scaled guitars, but all my Fenders have 09s on them. Three tone blues bends (minor 3rds) and double stops bends are no fun on 10s. . . .LOL.

I also had to do a bit of fret end care because there were a few ‘snags and catches” on the fret ends. I also polished the frets - they were noticeably gritty and scratchy. There are three slightly high frets: #2, #13, and #19. Overall though, the fret work was quite respectable out of the box.

I really appreciate the warm welcome and informative comments, guys - thanks a million.

And yes, I’ll post a couple of pix when I can.

Last edited by BrotherCharles on Wed Sep 28, 2022 3:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Congrats on a great axe purchase! Welcome to the club.

Congrats on a great axe purchase! Welcome to the club.

Thanx very much!

Welcome to the Comanche committee BrotherCharles!
Before we issue your id card we will need to see a pic of your new acquisition!

regards,

Ok, I will certainly try to meet that criteria asap!

Welcome to the Comanche committee BrotherCharles!
Before we issue your id card we will need to see a pic of your new acquisition!

regards,

She’s a 2021 model, made in May, I think. Comanche (Tribute Series) in emerald blue metalic.

Pic 1

Pic 2

Pic 3

Pic 4

Sorry gang, I had to just post links because my pictures exceed 1300px x 1200px

Last edited by BrotherCharles on Sun Oct 02, 2022 10:39 am, edited 7 times in total.

Here are your links using the "nturl=" tag. When clicked will show in a new tab:
[Reference post: Tutorial: Posting photos (Important Notes)]
Pic 1:
Pic1

Pic 2:
Pic2

Pic 3:
Pic3

Hope this helps.

nice looking comanche!
currently, i save my pix on my computer with a max dimension 1020 pixel,
then post the pix to the gallery of GBL,
then use the [img]url%20for%20gallery%20pic[/img] method from Craig's instrux in a G&LDP post and that works (usually).