Squier Paranormal Troublemaker Telecaster Deluxe Bigsby Electric Guitar, Laurel Fingerboard, Black

Squier's Troublemaker line takes a Telecaster and gives it everything a Telecaster is not supposed to have. This one is the full version: a black bound body, twin chrome-covered humbuckers, four knobs, a big '70s Deluxe headstock, pearloid blocks down the fingerboard, and a licensed Bigsby B50 hanging off the end. It is the guitar for players who came up on Teles but keep reaching for something with more weight behind it — and it costs about what a plain one does.

Two humbuckers, four knobs, no compromises

Both positions carry a Fender-Designed alnico humbucker, and each one gets its own volume and its own tone control rather than sharing a master pair. That is the Deluxe wiring, and it is the reason this layout has stuck around since 1972: you can set the neck pickup clean and the bridge pickup hot, then use the toggle as a channel switch mid-song. Roll one volume back a touch in the middle position and you get blends a single master control simply cannot reach.

Coil splits on both pickups, independently

Pull up on either tone knob and that pickup drops to a single coil — bridge and neck split separately, not together. Four knobs and two splits is a lot of ground for one guitar: full humbuckers for the loud end, both coils split for a thinner and more percussive attack, or one of each for the half-and-half sound that a hardtail Tele has never been able to produce. It is genuinely worth an evening working through the combinations before you decide where you like it.

The Bigsby, and why the bridge matters

The B50 is the lightweight licensed Bigsby, the right one for a flat-top solidbody — a shallow, controllable wobble rather than a divebomb, the movement that makes a held chord shimmer at the end of a line. Underneath it sits an Adjust-O-Matic bridge with individually adjustable saddles, which is what keeps a Bigsby-equipped guitar workable: the strings return over fixed saddles you have set yourself, so intonation stays put after the arm has been used. Chrome hardware throughout, and vintage-style tuners at the other end.

Dressed like a Deluxe

White binding runs around the body and again around the Indian Laurel fingerboard, with pearloid block inlays set into it — the appointments Fender saved for its upscale models, sitting against a gloss black body and a three-ply parchment guard. The headstock is the large Stratocaster-style outline the Telecaster Deluxe has always used, left natural maple with a gold Squier script, and the knobs are black skirted amp-style. It is a lot of contrast for one guitar and it works, particularly on stage.

The neck and the numbers

Nyatoh body under gloss polyurethane, bolt-on maple neck in a "C" profile, Indian Laurel fingerboard at a 9.5" radius with 22 narrow-tall frets. Micarta nut at 42 mm, 25.5" scale length, .009–.042 nickel-plated steel strings as it ships. Right-hand orientation. The flatter radius and taller wire are the modern part of this guitar — bends run out clean to the top of the neck, which the vintage guitars this borrows from could never quite manage.

Set up in-store by Guitar World Australia's techs before it ships to you, so it plays perfectly the moment it arrives.