Stratocaster vs. Telecaster

Tele, despite being less versatile in terms of tone and more boxy and awkwardly shaped from a comfort standpoint. I also kinda have a thing against single cutaways! Am I just in denial? All I know is I'm probably never going to buy a Strat but I could easily imagine picking up a second Tele or ASAT at some point.

this is kinda like being forced to choose which of your two beloved kittens you will feed into a woodchipper tbh

nonetheless voted telecaster for its iconic, utilitarian design and the sound of that bridge pickup through a hot amp is one of the foundation stones of popular music

i could probably just as easily have voted strat for its sleek design which still looks kinda futuristic even today and those uniquely 'glassy' tones. i'll probably want to change my vote tomorrow.

Have no idea what the difference in sound is, tbh.

they're both pretty boring. voted tele because it's slightly less boring.

they're no bc rich, true

tele because it has more of an identity. Strats are perfectly fine guitars and have been used very well by many, but only a few guitarists really make them stand out as anything other than versatile, workhorse guitars.

honestly the two things that immediately come to mind when I think Strat are Hendrix (which is good) and that awful SRV tone.

hendrix, dave gilmour, mark knopfler and yngwie malmsteen are the ones which spring to mind for me, probably due to the lasting taint of teenage overexposure to guitar magazines and features on players i didn't give a fuck about

david byrne for me for some reason

Buddy Holly
John Frusciante

Strat definitely. I prefer its versatility.

Cadillac vs. Mustang.

I have a Tele reissue with a humbucker at the neck and some of the body molding of a Strat. Apparently Andy Summers made a similar mod to his Tele.

my tele is a relatively recent usa one with a belly contour and it makes me feel like it's okay to be a fat fuck

thanks fender for validating my poor diet choices

david byrne for me for some reason

oh yeah, for sure - stop making sense is a great showcase for strats

Tele, for the twang especially but also for rhythm (and obviously awesome Prince, Page, et al. lead). Unless you want/need that specific Strat quack.

(Another poll could be which neck pickup is less useful. Prolly the Tele's, though Nile Rodgers is the only Strat player I can think of who really hangs out on the neck pickup all the time.)

My go-to tele sound is the middle position. The twang is not really my thing and the neck is too dark. lol, I have all these negative opinions about teles and still prefer them to strats.

oh my god, Strat without question. In addition to being extremely versatile, it allows the player's personality to come through more vividly than any other guitar. the Tele is too limited in comparison- sure, it has twang, but you can get the same tone out of a Strat with the neck/middle pickup switch. Everything that a Tele can do, a Strat can do better: rhythm, lead, texture, etc. Strats also looker cooler and have a better shape. Prince is the only person to ever shred a Tele and make it look as cool as a Strat.

bridge pickup on the Strat: the best rhythm tone ever
neck pickup: the best lead tone ever

When I started thinking about guitars and wanted to buy one, Teles were so simple and caveman like and didn't have that cheap looking plastic trem spring cover on the back and people like Joe Strummer and Prince and Buck Owens played them while Strats were played by Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughn and Yngwie Malmsteen and those guys all sucked.

I honestly don't think I've ever actually played a stratocaster other than maybe picking one up once in a while in a guitar store, never through an amp for sure. I don't really hate them (and I do dig the 70s ones with the giant headstocks) but they (and Les Pauls) seem so standard and generic that I'm never really drawn to them like I am to SGs and Jazzmasters and Teles - which are obviously not obscure at all, just not THE standard guitar.

A lot of my bias is aesthetic too because I'm a shitty guitar player but love design and sculpture.

in the end probably a tele

i've never played a strat that felt right just as is. it required some modifying but by the end i wasn't convinced

a tele on the other hand felt right, love the tone, and with minor mods, it sounds beautiful. recording it is a joy and i don't mind the design/shape

having said that, i'm not a tele/strat guy

i love the dark overtones of gibson les pauls or more mid-range/mellow tones of a jazzmaster, but they are annoying to record

tele because it has more of an identity.

^^^ Danny Gatton, Albert Lee, Pete Anderson, Bill Kirchen, some of my most favorite guitar players are in that chicken-pickin' Tele mode.

Prince is the only person to ever shred a Tele and make it look as cool as a Strat.

Not even getting into country guys (from James Burton to Brad Paisley), Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Bruce Springsteen, Jonny Greenwood, Mike Campbell, Robbie Robertson, James Honeyman-Scott, etc. And in terms of looking cool and not shredding, Andy Summers, Wilko Johnson, Joe Strummer, Syd Barrett, Keith Richards, etc. Obviously not all of these dudes are identified exclusively as Tele players, but impressively, many are! Strats are cool, too, but from dudes playing electric blooze to heavily compressed '80s cheese, few seem to make the most of them. But of course, who else do you need beyond Hendrix on the Strat front?

Voted Tele. I don't really like the sound of either guitar but I like what Chris Spencer from Unsane can do with a Tele.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqF1nyjCU8M

Page shredding on a Les Paul >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Page shredding on a Tele

it's just not the same. with the exception of Prince, it always looks like their main guitar got busted or stolen and they're borrowing some opening band's guitar. it just looks WACK

I am not an accomplished guitarist but c'mom, Telecaster cus I AM A GROWN UP. For a pre-teen nephew/niece, yeah I might recommend a Strat. I have the mexican Tele cos I never had much money, but I haven't picked up a Strat since I was like 12? I had no idea this was even a debate...

2:15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzBVvD1vUvM

Strats are incredibly hard to play well, ime, the action is so sensitive.

Teles are much more versatile from a style point of view

oh wait this is on ILM... umm strats i guess.

because jimi

The best rhythm tone ever. Silver mercury bliss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxATZPKbAqU

like someone mentioned above, you'll see a bunch of local blues guitarists play strats, apart from beginner guitarists

a few xposts

Oh yeah of course, the Smashing Fucken Pumpkins must be the decider here. Prince, Springsteen, Strummer.. I am comfortable in my position.

hey man, put Billy and the Pumpkins and everything else out of your mind....*bong rip*..........just listen to that tone

Not wack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf2e4QPPxJY

Oh, Doug Martsch is a Strat guy too. But I think he switched out the pickups and has the selector switch permanently jammed in one position or something.

seriously, when Dylan talked about the "thin wild mercury sound" of Blonde on Blonde..... Billy's clean rhythm tone circa '93-'94.... it's that fat wild mercury sound

Billy also uses Lace Sensors in his Strats fwiw

Have you kept it stock or modded it?
At one point I had the pickup switch and tone knob removed, so all it has is the volume control. I took the tone knob off because I always had it turned all the way up and never touched it—I dialed in the tone on my amp instead. As for the selector switch, I’m pretty sure that the middle position is the only setting I can use now. The in-between settings were completely useless to me.

I do all the sound-shaping stuff with pedals. I’m not a tone junkie. I don’t even know if a Strat is the best guitar for me. I just got it because someone at the guitar store where I bought it recommended it. To get the best sound, I always have to jack it up with a preamp. At first I didn’t understand that stuff, but once I started using a preamp, I got a much bigger and more satisfying sound.

Ok Doug Martsch is an acceptable counterpoint. Is "Billy" meant to refer to the Smashing Pumpkins again? cus eh... no.

Billy was the only one in SP that played Strats, James mostly used Les Pauls.

you don't even have to listen to him sing. just that tone in the Luna video.... fuck me running if that's not the best clean rhythm tone i've ever heard

for tele players i immediately think of robyn hitchcock for silvery shimmer and d boon for skrawk

Billy was the only one in SP that played Strats, James mostly used Les Pauls.
Oh Ok cool, I'll run straight awaya nd check them out.

strat = r thompson for christ's sake!!! and byrne

Yeah, Richard Thompson owns that shit

Also, Alex Chilton on the first 2 Big Star albums, total strat sound

I wish Richard Thompson was my dad. Or at least my cool uncle.

Let's not forget David Gilmour

(it is entirely possible that Richard Thompson is my uncle, ftr).

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51XtWa3SqVL.jpg

thread closed

maybe a controversial opinion here but my take on pros that use strat and do so successfully is that the amps and racks are doing a lot of work

gilmour's strat(s) were pretty heavily modded, it's really not fair to judge it as a "standard strat sound"

never liked hendrix

They're two of the most boring guitar choices I could possibly think of, but between the two it's the Tele.

I find Strats far easier to play, but they remind me too much of Eric Clapton - indeed he has a signature model - so it's always felt like it has a faint whiff of naff about it.

Give me an ES-335, an SG or even a Rick over either.
My

age 12-20 (Gilmour worshipper): Strat

age 21-30 (snobby twentysomething): Tele

age 31-36 (wizened thirtysomething dgaf): Strat

Both absolutely classic, but Strat for its shimming, glassy tones and the the sound of the neck pickup on lead.

*My favourite guitar is a toss-up between those three.

(xpost)

I think the important lesson to take away here is FUCK GIBSON.

Both absolutely classic, but Strat for its shimming, glassy tones and the the sound of the neck pickup on lead.

otm

Oh and FUCK "BILLY".

Les Pauls are even less versatile than the Tele but at least the one mode on them is RAWK

interesting how everybody's experience with strats is COMPLETELY the opposite of mine.. maybe it IS the amps (never played through anything but fenders)

same goes for the SG. i'd rather play an SG than a Tele

Strats don't need to be modded to win this. I prefer Vox amps (cranking the gain all the on an AC10 is my favorite distortion sound ever), but the sound of an out of the box American (or even Mexi!) Strat in a Twin Reverb or a Frontman... yeah, it's that shimmery, glassy sound of the gods.

the gods of surf

why would you judge a guitar on how versatile it is

it's like saying you prefer a dilettante to a specialist

(and yes, I know that Clapton had a psychedelic SG when in Cream, but that's back when he meant a shit)

For those of us who can't afford an arsenal of guitars, it's nice to have tone options

I think the important lesson to take away here is FUCK GIBSON.

