I own a 2021 Tribute Comanche - an “Emerald Blue Metallic with Vintage satin Maple Neck” model. I just luv it. I’d always wanted a G&L Commanche, but the Fullerton Deluxes were/are way out of my financial reach. *Embarrassed smile.
Would you believe that I sold my mint condition, 2008 American Standard Strat to come up with the money to buy the Tribute Comanche? Well, the Strat just never suited me - it suffered from a thin, ice pick tone, and extremely tight string tension. Everything was set up perfectly on the Strat, but it just NEVER sounded good or felt good to me. My old ‘92 MiM Strat blew it out of the water.
I’m in Canada - G&Ls are VERY rare in my nation. Fortunately, RedOne Music in Montréal, QC, had four or five Tribute series guitars listed on Reverb.com at the time (a couple of Comanches and some ASATs). Mine was shipped to me in good order, but there were some irksome issues with it out-of-the-box. The bridge was way off the mark. The nut wasn’t cut well (too high). The neck relief was way out of kilter, and it had a few high frets. In particular, frets #2, #4, #9 were somewhat high, but #19 was VERY high and made playing above the 15th fret very unpleasant. The middle and bridge pickups were wired in reverse. As per my suspicions, the tuning keys, pickup selector and pots were cheap asian crap. However, the guitar itself was/is actually very good. It overall ‘felt’ and looked like a high quality instrument. Although I was a little bit disappointed with the guitar out-of-the-box, I was confident that these little failings could be rectified, and that the guitar was more than worth some additional TLC (and money).
First things first, I set up the neck relief and bridge correctly. The Volume and Bass pots are Alpha pro pots - they are smooth and seem to be very good, but the cheap push-pull treble pot was dreadful. I replaced it with an expensive, top-of-the-line Bourns pot. I replaced the pickup selector with a Kaish switch (CRL and Oak Grigsby switches wouldn’t fit). The stock, badly cut, plastic “junk” nut was swapped out for a custom fitted TUSK XL nut, and the frets were professionally levelled/recrowned/polished. I replaced the cheap, stock metal string tree with a Graphtech TUSK XL string tree. Lastly, I replaced the budget (Jin Ho?) stock tuners with a set of Graphtech Ratio tuners.
In Canadian $$ . .
I sold my 2008 American Std Strat for $1200
2021 Tribute Comanche: $989 (brand new, on sale)
Graphtech Ratio Tuners: $185
TUSK XL nut and string tree : $40
Bourns push/pull pot: $18
Kaish Switch: $16
Professional Fret levelling and nut installation: $140
In total, this guitar cost me $1375 (+/-), but it is an absolutely stellar, pro-grade instrument now. Someday, I would like to get a G&L original hardshell case for it, but that’ll cost me another $265 or more, here in Canada. At present, it’s in my old 1991 Fender tweed case.
Additionally, I just might save a few more bucks and order a set of G&L’s USA Brass saddles. I suspect that the brass saddles contribute to the Fullerton Deluxe guitars' more rounded, slightly warmer tones (and swamp ash bodies).
One final mention:
Although I really like the dual fulcrum bridge‘s weight and style, I’m not actually a “whammy bar” player. I mostly play blues, country, Gospel and classic rock - lots of double stop bends. As such, I usually block all my Strat-style bridges. I have a perfectly fitted piece of rock maple at the back of the bridge, and a couple of SOLO Music’s brass “Trem Stoppers” in the front of the bridge. I was very careful to block the bridge at the factory spec height, as though it were still set up as a floating bridge. Between the Ratio locking tuners, the TUSQ nut and string tree, and the tightly blocked bridge, my Tribute Comanche‘s tone and tuning stability is impressive.
If you’re willing (and able to do so) invest $300 (+/-) extra into a Tribute Comanche, you’ll come out with a very, very good guitar - an excellent guitar, even.
BEFORE:
Pic 1
Pic 2
Pic 3
AFTER:
Graph Tech Ratio 6-in-line Staggered tuners on my 2021 Tribute Comanche
BLOCKED COMANCHE BRIDGE
].
