Teuffel Tesla Prodigy Series Studio / Classic Teuffel

Teuffel Guitars Tesla Prodigy Studio Classic

The Teuffel Tesla Studio / Classic Prodigy Series:

Ulrich Teuffel is one of the freshest thinkers in the industry. His contemporary designs feature innovative ideas and pay the ultimate respect to the craft of instrument construction. Defiantly, he takes conventional guitar concepts and brings them straight into the 21st century. This particular guitar is a Tesla model from the Prodigy Series- which means it’s a one-off custom instrument with unqiue specifications. It features a custom Bright Olive finish, beautifiully matched Ziricote wood pickups, knobs and fingerboard. Additionally, this model blends features from both the Tesla Studio and Classic models.

The Concept:

The Teuffel Tesla Prodigy Studio Classic was designed with the experimental guitarist in mind. In addition to it’s 3 pickups and “standard” volume and tone controls, a series of contact points and push-buttons situated on the body can be used to activate a myriad of primitive and interesting sounds. It’s no wonder this model is favored by avante gaurd musicians like David Torn and Henry Kaiser.

Exquisite Detail and Craftsmanship:

The Tesla is beautiful and ergonomic. Like all Teuffel instruments, every detail is exquite and over-engineered. It’s neck-through contruction incorporates old-growth figured Maple with a Ziricote fingerboard. The body sides are American alder. Knobs and pickups are customer crafted with matching Ziricote wood. It features a 25.6″ scale length and 22 Dunlop 6105 frets.

Although it may seem incredibly strange, the transition from neck to body at the 7th fret is in the shape of a groove and actually allows for comfortable and easy access to even the highest registers. This design also makes the neck quite stiff, making for incredible low frequency resonance and an unbeatably clear and focused tone.

Hardware & Features:

All components are fastened with hand-polished, stainless steel screws in threaded inserts, so they won’t come loose and cannot be overtightended. At the top end of the neck is a steel locking nut which locks each string seperately. The locking screws are precision turned and string ends fit into little cavities behind the screws, so they can’t accidentally stab you. The nut is also adjustable for height and to assure harmonic intonation. Tuning is handled at the tailpiece and it is also completely machined and polished by hand. No detail of a Teuffel instrument goes overlooked.

Electronics:

The Tesla Prodigy Studio / Classic features Three pickups with Master Volume and Master Tone controls and a 5-way pickup selector. Three additional push-button switches can be used to achieve a number of unusual background noises, pickup feedback, loud humming and other archetypical sounds from guitar history.

•     The left button causes a 60 cycle hum
•     The middle switch interrupts the guitar signal (momentary kill switch)
•     The right button activates a small microphone hidden beneath the neck pickup, allowing for controllable feedback on demand

The switching positions are:

•     bridge
•     bridge + middle
•     bridge + neck
•     middle + neck
•     neck

The neck and middle pickups are a split coil design consisting of two offset bobbins. One bobbin picks up the bass strings while the other picks up the treble strings. Since both bobbins are wound in reverse there is no hum. The sound of the pickup is very guttural, but much richer than a strat single coil tone. The bridge pickup is constructed in a traditional manner and is comparable in output to and tone to a hot PAF.

Custom-made AlNiCo5 and AlNiCo8 magnets are utilized and all components are made and wound in-house. Finally the pickups are sealed against microphonic feeback in a special high vacuum chamber. All electric compartments are shielded from magnetic and electric interference.

Overview:

In terms of originality, tonal versatility, craftsmanship and engineering, nothing even comes close to a Teuffel guitar. It’s no wonder these instruments have become among the most cherished possesions of players like David Torn, Henry Kaiser, Hans Zimmer, Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill, Page Hamilton, Kirk Hammett, Amir Derakh and many others. A complete set of tools, strap locks and a custom flight case with wheels are all included.

* The hand-made Teuffel floor stand pictured is available for purchase separately