No way man. My two earliest guitar heroes, Alvin Lee and Bill Nelson: 335, and 345 respectively.

I think the important lesson to take away here is FUCK GIBSON.
― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Tuesday, November 1, 2016 1:40 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

why would you judge a guitar on how versatile it is

it's like saying you prefer a dilettante to a specialist

― F♯ A♯ (∞), Tuesday, November 1, 2016 2:45 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not at all- the Strat is a specialist in every area
and yeah, options.

There's nothing a Tele can do that a Strat can't do better. Show me

tele def looks cooler/has some distinctive sounds in certain settings
i bought a strat though and if you only had to have one guitar it does the job great and is just flat out more comfortable to player IMO which is a bigger deal to me now i guess

feel like the indie backlash against the strat has been going on for so long it's kind of underrated now? like it's hilarious to me that a lot of ppl think the jag is an overall better guitar

i really wish i could get a G&L 80s version of either, those are great

Versatility only really means anything if you can only afford to have one or two guitars or you want to take less gear onstage with you.

There's a reason why professional musicians tend to own several different types of guitar - not just because they can afford it, but mostly it's for the unique sound of that guitar! Sometimes one guitar can't cover all the "colours" you need.

(xpost)

Or what Moodles said!

honestly i feel like in an age where every fucking guitarist is running his guitar through a pedalboard with about 17 handpainted boutique pedals and then an amp with its own colorations to the sound, the guitar has never mattered less outside of its playability and i'd love to do one of those 'gotcha' a/b blind tests with ppl who say they can identify guitars by tone on recordings

tele def looks cooler/has some distinctive sounds in certain settings

I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS

feel like the indie backlash against the strat has been going on for so long it's kind of underrated now? like it's hilarious to me that a lot of ppl think the jag is an overall better guitar

― blonde redheads have more fun (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, November 1, 2016 2:52 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

was just thinking about Malkmus though and he played a strat.

You mostly play a Strat when you record?

Yeah. I went off it for a few years, but it was my Pavement guitar and I came back to it. When I play with my fingers with that guitar, it has a certain roundness and with a pick it can sound a little brittle. I don’t know, once you know some instrument so well, you get really used to the subtleties of how they react — pickups and things like that. I pick up new guitars now and then, but almost because I have to or should more than because I want to.

yeah the Jazzmaster/Jag trend is so fucking beat, i hope we can all agree that Strat or Tele, they're both far preferable to the novelty bullshit of a Jazzmaster or a Jag.

There's nothing a Tele can do that a Strat can't do better. Show me

― flappy bird, Tuesday, November 1, 2016 11:52 AM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a strat and a tele have different purposes. if i want a tele sound, i wouldn't try to emulate it with a tele, and vice versa. i wouldn't say one is better than the other

i think you've described the strat's sound pretty accurately (clear, glassy tones), but i would not use it any other way, as the other sounds/tones it produces are not that great, unless you tweak/mod the hell out of it, get the right amp and racks (or pedals)

it's not really a competition, and certainly not one where one can emulate another guitar's tone. i've played a couple strats, teles, jazzmasters, gibson, and other types of guitars, and would rather use a guitar for a specific tone, but i know i'm super picky with my tone, meaning i know exactly the type of sound i like and i'm pretty stubborn about getting it

like a string breaks a magnetic field, that is translated by the pickup into an electric signal, which runs through a cord and then in and out of 8 different pedals each of which is altering the signal, then into an amp that alters the signal (sometimes with tubes or w/more effects) and then through a cone that translates into soundwaves....and people swear they can tell that said guitar's body is made of alder or rosewood

i wouldn't try to emulate it with a strat*

xp to myself

xpost yes i agree, it's all out of love. i have a Tele and 2 Strats, and while i love both, I disagree that you can't get heavy or twangy with a Strat w/o mods. i have 5 or 6 guitars and it's a burden, and if I had to, I knew i could get pretty much everything I wanted out of a guitar with a Strat (preferably a Fat Strat with a humbucker in the bridge)

i haven't talked guitars with people in a while (been out of the music thing for a while now), but ya, there are many components that affect your sound. played cleanly and connected directly to an amp, you might be able to guess, but it also depends how it was recorded (i'm thinking mic placement). in practise, this is rarely the case, though. sound is tainted by so many variables

xp

to boot, i've started using an amp modelling software called Scuffham Amps S-Gear for p much all my electric recording. i've resisted a lot of this stuff for years but a friend who owns a pro studio recommended it as better than trying to record electric superquietly as to not wake the kid with a microcube or some such super low watt amp.

been fairly blown away by how good it sounds. i don't think i could do better outside of a pro studio/pro mics with a really nice amp at a good volume

that's a good solution. the technology is getting surprisingly good

i'm thinking of buying ivory synthogy's piano samples because it sounds very realistic

for anyone interested, for $130 it's fairly well mindblowing, guy used to work for marshall back in the day

http://www.scuffhamamps.com/product/s-gear

feel like the indie backlash against the strat has been going on for so long it's kind of underrated now? like it's hilarious to me that a lot of ppl think the jag is an overall better guitar

― blonde redheads have more fun (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, November 1, 2016 11:52 AM (forty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the Johnny Marr Jag is GREAT tho.

i like jags just fine and they look cool, it's just funny how they went from a sorta obscure thing to almost more ubiquitous than the strat itself

though i guess i think of marr as a rick guy?

me too... jag/jazz is the land of kurt/thurston

i like jags just fine and they look cool, it's just funny how they went from a sorta obscure thing to almost more ubiquitous than the strat itself

― blonde redheads have more fun (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, November 1, 2016 12:48 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

def true, i mostly hate jags (besides the look) but that marr one fixed everything wrong with them m/l

I own a Tele, two Strats, and a Jazzmaster. The Telecaster I bought in 1983 and I'll own it until the day I die. I record with it all the time and it's relative unforgivingness has always forced me to be a better at playing and paying attention.

In my experience Strats (especially newish ones) are wildly inconsistent in sound and quality control even between models that are supposedly the same subspecies. If you find one that's comfortable and steers you in a direction you want to go, then absolutely consider modding it. My Strat is an AmStandard one from the mid-90s - I replaced the tremolo block and string saddles with heavier pieces (#1 important mod IMHO), swapped out the pickups with ones from a '68 Strat, and redid all the wiring for in/out-of-phase PU switching. I gig with this guitar all the time - *always* stays in tune, sounds great, never really have to sweat about what I'm doing.

The second Strat is a 12-string one from Fender Japan. Never had to do anything to it other than buy strings.

Also: Telecaster. Telecaster? Telecaster!

Doesn't matter as long has it has a heart of chrome and a voice like a horny angel.

redid all the wiring for in/out-of-phase PU switching

I have this mod on one of my two 'Strats' (both built from parts made under license by Fender) and it makes a huge difference.

does this mean modding to a 5-way pickup switch?

Doesn't matter as long has it has a heart of chrome and a voice like a horny angel.

― MarkoP, Tuesday, November 1, 2016 8:14 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

But it does require the perfect combination of the right power chords and the precise angle from which to strike!

I modded mine to add "soul" and "grit" knobs that go to 11, keep em turned up

Another reason to vote Tele, Popol Vuh:

https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7297/27230668203_f45f927124_b.jpg

ah, but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO7N2tFb0X8

there are many cool artists that have played telecasters and stratocaster and many have played both!

yeah if its just coolness factor based on artists choices then its a coin flip.

does this mean modding to a 5-way pickup switch?

The mod I have replaced the two tone knobs with push-pull knobs that control the phase options.

D Boon played a tele and that's enough for me.

xp mine replaced the 5 way switch with three 3-way toggle switches, one per pickup.

Leo Fender was pretty genius turning the guitar into a true modular device. The Telecaster slab design with the straight head stock is about as durable I think you can make an electric guitar out of wood. The Stratocaster being the next iteration adding in the body countour for player comfort but it also had a very automobile look too. It's probably the most copied guitar design by other companies, many of which trying to put together the set neck or neck through of a Gibson with the layout and contour of the Strat.

honestly i feel like in an age where every fucking guitarist is running his guitar through a pedalboard with about 17 handpainted boutique pedals and then an amp with its own colorations to the sound, the guitar has never mattered less outside of its playability and i'd love to do one of those 'gotcha' a/b blind tests with ppl who say they can identify guitars by tone on recordings

― blonde redheads have more fun (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, November 1, 2016 2:57 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think that's true except to the type of pickup. You get into harder rock guitar sounds and into great saturated sounds of metal, you will find mostly the humbucker as the carrier magnet on the plank. And there is a pretty wide spread between a fairly low output vintage humbucker and something with gobs of output like an active pickup like an EMG. Low output humbuckers in a Les Paul or SG can sound fairly similar and twangy to a Telecaster. Your Gretch style humbuckers can get there too.

I'm biased as hell. Telecaster. Preferably with flat wound strings, please.

Telecaster slab design with the straight head stock is about as durable I think you can make an electric guitar out of wood

My kid is approaching 2 so my Telecaster is the guitar I keep upstairs so I can fuck around in the living room; so much less likely to break than the ephiphone dot with the angled headstock and the 45 year old Yamaha acoustic which are high up on the wall in the basement.

And man I love rewiring guitars - both of mine have push-pull pots for phase shifting, a 4 way switch in the telecaster, a coil split pot in the Epiphone, etc. Split coils in the Epiphone humbuckers don't really sound like single coils, and the extra series position in the Tele doesn't really sound like a humbucker but both are fun options.

http://www.tdpri.com/attachments/curtele-jpg.302495/

^^^^^^
as long as we're playing the "this guy plays this" game

Hells yes.

As a player, I love them both, but probably play Strats more, perhaps because they're more comfortable and more elegant.

Versatility for its own sake is a red herring IMO. If there are ten settings and I only like the sound of two of them, I'd rather just have a guitar with two settings and lose the clutter. I like neck pickups (and, on Strat, the neck/middle) vs. bridge pickups. I don't mind switching to a different guitar if I want a different sound. Why would I want a coil-splitting Gibson that can sound _almost_ like a Strat, when I could have an actual Strat?

As a listener, I think less in terms of "this guy played this kind of guitar" - because there are so many people who have used both in so many different ways - and more about legacy/influence, the way that the people using that tool have shaped the way music in general sounds.

A clean pure Strat rhythm sound has been a wonderful influence on music - I am thinking mainly of Nile Rogers here. You can't have a beefy humbucky Les Paul in that musical space, nor a fuzzy high-gain metalloid tone. I'm also grateful to people like Richard Thompson who use that nice bitey single-coil sound to play things that are complex and precise and melodic. Using it for singing leads inna Gilmour style is acceptable (though not my favorite use).

I do wish it weren't so associated with Claptonian/Vaughnian blooz doodz, because that path leads to Eric Johnson and John Mayer and their associated bloozwankery.

From the Danny Gatton and Roy Buchanan mindset, you see lots of country/jazz musicians that embrace the Tele. Many players can get a very big box jazz sound out of those guitars. While he plays all sorts of guitars, Bill Frisell plays a Tele quite a bit. Mike Stern played a Tele then a Yamaha based on a Tele.

I think the modular nature of the designs are really big. You got everyone from Clarence White taking a big hunk out and inventing a 'b bender' Tele to Eddie Van Halen carving up his like Frankenstein. "Oh hell...how did that wire again...screw it, i'm just going to plug it up to the single volume knob...I can't screw that up." All of Hendrix and Clapton's famous Strats were mongrels made from parts on multiple guitars.

Yeah, Springsteen's Tele, possibly the most iconic Tele, is a mongrel, too.

Man, Frisell has been all over the place - made his name with an SG - but he does tend to stick with one for a while. His Tele of the last several years is a beaut. Always impressed when blues guys like Albert Collins go Tele.

Indeed, Blind Faith-era Clapton played a hybrid Tele/Strat

Strats are incredibly hard to play well, ime, the action is so sensitive.

I remember seeing a quote from Jimmy Page somewhere, in which he'd been asked to compare the Les Paul to his former axe of choice, the Telecaster. He commented that the Tele "pushes back" at you a lot more, but "that has its own rewards". I have an SG and a Strat hanging beside me here, and I think I know what he was getting at. It feels like the combination of neck scale and pickups on Fender guitars necessitate that you up your game when you plug them in. Something like 'Little Wing' turns into a trainwreck real quick on the Strat if I'm out of practice. By comparison, the SG is much more forgiving, but of course it's not always going to give you the sound or feel that you need.
I would guess that the Tele will win the poll, if for no other reason than the sense that the Strat is still tainted by association with Clapton in the '80s - blooze, booze, rolled-up sleeves and Lace Sensors.

voting tele because of Prince and Alasdair MacLean from the Clientele whose setup I'd want to copy if I ever buy an electric guitar:

https://www.guitar.com/sites/guitar.com/files/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/clientele_alasdair_2008.jpg

why's the strat more comfortable?

P-Bass vs. Jazz Bass
Poll Closing Date: Friday, December 9, 2016 7:00 PM (in 1 month)

choose one, and defend your position. you may choose from the perspective of a musician, or a music fan, or whatever else. just choose!

*Dingwall
*An unhewn hunk of spalted maple

Playing a les paul feels so liquidy, it's like being a dolphin gliding around. Fenders are more like a Chinese pipa, each note is a fucking NOTE.

Weirdly the guitar I really want is an early 80s ibanez roadstar because that's what curt kirkwood used for Meat Puppets' Up On the Sun, my favorite gtr record. I actually saw one for cheap last time I was visiting my mom in St. Paul, I hope it's still there next time I go.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Telly_Savalas_Kojak_1973.JPG/220px-Telly_Savalas_Kojak_1973.JPG

niels, specifically the body carve in the back and the bevel on the lower bout.

Meat Puppets' Up On the Sun, my favorite gtr record

:)

Unexpectedly...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vPK8LVdf5I

Yeah, Page gravitated toward the Strat towards the end there, which iirc is why Zeppelin had to break up.

I have a couple of Teles, which I really love - there's a kind of chrome-platedness to not only the sound but the feel of the things that appeals to me. One of 'em is a Cabronita, which has a humbucker for a bridge pickup. It gets nice 'n growly. But I find playing above the 12th fret really tough with these guitars - the blocky body gets in the way. I bought an SG (epi, w/e, my Teles are Squiers too) and liked how I could get right up the fretboard without interference, but I'm not crazy on the tone altho the neck pickup can get real nice and roary.

I've never liked the quackiness of a Strat, tho I'm sure most of that is my crappy technique. "Tone emanateth from the fingers."

Looking for a guitar that had a Tele feel with upper-neck playability & stumbled on a Squier '51. Wasn't actually looking for Fenders but there it was in the pawnshop, cheap like borscht, so I went for it. Really digging it so far - it's a Tele neck with a slightly awkward Strat-style body. Splittable humbucker at the bridge plus a single-coil neck pickup. Needs testing in rehearsals & gigs before I make the call to say this is the one, but I like it a lot so far. Can be piercing or crunchy (haven't found the "gentle" setting yet). Slightly more forgiving to play than a Tele - a spongier neckfeel - but it's a little more uptight than a Strat. And it doesn't require huge hands to play above the 12th fret, so: mission accomplished. For now.

http://www.guitarsite.com/news/images/ugly07/s20superhero.jpg
http://www.tdpri.com/attachments/dragon_slayer-jpg.39497/

Those '51s look interesting. I don't think I'd paid them any attention until now. Any idea why they're called '51 though? What's that about?

Not sure, never heard an explanation of the 51 name. It must be said that they are very cheaply made guitars, single ply scratch plate, cheap hardware, characterless pickups etc. so don't expect a "sleeper". People have loved them as modding platforms but despite the great design they feel like a budget Indonesian made guitar.
Neck is very full in the hand, and that plus the satin finish was a winning combo for some people. I had one and it always felt cheap to me, I'd go back to my "real" 1983 Squier Japan Tele Custom and it was a whole other level of quality. But that's one of my all time favourites so the competition is tough.
Fender put out a MIJ version of the 51 in their Pawn Shop series a few years ago, I never tried one of those.
I always think a Tele is like a futon and a Strat is like a spring mattress. I have always preferred to sleep on a futon but there are times I sleep on a spring mattress and it feels just right.

i really wish i could get a G&L 80s version of either, those are great

man I'd probably sell you my ASAT, I love it but I never use it any more. I've never owned a strat so I can't really vote with anything but "the one I chose to buy is the one I like" but whenever I've tried 'em out in studios, they're not my choice. but then again I can't shred. you have to promise not to be mean when I use the proceeds of the sale to buy a pre-'96 PRS.

Gibson hate on this thread is of course ridiculous, LP > Strat for me

Start looking at $2k plus for a new instrument and Fender and Gibson hate are both kinda justified compared to the abundance of better-quality small shop Gibson and Fender-inspired instruments. Wouldn't buy a brand new one of either, although in my experience new Gibsons are more obviously carelessly put-together than new Fenders. New Fenders are not bad guitars, but there's a guy in your town making a better Telecaster.

I'd agree w/that if yr talking about recent-build Fenders & Gibsons for sure, really no reason to buy one of those. classic Gibsons I will stan for they sound f'in' awesome.

We are in agreement!

BUT -- 'cause you knew that was coming -- the air gets rare fast with the good old instruments in terms of price. I'm a bass dude and watch that world more; there aren't a whole lot of undiscovered good Gibson models out there these days, and the ones I like are prone to headstock breakage. I still covet a Epiphone Embassy a lot, but as the prices approach $5k for one with an unbroken headstock, I look at what's out there for $4k from some starving genius and wonder if the coveting is a little silly.

I've found a good strategy is buying Mexican made Fenders and then with the hundreds of dollars saved spend a little more on upgrading pickups and electronics. I have a Mexican Tele and a Mexican Strat with great Fralin pick-ups, and an Epi Les Paul with Lollar noise-cancelling P-90s. Each guitar probably cost around $400, max, then I independently spent a little extra on the upgrades. (I also have an SG, a '61 reissue, but I play that the least.)

My fave guitar was a '52 reissue American-made 1993 Tele (1993 being a great year, for some reason - maybe the custom shop guys were still involved more?) that got stolen. It had Fralin pickups, too, and sounded awesome, and was weirdly light as well (relatively speaking).

Hm, I've been pretty happy with the Cherry Dot ES-335 I picked up three years ago. Is there a less expensive version you guys prefer?

I don't know what you paid, and I don't have your instrument in front of me. But this thing is a monster with breathtaking workmanship: http://www.schwarz-custom.de/cardinal.html

Isn't the Gibson company really shitty politically too?

as of late yep. read lots of stuff about disgruntled employees and management basically running the company into the ground

This is way too good to just talk about on IMM: Gibson Guitars supremely embarrassing Tea Party pandering "Government Series"

I refuse to vote in this until the options are changed to S-500 vs ASAT

Also yes Gibson is a horrible company both on the political side, and to work for.

I've played an American Standard Tele and it was the best guitar I played in my life. It's just so transparent - every tiny nuance of your fingers comes right through, in a good way. You can make it sound like anything you want. Strats never felt right to me and they sounded generic in comparison.

I don't know what you paid, and I don't have your instrument in front of me. But this thing is a monster with breathtaking workmanship: http://www.schwarz-custom.de/cardinal.html

That's an unfortunate logo. Who wants SCHVATZ on their headstock?

Shvar

Starting price on that thing is $4454 US, which by my estimates is around double what I've spent in my entire life on musical gear in total - and this includes my recent extravagant splurge (for me) on a 1978 Princeton Reverb.

man those things look NICE.

x-post: I believe it, joygoat, and there's no shame in that -- I'm just saying compare the Schwarz with a new Gibson ES 335 around the same price (and they make a couple that are more expensive) and the Gibson comes off looking very, very bad.

JC: I've only touched the guitars, but I've played the basses. They are all that.

That's an unfortunate logo.

Schwanz?

Yeah, Gibson is shit politically and environmentally, and I would have probably shopped around more if I knew what I know now. (I think the whole classical guitar industry is a little problematic environmentally tbh, as an aside.) The Schwarz definitely costs more than what my Gibson did, if I'm reading the price right, but I'm definitely going to want to check one out if you're saying it puts the 335 to shame!

Check this out, S: http://www.leonardo-guitar-research.com/

Whoa, thanks. I just bought one less than a year ago, and it was 40 years old so at least no new trees were cut down for it, but I'll definitely remember that.

I'd also take a serious look at Heritage as a modern Gibson alternative.

http://heritageguitar.com

https://cdn.meme.am/cache/instances/folder464/54312464.jpg

i play a tele. I've never liked strats. that's all.

i've heard nothing but good things about heritage but damn those headstocks are hideous

having said that, i've just acquired a prs s2 starla and totally fallen in love with it after previously regarding prses as the tools of ponytailed session men, rich assholes and carlos santana so my judgement may well be impaired

prses as the tools of ponytailed session men, rich assholes and carlos santana

so OTM. I just recoil at ridiculously colored quilted maple tops and those stupid bird inlays.

The starla isn't bad looking though.

years ago i saw a £5k prs on the wall of a guitar store that had a ridiculously ornate flame top covered with a turquoise-to-purple burst. it was genuinely traumatic

EBay and Reverb are filled with the broken dreams of partcaster builds. You can sometimes get $800 worth of parts for like $300. You open it up and realize the reason it sounded like a turd was soldered wrong.

Really like the new FSR Tele Standard in white opal, going for about 500

the site Adorama often has crazy deals on Standard USA Strats and Teles (esp Strats with 2 singles and a humbucker on the bridge, which tbh might be kinda nice)

I refuse to vote in this until the options are changed to S-500 vs ASAT

― Here, let me Danesplain that for you (jjjusten), Monday, November 28, 2016 12:36 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Shit, the S-500. And of course, add Marissa Paternoster to the "strat" players list.

http://loopvideos.com/ilroTI32p5s?from=10&to=18

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The correct answer!

Indeed.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!

yesssss

Absolutely the correct answer.

While I voted otherwise, I understand and respect the outcome; further, I am not surprised given what I know of ilx0rz.

I own and love both, and I certainly have gone through Telemoods that lasted years.

You know both would lose to a Jazzmaster if polled so here.

The correct answer to that poll is Telecaster and Jazzmaster.
https://c5.staticflickr.com/6/5509/14363665828_193718576f_h.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v283/eupat/DSCN5312.jpg

The offset body with Tele-style controls looks quite righteous. Not crazy about the three-saddle bridge but I applaud the purity of vision.

hardtail offsets always look kinda wrong to me

needs a floyd rose tremelo obv

here's another hybrid thing fender did, kind of a stratotelecaster

http://www.multumguitars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Fender-Classic-Player-Triple-Telecaster.jpg

amazing how much uglier that is than a regular tele when all they've done is angle the neck pickup and add a middle one

yeah it's odd...though i read some reviews that sounded cool, like it's a 5-way switch like a strat, the neck pick up supposedly sounds pretty "tele" and it gets more strat farther back could be potentially interesting but not a real pretty guitar

I love Tele Deluxes, probably the next guitar I'll buy.

i also love the Jim Adkins Tele. I got a prototype of the black one:
http://i.testfreaks.co.uk/images/products/600x400/92/fender-jim-adkins-ja-90-telecaster-thinline.4358492.jpg
mine has block inlays and the f hole sits a little further back. wish i had the red one tbf

How about the Televee, the monstrosity hanging on the wall behind my friend Dave in this picture?

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14440990_1731782630415360_6779627090910247444_n.jpg?oh=02ef4e65acdceff38afc8b727e626041&oe=58F47858

it's uh certainly a striking instrument

also almost certainly theft-proof

Last time I saw Springsteen he at one point played a Tele 12-string, which was ... weird. Also seen him with a Bigsby-affixed Tele.

Gah, if you're going to have a trem on a Telecaster I guess it may as well be that one. Bigsbys are the enemy of intonation IME (as is the 3-saddle bridge). Therefore much beloved by retro difficulty/impractability/simplicity fetishists. If that's how you roll why not just go all the way and get with the Sears Roebuck/Silverline/Airline plastic Jack White type thingy.

But the B-Bender Tele, now that is a work of genius and I will not speak ill of it.

i've seen bigsbys on teles before, was that a model or would those all be aftermarket?

Therefore much beloved by retro difficulty/impractability/simplicity fetishists.

tbh there are times that i guiltily fantisize about getting one of those weird boutiquey brands that are made of a koa wood and graphite and look like ergonomic space dildos, i bet they play really well and weigh like 12 oz.

If guitar porn isn't out of the question, this is my Tele. Not for that price, though, jeez.

that finish is really pretty

Reminds me of molten lava (and a '70s basement). Humbucker at the neck and single-coil at the bridge.

Yeah, that's the price point where new Fenders make no sense. You can get a handmade-with-love-and-skill custom job for that price.

yah get like pearl anarchy signs inlayed on the fretboard and shit

No, like have decently dressed frets and a finish with no holes and shit.

i hope $2k fender custom shop jobs comes with at least decently dressed frets!

this guy is local to mpls if i were to spend a lot i would love one of his, so gorgeous

http://www.whalehazard.com/

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55be87ece4b0bf5a19eae5fa/56ad5ca520c647a79ac0ab07/56ad5cb8c2ea512e75550121/1454202303645/IMG_7417.jpg?format=750w

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55be87ece4b0bf5a19eae5fa/56ad5ca520c647a79ac0ab07/56ad5cd1c2ea512e755501ae/1454202077813/IMG_7272.jpg?format=750w

$2000 Fenders are factory and don't always have decently dressed frets, and Gibson's even worse. Those Whalehazards are pretty cool and look like good value for money, daft name aside.

I never gave a shit about Stratocasters but somehow in the last year (maybe thanks in part to this thread) I've been sort of enamored of them - like I've literally never played one before but they're basically THE standard electric guitar so maybe I've been too contrarian about it.

I moved to a much bigger town in the last year, with several million people within an hour and have been looking at Craigslist a lot for used strats. There are constantly MIM ones between $300 and $400 so I was waiting for something odd or a great deal and the other day found a 1981 Tokai Silver Star 48 for $350 - it's a copy of a 1976 Stratocaster, with the giant headstock, bullet truss rod, and three-bolt neck and I think I'm going to buy it. I know it's not technically a strat but they seem like cool guitars that are pretty damn close, especially if I swap the pickups at some point.

Kind of stoked about this:
https://i.imgur.com/doHYeeP.jpg

wow that must be from the infamous "lawsuit era" of Japanese guitar making, that logo is particularly brazen

I bet that will be great, I passed on a Univox lawsuit P bass copy recently that I regret

sweet!

Joygoat, buy without hesitation, you will not be disappointed. My 1977 Greco “Super Sounds” is a midrange model from the other major factory and it is one of the best made and nicest sounding guitars I’ve ever played (and I own several nice Fenders etc).

These are also climbing in value as people realise how good they are. $350 is cheap for a Tokai.

Unexpectedly...

https://youtu.be/_vPK8LVdf5I

― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, November 5, 2016 (one year ago)

Yeah, Page gravitated toward the Strat towards the end there, which iirc is why Zeppelin had to break up.

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, November 5, 2016 (one year ago)

I wouldn't go that far. He used a strat specifically for "In the Evening," specifically for the part of the riff you hear at 1:17. Trem required for that one.

btw I prefer a Les Paul with low-output pups and a tele after that, but I've been messing around with the strat again. there really are some things only a strat can do.

I got an American Standard Telecaster this year via a Facebook gear trade/sell group and frankly I can't imagine playing any other guitar now.

Might not need to swap the pickups. Some that era of Tokai,Greco and Ibanez actually had DiMarzio pickups. They were an early customer.

i had a 70s burnt orange strat that was super sweet, but the bandleader encouraged me to trade it in because it wasn't vintage enough for him / the band. it's sort of visible here in the upper left next to david johansen. in subsequent years i learned to make my own decisions.

http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/columbia?a=d&d=cs19790322-01.2.13&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN------

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7410/10162159956_8a819b170a_o.jpg

That's pretty.

TSF you look cool as hell in that pic btw

Yeah, if it sounds funky, I would maybe just upgrade the electronics and pots. There are these guys in Winchester KY called RS Guitarworks who are local to me that are wizards with guitar electronics and some of their kits really do make a difference. Don't have to use them, but sometimes playing with the capacitors and/or the pots can really change the sound as much as swapping pickups. If it is an older guitar, it is also an option to just get them re-wound so the pickups are original instead of putting in some new pickup.

haha, thx. (xpost) that was taken at cbgb, where i suppose i thought it was the greatest of ironies to wear my columbia shirt, though to be honest most of the people who hung out there were nyu students. i'm paying now for having had all that hair then. my alopecia leaves me without a stitch of it.

browsing through the spectator, i notice that suzanne vega was playing on campus the same night we were, 3/24/79. that was our last gig ever, and maybe one of her first?

http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/columbia?a=d&d=cs19790323-01.2.12.2&srpos=2&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-%22suzanne+vega%22+%22postcrypt%22------

wow yeah I had no idea she was even playing the 70s.....

There are constantly MIM ones between $300 and $400 so I was waiting for something odd

I know it's fashionable in some circles to hate on MIMs. I've had two MIM Strats and a MIM Tele. I know they're not rare or cool or odd or sexy. But they are dependable and durable; their quality is pretty consistent over the last 15 years or so. They provide a very accurate and surgical sound that you can color or not, as you choose.

Also I have no fear of gigging with or lending out one of those instruments. If one were stolen or broken I wouldn't weep. I have older, quirkier, and rarer instruments but I generally do not gig with them.

(Not meant as a dis of joygoat or anybody; by all means, you should pursue the guitar of your dreams if that's what you're into.)

Strats are the chicken of guitars -- bland but versatile and there are ways of making it delicious.

In my experience 70s Japanese Fender copies typically crush MIM Fenders in terms of feel, playability and craftsmanship. I've owned about half a dozen dating from 1973-1978. All fantastic.

I’ve got no issue with MIM fenders - I’ve got a Mexican Tele which is probably my “best” guitar as the others are an Indonesian jazzmaster and Chinese epiphones dot. They’re just such a commodity - there are 20 actual fender strats between $250 and $400 on Craigslist within an hour of me right now and I was in no rush so kept waiting for some insane deal or something unusual.

I did buy the Tokai and it’s pretty nice - all original, mid line model so not the DiMarzios but the Tokai “greybacks”, was refretted recently and looks better than a lot of new guitars I’ve seen plus I imagine these are bigger than the originals would have been. Neck is super thin and has a 7.25 radius so it feels crazy small to me. Plus it makes all these sounds that I totally recognize from all over but never made myself before. My dream was a white one with a rosewood fingerboard and a 70s headstock which I wasn’t ever going to find for less than $500 so this thing is awesome. And it’s $115 cheaper than the cheapest Silver Star on Reverb right now, not counting $110 to ship it from Japan.

I've mentioned before that my session playing pals noted in Nashville a real uptick of MIM Teles as most favored guitar.

Plus it makes all these sounds that I totally recognize from all over but never made myself before.

As long as we are also including S-500 vs ASAT I am comfortable participating in this discussion.

Telecaster >>> Stratocaster because the strat volume knob is in exactly the right spot for me to hit it constantly and unintentionally while playing.

hah, my peeve is accidentally knocking the pickup selector out of position.

some people like the Stratocaster volume knob placement because it's close enough to manipulate for e.g. pinky volume swells.

I think I'd like a Telecaster with more Strat-style body carves for greater comfort, but at the same time I really like my Thinline Telecaster.

If I could afford a custom Stratocaster it would have one pickup (neck) and one knob, but I know I am out of step with the rest of the universe on this. Most one-pickup guitars have bridge only. Even on the Telecaster I only ever use the neck pickup.

tl;dr: love them both, annoyed by some features of both, can't choose and am glad I don't have to

I get the volume swell thing and know some people flip the Tele controls to get something similar but man it just messes me up

YMP why not git yo self a 70s Musicmaster - not too pricey, neck-only heaven. The late 70s ones have super meaty necks and of course they’re 24” scale.

Yeah I love where everything is laid out on a Strat

i just took off the knobs on my strat, can still adjust with the pegs

Matthewk, on my list! Hohner Jazzica too.

um, Hofner

I think I'd like a Telecaster with more Strat-style body carves for greater comfort

fender are doing those offset teles again atm:

https://shop.fender.com/en-GB/squier-electric-guitars/other/paranormal-offset-telecaster/0377005521.html

i had one of those squier duo-sonic reissues for a hot minute a while back. was a seriously great guitar and i loved playing it.

don't have it anymore. still have my tele tho.

and you know why that is?

because teles rule. (source: this poll)

They do. I had a perfectly dece MIM Tele some years ago, and sold it for some inexplicable reason.

My only current Tele is a Squier (classic vibe Thinline) and it is loads of fun! Light, fast, a little goofy. Very flat radius.

I used to prefer my Tele (MIM, upgraded pups etc) but now kind of prefer my MIM Strat, which is also upgraded with great pickups but is lighter, too, and super comfortable. And in the end, even more versatile. Tremelo bar, more pickup positions, etc

I grew up a Strat kid, they are still amazing and I wouldn't ever not own one.

But I got an American Tele a couple of years ago for an absolute steal and I generally prefer it over the Strat. I still like the comfort and look of the Strat, but I've been playing my Tele a lot more since I got it.

As a music fan. I actually *like* that the Telecaster's lack of versatility seems to have pushed to carve a role electric guitar in an ensemble, arrangement or mix that's specific to the instrument they're playing. It's not a saxophone, it's not an autoharp, it's the punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. I mean, sure, the twang- but the Trve Tele players know how to get a good "zap!" out of it as well. More of that, please, and if you wanna wail get yourself a damn sax #uncoolconservativebeliefs

* for the electric guitar
Heh

Every time I read an online discussion of necks and somebody talks about things getting in the way of their "bends", my eyes roll so hard they fret out on the narrow radius.
This is why I like the Telecaster: it's a block of wood with a robust bridge and a precisely fretted neck, two pickups at good locations on the strings, and nothing else. Suitable for chords, riffs, and pickin if you're so inclined.

Also tbf these days there are a reasonable variety of necks to choose from on a Tele so I don't know quite why people get hung up on that.

honestly the way people run their guitars through elaborate pedalboards now it's probably best to just buy on the basis of what's most comfortable

like you can really discern the difference between guitars after putting it through 10 boutique pedals and the amp

or ppl who insist they can tell the difference between this electric guitar "tonewoods" lol

lol I watched Joe Satriani's rig rundown video once, and if I recall correctly he had a pedal that could simulate different lengths of cord, as if anybody could possibly know the difference. Though I suppose if anybody could it would probably be somebody like him.

ok that's amazing

ums is otm about sound - you can do quite a lot to the sound with your feet, so people are sometimes overly precious about completely marginal aspects of their TOANZ.

To get a little philosophical on y'all, I sometimes get weary of having lots of tonal options. I pretty much know by now what I sound like.

We've all been marketed to death about equipment that heralds versatility as its selling point. Personally, of the approximately 372 sounds that could potentially emanate from my amplifier, I use like... five of them. Clean, dirty, weird, clean+weird, dirty+weird.

I sometimes wish more manufacturers would herald stuff that does one thing well. The Tele comes very close.

(Having said that, I love my Strat as well - it's a very elegant and beautiful object, feels very sensual and comfortrable, and it is as focused and precise as a laser beam. But I do sometimes have a sad about the five-position switch of which I only use one position, and about the tremelo that I rarely use. For a while I had it blocked, but then felt bad that I wasn't using a feature that is a main feature of the instrument, so I took the block out - and still rarely use it. It is a quandary.)

Make and model of guitar can definitely make a difference depending on the music you're making, though; you would likely not use, say, an SG for country licks. For that matter, I have an SG, and its output is so loud I barely pick it up, though at the same time Bill Frisell used an SG for his stuff for a while, so clearly in the right hands it is capable of a lot more sensitivity. Or think of the Rickenbacker. The Rick is immediately associated with jangle, a la Byrds, REM, Tom Petty, etc. But it was also often the guitar of choice for John Fogerty in CCR, for Guy in Fugazi, for Paul Weller in the Jam, and so on. And some of the best tones are all done in-amp anyway. Like Neil Young's overdriven tone, that's mostly just him cranking his amp to various degrees. Same with someone like Jimmy Page, who didn't even have many pedals at his disposal save a fuzz, wah and Echoplex, which is I assume all Hendrix really had, too.

Hendrix famously used the Octavia fuzz/octave pedal

Here's a clip of Wilco with really trad sounding country licks on an SG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5QCeSS03RE'

Huh, that's not a bad country sound for an SG!

When did a lot of the most common effects pedals become available? Early to mid 70s? I know late '60s had the wah, fuzz, phaser/univibe ...

jimi had a univibe too on stuff like little wing

a lot of the certain guitars = certain styles stuff comes down to influence and visual aesthetics rather than sound

Sure, but to my mind the main question is whether it's humbuckers or, like, a P-90 in the SG. I can't tell from that Wilco clip.

Country lead parts require twang by tradition, but it's not just twang, is it? Generally there's already a lot of midrange in the mix of a country arrangement, so a single-coil sound is most appropriate because it will cut more surgically, and introduce less extra midrange / bass / overtones.

For a while I had an Epi LP and an Epi 339 with coil-splitting. Even with the split switch on, the tone still sounded way too thick to me, lacking in bite. So I gravitated back to Fenders and will never go back.

looks like an sg junior with one p-90 in the bridge

Or think of the Rickenbacker. The Rick is immediately associated with jangle, a la Byrds, REM, Tom Petty, etc.

I bought a Rickenbacker 330 for that reason, and discovered that jangle actually wasn't what I was looking for. A process of elimination eventually lead me to Gretsch semi-acoustics and the realisation that the sound I could hear in my head was chime, which a Country Gentleman or the like has in spades. (Maybe the Gibson 335 can do it too?)
But damn, that fireglo 330 sure looked good hanging on my wall.

Gretsch guitars rule on the whole

jut got an epiphone 335 after many years of only playing a tele. love the thicker sound and occasional feedback from the semi-hollow body but it feels heavier and more complicated for my simple mind

I want a hollow body because.

Can you get thicker sound from a Tele twiddling knobs on your amp or is the extra really from the hollow?

Humbucker pickups I would think the big difference.

I reckon a P90 or two would get a solidbody into semi-hollow territory - there's just something more vocal about them. Same with Jazzmaster pickups (which of course were intended to put a solidbody into semi-hollow territory).

"Thicker sound from a Tele" is a puzzling phrase to me, because for me the whole point of having a Tele is to be nonthick; when I want thickness I use a different guitar.

I would characterize my hollow Tele as airier, not really thicker.

But I think you could get thickness with chorus or reverb plus some tone-knob adjustment (like, treble on 3, mid 5, bass 7).

My first guitar is (was?) a black maple neck 1998 Mexican tele and I got a weird urge for a blonde one with a black pickguard a few years ago (too much Springsteen and Prince, even neither actually played an actual telecaster) while also getting obsessed with the Telecaster Deluxe.

I ended up getting an unfinished ash body from guitar fetish for like $70 and a batch of blonde wudtone finish and transplanting the rest of parts. Then I bought a tele deluxe neck, a hardtail strat bridge, matt pike humbuckers, and all the other knobs and pots and switches and routed the black telecaster body out and built it into a deluxe. Both turned out pretty well but the deluxe feels nothing like a regular tele due to a giant flat neck.

As a covid lockdown project I recently put a P90 in the tele neck with new pots and a five way superswitch for series/parallel/out-of-phase options and I can't think of anything I'd want to change about either of them now, other than the Deluxe weighing a ton despite routing a out a shitload of wood because the pickups are like bricks.

Prince played a Korean Tele, right? And Springsteen's was an Esquire body with a Strat neck, iirc. Which actually sounds kind of appealing, because I love my Strat's neck more than my Tele's, but like the bridge, knobs, etc. of the Tele.

Prince's was a Hohner Mad Cat

Interesting:

Hello I am a Moridaira collector. Moridaira is the original manufacturer of the Mad Cat Guitar. It was made with three different names.
1. H.S. Anderson 1974 to 1986 and in 2011 Reissue
2. Hohner 1978/ 1979 These are the rarest of the rare. I have searched for two years and so far NONE have been on the market. NONE. If it says Hohner then chances are you have a reproduction, or reissue, or just a fake. the real ones will have the Hohner logo in Rainbow writing, with block letters, it will also have the serial number stamped in the back of the peg head ending in 791. So far in my search the only owner of one of these is Prince. I do believe in 1985 Honer had a reissue made by moridaira, but only the one with the telecaster peg head, and a smooth plain chrome neck plate. If your neck plate is thick and says Hohner Professional it was made in Korea by the Samick factory. Almost all Prince, and Prinz guitars were made in Korea. The Six Killer Guitar is made in China. and sold by aliexpress.com The HS Benton is Chinese as well. If it has a 3/4″ mahogany strip it was made in China.
3. The Bill Lawrence 1980-1983 These are Made by Moridaira these are REAL Mad Cat Guitars. These are not Reissues, or copys. These were made from Mad Cat Bodys and necks. Using the original stock. These have the original celluloid. and are 100% The REAL THING. Using Bill Lawrence Pickups. In 1984 The Moridaira company Stopped using the “Bill Lawrence” Name and Changed it to Bill’s Brothers. These were made in Japan in 1984 and 1985. In 1986 Bill’s Brothers were made in Korea.

springstein's is a tele body with a squire neck

Actually, we need to split the difference. It's a Tele body and an Esquire neck:

On page 185 of his new memoir, Bruce Springsteen pays brief but heartfelt homage to his oldest musical collaborator: his old Fender electric guitar. “I strapped on my new guitar, a 1950s mutt with a Telecaster body and an Esquire neck, I’d purchased at Phil Petillo’s guitar shop for one hundred and eighty five dollars. With its wood body worn in like the piece of the cross that it was, it became the guitar that I’d play for the next 40 years. It was the best deal of my life.”

oh yeah I think I mean that although honestly I can't tell from necks on guitars if I'm honest

I really love that tele body on springsteen's guitar

Can you get thicker sound from a Tele twiddling knobs on your amp or is the extra really from the hollow?

― Ira Einhorn (dandydonweiner), Wednesday, July 15, 2020 7:19 PM (yesterday

Humbucker pickups I would think the big difference.

― earlnash, Wednesday, July 15, 2020 8:46 PM (yesterday)

Throughout the Spacemen 3 years, Jason Pierce was using an early-80s Telecaster w/standard single-coils and then a couple years into Spiritualized switched to '72-style Telecaster Thinlines with the WR humbuckers which he's been using ever since. Whether it's the solid-state H+H amp he had in SP3, an AC30, or a backline rental Marshall - to my ears, his guitar sound has mostly been the same for decades.

I guess my point is that so much of this comes down to the player. I understand Townshend's point about choosing the amps first and working backwards from there.

WRHBs were also deliberately voiced to sound like single coils - so the Tele Thinline WRHB sound is not at all the same as a 335 semi hollow with PAFs.

for Paul Weller in the Jam, and so on. And some of the best tones are all done in-amp anyway.

So he was Geddy Lee avant la lettre?

i've been playing my strat for the past couple days. stock "classic player" (american pickups, mexican assembly) from the mid-2000s. this is not news but strats are really beautifully designed guitars, like if the tele is the perfect utilitarian design the strat is the perfect elevated design. when i got it i was playing rhythm guitar in a cover band and needed something that would really cut and contrast with the other guitarist. i would always want to have a strat around.

my tele is one of those thinline reissues with the WRHBs. it's my first "good" electric from my teen years and i'd never get rid of it but it's also never exactly been what i wanted. sometimes i daydream about getting or making a very early-spec tele with a massive neck that's set up for insane twang.

There's a lot of arguing over whether the reissue WRHBs are "authentic" enough to the old sound but I suspect that it just needs the right amp to match up with.

My quarantine project is a parts-Jazzmaster - different thread, but I'm completely out of my mind in settling in on a spec.

https://www.tdpri.com/attachments/esquire3-wayarlo-jpg.430886/

This a neat trick on a Telecaster.

I got this option on a guitar with a push pull on the volume knob.

xposty Johnny Marr is another full-on guitar nerd who nonetheless used a solid state amp, for his formative Smiths stuff. I think the Roland Jazz Chorus-120? According to Wiki that was the guitar amp of choice for Metallica, too, for a while. Fwiw, ZZ Top is another band that famously used dummy amps while actually miking overdriven little vintage amps. I suspect a lot of bands did that, too.

I do love a JC-120. My college weird jazz band ran almost everything through a Jc-120 - bagpipes, harmonica, recorder, clarinet.

The guitar player in my current band has one he wants to sell. I would buy it except it is way too much amp for my needs. If it were a JC-90, I would be all over that shiznit.

Robert Smith in The Cure’s heyday, too. (Now some Line 6 bullshit to go with his Guitar Hero custom axe.)

oooh fuck me been on this thread a bunch then this has to pop up on Craigslist

https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/dak/msg/d/shakopee-zane-custom-build-usa-tele/7151108141.html

xposty Johnny Marr is another full-on guitar nerd who nonetheless used a solid state amp, for his formative Smiths stuff. I think the Roland Jazz Chorus-120? According to Wiki that was the guitar amp of choice for Metallica, too, for a while. Fwiw, ZZ Top is another band that famously used dummy amps while actually miking overdriven little vintage amps. I suspect a lot of bands did that, too.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, July 16, 2020 9:14 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I think the empty cabs thing was very common in the 80s metal era

oooh fuck me been on this thread a bunch then this has to pop up on Craigslist

https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/dak/msg/d/shakopee-zane-custom-build-usa-tele/7151108141.html🕸

I know! I have no business buying it but....the question is...can I afford NOT to???

plus if you look at the body it's got Strat style contours on the back which is best of both worlds

nice-looking guitar. not that it matters much buying used, but sounds like this company went down in flames with a bunch of fraud accusations? https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?posts/26938777/

hmmm yeah that sounds shady, lots of that in the boutique guitar/pedal world unfortunately

i guess used i feel like this guy's be playing it on the regular and most of anything that could be wonky could be fixed by a good setup at a luthier

why am i talking myself into this???? i have three guitars i'm not doing anything with

lol same and i do this all the time

I mean even a real (non licensed) Bigsby like it's got is probably $300 installed

Saddles look like they are all pushed back to their limits as is the bridge, makes me wonder if the bridge is misulocated

it says right there it ‘plays like butter’ tho, you’re not allowed to say stuff like that on craigslist if it’s not true

the ja-90 tele is a sweet guitar imo:

https://shop.fender.com/en-US/electric-guitars/telecaster/jim-adkins-ja-90-telecaster-thinline/product-026235.html

ive got a prototype of the original translucent black one. mines got block inlays and the f-hole is in a different spot.

*mislocated, I'm very tired sorry

i get kind of bothered when like that one spottie posted or this one
https://shop.fender.com/en-US/electric-series/artist/guitars/jim-root-telecaster/0134444780.html

when they just put humbuckers in a telecaster. i don't get the point if it doesn't have the plate and bridge pickup

otherwise why not just get like a charvel super strat w/two humbuckers it's going to be more comfortable to play and a tele isn't a tele w/two hi gain humbuckers imo

never got the sense that the guys in slipknot were concerned with comfort while playing

When I saw Slint on their first reunion tour in 2005 iirc Pajo & whomever was playing Brian's parts (his brother I think?) both guitars had similar EMG pickups on their teles.

Dang, I forgot they had ebay'd them after the tour:

doodz, yoo know yoo want da slintguitar

m@tt how do you feel about a tele deluxe?

also a lot of the new teles have the belly cut, like that jim root one. super comfortable to play, actually. i think some people just love the tele look but want to play heavy stuff on it, and they want the fender logo vs the charvel logo.

purists agree with you tho.

love the joe duplantier san dimas (tele) in natural with the block inlays
https://images.reverb.com/image/upload/s---U2qFlMZ--/f_auto,t_supersize/v1604947855/ywhljrjfn8ovycydjffl.jpg

I personally do not dig a Tele OR Strat with humbuckers. I have an inner purist that is like, hey these are for single-coil aficionados. If you want a humbucker, you have the option of like, ALMOST ALL THE OTHER GUITARS IN THE UNIVERSE.

Further, I know there are some Teles out there with more comfy body carves and a bit of bevel here or chamfer there. That's OK.

Personally I like my Strat as it is, and have a (Squier!) Thinline Tele that is fine as well.

https://i.imgur.com/xe6q2Oa.jpg
this sounds great and it's all Tele

m@tt how do you feel about a tele deluxe?

also a lot of the new teles have the belly cut, like that jim root one. super comfortable to play, actually. i think some people just love the tele look but want to play heavy stuff on it, and they want the fender logo vs the charvel logo.

purists agree with you tho.

― Spottie, Thursday, December 3, 2020 3:24 PM (fifty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i like the one with the regular bridge and the humbucker in the neck, never rated the neck pickup that highly

i mean...i'm kinda trolling, i just think that the bridge sound is the core of the tele sound, you're basically just saying hey i want a different guitar but teles look cool, which honestly there's nothing wrong with that at the end of the day

I personally do not dig a Tele OR Strat with humbuckers. I have an inner purist that is like, hey these are for single-coil aficionados. If you want a humbucker, you have the option of like, ALMOST ALL THE OTHER GUITARS IN THE UNIVERSE.

i kinda feel that way, i have an HSS strat i got for super cheap which i have some internal shame about

i might replace the dimarzio humbucker that is in it with a TV Smith Filter'tron humbucker mount, which is basically a Gretsch pickup that fits in a conventional humbucker slot, at least something different

https://tvjones.com/tv-classic-bridge-humbucker-mount/#product-tab-addition-326

that Charvel is a nice looking guitar actually

i like it as well. very classy. even the massive block inlays work.

my first guitar is one of those HH '72 thinline reissues. i bought it when i was 16 and had pretty simplistic ideas about what guitar to buy, and it's not what i would purchase today, but i do think there's a case for humbuckers on a guitar with a fender scale length and fender's choice of body woods.

Fender brought back the real wide range humbuckers from the '70s with CuNiFe pole pieces. It's real tempting to have my Jazzmaster routed for a pair and have a Lee Ranaldo Jazzblaster.

they are good. I play a Telecaster but I bear no ill will towards the Stratocaster.

My first guitar was some weird Yamaha with a locking nut and a pseudo Floyd Rose and it weighed like 20 pounds, so I traded it for a Squier Strat which I've owned since 1988 (though it's currently out of commission—pickup issues). I should probably get a legit good Strat someday, but there's no rush.

I had a fake Tele once, and I've played real Teles before, but you have to be really good to play that guitar confidently. It doesn't hide a thing.

I've realized I kinda hate humbuckers; i had some in my homebrewed tele deluxe and recently swapped them out for p90s because it always sounded way too muddy and dull for me.

been thinking about getting one of these, this guy makes handwound P90s that fit in a Strat single coil mount

thinking that for the middle, the TV Smith Filter'tron in the bridge humbucker I posted above, then keeping the Strat neck pickup the same

https://www.rosepickups.com/rose-pickups-products/freedom-t-90-bridge

Keith had the right idea, put a humbucker in place of the Tele's (imo not very useful) neck pickup. You get the bright twang of the bridge, but more versatility out of the neck and combos.

That said, I'm not a big fan of humbuckers. P90s, though, those are great. And Neil Young might have stumbled on the best combo years ago with his Les Paul, which sports one P90 and one Firebird pickup. Iirc Daniel Lanois has the same setup on his own Goldtop.

I've kind of been fascinated by all the unique propriety pickups: Firebird, Jazzmaster, Gretsch, Rick. For those last two, do all models sport the same unique pickups?

I like the neck pickup in my tele. Think it’s an American standard, bought it new at GC in 1997. The bridge pickup is too think and twangy. Lobe the neck on clean or with a little bit of grit.

Neck pickups are the shiznit. I will never alter this opinion.

Also I have mad love for a P90.

For a while, to get semi-hollowbody sounds into my palette, I had an epi 339 with alleged coil-split abilities. Sounded okay, but did not really get to true single-coil scalpel-like tone.

It was a pretty nice guitar, just not for me. I gave/sold it to my bandmate (I recall there was whiskey involved). So I still get to see it every now and then.

Perhaps there is a fully-hollow archtop with P90s in my future. Wildly impractical but it might be cool. Like maybe a Casino or Jazzica type thingy.

My guitar teacher played enough Beatles tributes over the years that he eventually bought a Casino and a Gretsch strictly for that purpose, because nothing else quite sounded like them.

been thinking about getting one of these, this guy makes handwound P90s that fit in a Strat single coil mount

thinking that for the middle, the TV Smith Filter'tron in the bridge humbucker I posted above, then keeping the Strat neck pickup the same

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, December 4, 2020 9:28 AM (forty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this sounds like a really fun configuration

Gretsch, Rick. For those last two, do all models sport the same unique pickups?

Rickenbacker has always used in-house designs. Since the '80s their guitars have mostly been fitted with a pickup that is higher-gain than the design used in the preceding three decades. Some of their more expensive models (e.g. the Tom Petty-signature 12-string) are available with the '60s-style "toaster-top" pickups.
Gretsch guitars have been manufactured with all kinds - their own designs, but also DeArmond, TV Jones, Lindy Fralin...

Supros have unique pickups too the new stuff they are putting out is really cool

I've been playing an ES-335 for a couple years now which has 57 classic and super classic humbuckers, and I like them for what they do not have, i.e. a lot of the tones I don't like in single coil pickups. They can sound slightly dull through certain amps for sure, but, like, just don't play through those amps, play through something brighter. Some day I might want a tele for limited uses, but my current electric gives me the sound I want in most applications. Plus semi-hollows are nicer to practice unamplified with.

Can't see myself ever wanting a strat again. Gilmour is the only guy who I would really say gets a beautiful tone out of it, and it's so fat and un-strat-like imo, but it's really un-anything-like.

The Keef neck humbucker seems like the opposite of what I'd want - I don't want to make the neck potentially muddier, I'd rather have a bridge humbucker and a neck P90 or something.

I find at least on my Tele (which has one) it's a bit louder and fuller, more ... piano-like?

Re: Gilmour, of course he's associated with the Strat, but there's more to it than that. I had my mind blown when I learned that despite the fact many would point to it as an ultimate Strat sound, the solo on Another Brick in the Wall was actually done on a Goldtop with P90s. My friend's theory is that it's just more forgiving than a Strat is of those super high bends he does.

strats are pretty flexible, i mean, everyone from hendrix to albert hammond jr to ritchie blackmore, those ppl have really different tones

teles are pretty flexible, i mean, everyone from page to black francis to steve cropper, those ppl have really different tones

yeah and jimmy page played a lot of tele too even though he's considered a les paul guy

i mean shit at the end of the day now a lot of people are running their guitar through like 12 boutique pedals it probably doesn't even matter than much

The "Tele" that Black Francis played with Pixies had humbuckers in it.

yeah and jimmy page played a lot of tele too even though he's considered a les paul guy

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

These 2 on LZ records:

1959 Fender Telecaster (The Dragon). Given to Page by Jeff Beck and repainted with a psychedelic dragon design by Page. Played with the Yardbirds. Used to record the first Led Zeppelin album and used on the early tours during 1968–69. In 1971, it was used for recording the "Stairway to Heaven" solo. It was later disassembled and parts used in other guitars.

1966 Cream Fender Telecaster (used on Physical Graffiti and on "All My Love" during the Tour Over Europe in 1980).

and this one live:

1953 Botswana Brown Fender Telecaster featuring a Parsons and White B-string bender, originally with a maple neck, and later refitted with the rosewood neck originally from the "Dragon Telecaster". Seen primarily during the 1980s since it was one of his main guitars on stage during The Firm and Outrider era. Also used on the Led Zeppelin's 1977 North American concert tour and at Knebworth in 1979, notably on "Ten Years Gone" and "Hot Dog".

It took a long time of being interested in guitars to figure out that the early ‘50s-style Telecasters and Esquires that look the most country also have the hottest pickups for rock

i mean shit at the end of the day now a lot of people are running their guitar through like 12 boutique pedals it probably doesn't even matter than much

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, December 4, 2020 10:58 AM

Hey you do your job and I do mine, pal!

As long as we're talking shop in here, I recently bought a second electric guitar in the form of one of the recent Squier Cyclone reissues. From what I understand, it's basically like a Mustang body with Strat innards. It's blue and it's very fun.

On my Tele, I play almost exclusively on the neck pickup because why the hell would you do anything else?

you know Christmas is just around the corner hint hint

https://www.guitarworld.com/news/ry-cooders-original-heavily-modded-coodercaster-strat-is-up-for-sale-for-dollar150000

Any Fender shade here can be parried with equal amounts of Gibson shade, just sayin

Wow, with a Les Paul you could sound like Joe Bonamassa OR like Jimmy Page!

With a Tele, you can convincingly sound like either Vini Reilly or Neil Young. That's fun.

The "Tele" that Black Francis played with Pixies had humbuckers in it.

god help me I just made a deal to buy a 1972 Greco Tele, maybe it'll be old and hokey enough to put me off my Japanese Tele obsession.

i get kind of bothered when like that one spottie posted or this one
https://shop.fender.com/en-US/electric-series/artist/guitars/jim-root-telecaster/0134444780.html

when they just put humbuckers in a telecaster. i don't get the point if it doesn't have the plate and bridge pickup

otherwise why not just get like a charvel super strat w/two humbuckers it's going to be more comfortable to play and a tele isn't a tele w/two hi gain humbuckers imo

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, December 3, 2020 3:47 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

never got the sense that the guys in slipknot were concerned with comfort while playing

― call all destroyer, Thursday, December 3, 2020 3:50 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

That Jim Root guitar is terrifying.
I used to play in a band that wore chunky masks like that onstage and can confirm that it was extremely unpleasant and a handicap. Instruments had to complement the visual style above all else, for shows at least. I would say the sound, let alone playability, was a secondary concern to that.

I think ums is otm about telecasters with humbuckers in the bridge. My first "good" guitar (maybe my only "good" guitar) was a 1993 Tele Plus with the lace sensors, like the one Jonny Greenwood plays. We got it used very cheap. Radiohead weren't a big deal yet- I was going for a very sharp Syd Barrett/Daniel Ash kind of sound that it did not really deliver.
This was a source of frustration to me for years and years, and I desperately wanted to modify it to sound like a standard tele but never had the money. This was for the best as it's now probably the most valuable thing i own.

There are way too many kinds of guitars imo there should only be about 3 or 4 different electric guitars. OTOH there are only 7 or 8 different kinds of pedals, really, and there ought to be 25.

Fender brought back the real wide range humbuckers from the '70s with CuNiFe pole pieces. It's real tempting to have my Jazzmaster routed for a pair and have a Lee Ranaldo Jazzblaster.

I picked up a pair of the CuNiFe WRHBs for this exact purpose, though I'm aiming for a what-if-there-was a mid-70s Jazzmaster Deluxe with this build than a Jazzblaster (i.e. I'm keeping the rhythm circuit, 1M pots instead of 500K ones). I just need to find a JM neck I like. Jason Pierce of SP3/Spiritualized has been playing a mid-70s Telecaster Thinline with dual WRHBs for years.

GITEC has a really nice multipart rundown on what makes the original Fender CuNiFe WRHB's so unique and why they're different from most other boring HB pickups. Lots of technical info and gets into the physics of it:
https://www.gitec-forum-eng.de/2019/09/17/whats-so-special-about-the-fender-wide-range-humbucking-pickup/

Where I live I have had pretty good luck knowing and being friends with some people that work and build guitars for cash both for a living and a side hustle. From that I ended up my electric guitars are just parts guitars. I have a couple of mutant Fender/Gibson hybrids I got put together, one about 10 years ago and I built one later.

I think what got me hooked was finding and spending alot of time playing with these guys site.

http://tctwp.com/kisekae/

I've probably got 50+ saved JPGs of different designs I have played with on that website on and off for 10-15 years designing different guitars.

You can get twang with humbucker, but it helps to have one that is a lower signal output and some seem to think 'scatter' winding which is basically winding them not evenly (basically wiring them kinda wrong), That type of wiring defeats some of the noise cancelling and some enthusiasts and pickup winders is the sonic mojo dust in the old Gibson PAF humbuckers.

ah I'd seen the term scatter winding but never knew what that meant

GITEC has a really nice multipart rundown on what makes the original Fender CuNiFe WRHB's so unique and why they're different from most other boring HB pickups. Lots of technical info and gets into the physics of it:
https://www.gitec-forum-eng.de/2019/09/17/whats-so-special-about-the-fender-wide-range-humbucking-pickup/

― Elvis Telecom, Friday, December 4, 2020 7:31 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

thanks, this was really interesting to skim through. kind of want to get the CuNiFe reissues to put in my tele though they're already sold out on fender's site. interestingly, fender is selling a neck and bridge version even though there was apparently only one version of the original. someone on reverb has just the neck pickup reissue for sale; wonder if buying two of those and throwing one in the bridge would actually be closest to the 70s models.

It is kinda hilarous that the 'genius' sound on guitar pickups would be because some worker bee was slacking off and not keeping the wire winding straight might be part of the 'magic'. It's like the magic slacker genius when you get a burrito or pizza and the stoner making it just throws a bunch of extra stuff in because they don't give a crap.

xp - I'm suspicious Fender just sells them as neck and bridge out of habit and to make things easier for ordering.

They don't currently even sell any guitars that use a bridge CuNiFe WRHB, just the American Original Tele Custom with one in the neck.

also it didn't occur to me as I've been thinking about this to make sure Fender had them in stock

oh I see now, they are claiming to wind them differently. The neck pickup's listed resistance is right in the ballpark of a set of a vintage WRHBs I had but had to sell before I used them (both were 10.5k)

Sometimes neck and bridge have different pole spacing, but that’s not usually a Fender thing.

yeah, the neck pickup resistance is similar to the vintage measurements in that article elvis posted.

lollar seems to make the most well-regarded clone and they also make a separate bridge pickup "for better volume and tone balance" though i wonder if it's just a nod to certain expectations people have of bridge pickups. as i said, i'm tempted to buy two of the neck version and just roll the dice that way.

Perhaps there is a fully-hollow archtop with P90s in my future. Wildly impractical but it might be cool. Like maybe a Casino or Jazzica type thingy.

I saw a rig rundown from the guitarist in David Byrne's band, and she plays humbuckers exclusively, out of preference as well as as a complement to Byrne's guitar. But she did have Fralin make her custom humbuckers to get more personality.

I have a Fralin bridge pickup in my Tele, and it sounds *perfect.*

Fender shows the bridge Wide Ranges in stock again FWIW

they're both back in stock! thanks for giving me the heads up fender's "notify me when back in stock" feature did not.

Ditto, I checked because I was wavering on just ordering two necks.

new wide ranges showed up today. time to dust off my nonexistent soldering skills.

that was actually pretty easy. i had never swapped out pickups before. i'm very happy with them, i think in part because they're just much higher quality than whatever fender has been putting in its mexican reissues (or was in 2000-2001). nice articulation and chime. i think i need to raise the bridge pickup height a little bit b/c it's out of volume balance with the neck pickup right now. the neck pickup is a star tho.

ooh i wish i had the money....gorgeous

https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/dak/msg/d/saint-paul-gl-asat-classic/7257102222.html

classy!

I got one of the limited edition Squier Classic Vibe 70s Deluxe Teles today and it’s absolutely lovely. Apart from the volume and tone pots, nothing feels cheap and it’s a delight to play. Also, sparkly.

https://www.andertons.co.uk/guitar-dept/electric-guitars/telecaster/squier-fsr-classic-vibe-70s-telecaster-deluxe-seafoam-sparkle

Congrats. I have a Squier Classic Vibe Thinline that I like a lot. The fretboard radius is a bit abrupt but I have nothing but praise for the quality and sound.

my word that is pretty

very nice

some of those andertons specials look very nice. almost jumped for a pink jag a couple of months back. enjoy!

I want the new Yvette Young signature Strat-like Talman in slimer green sparkle

I revived the offset thread: Tell Me about the Fender Jazzmaster (MOD: Also Jaguar, etc.)

question that never occured to me until right now:

why are the bridge pickups on strats and teles slanted?

maximize the treble. closer to bridge the brighter.

when i was working there they hired a new chief of whatever and his genius idea was to straighten the bridge pickup to save a couple dollars in efficiency.. he was fired within a few weeks.

I saw one of those rig rundowns of Lindsey Buckingham's guitar, and it has adjustable pickups that can be rotated and slanted at different angles to get different sounds, if someone were totally OCD about it. Then again, there was one of things with Satriani, and iirc he had a pedal that could artificially shorter or lengthen the cord's distance to the amp, so maybe people like that abound.

She's old news by now, but I just learned about Josefina Campos, who makes me want to get a new guitar just to get her pickups put in.

Oh, and speaking of things we just learned, I just learned that the bridge plate on a Tele is key to its sound! I never thought about it before.

thanks Spottie, didn't know you worked there!

i loved working there but i was severely underpaid and overworked. was a perfect first job and ended up sticking with it for nearly a decade. i took full advantage of the perks we had and walked away with a sweet collection of gear.

so, based on your extensive insider knowledge... Stratocaster or Telecaster?

I think there's a Megacaster, a hidden model that only employees can play, like the secret menu at Taco Bell

yes.

i like both but im a little partial to strats. more versatile and comfortable. but i'm a big headstock strat guy. also why i want a vintage tele deluxe.

I’ve been an LP/Tele guy forever but finally starting to come around on the Strat. Even a little Jazzmaster-curious now.

I am going ahead with my weird strat plan to convert my HSS strat with a tv jones classic filter'tron in the bridge, p90 in the middle and regular strat pickup on the neck

xpost That's sort of where I'm at. I have a Les Paul, Tele and Strat, and they seem to cover everything. I also have a nice SG reissue, but I never touch it and may sell it for acoustic money.

I still have the same Squier Strat I bought in 1989 that's been repainted a million times and currently has an HSS setup with pickups of unknown origin. Also I doesn't work because I can't solder for shit, but I'm thinking about getting one of those quick connect prewired kits just to hear it make sounds again.

None of my other guitars come from LP/Tele/Strat holy trinity, but I like them all more.

JiC what’s the details on that sg? I’m looking to buy one

I think I’ve shifted from Jazzmaster guy to Jaguar guy. Love the hi-pass switch with doomy fuzz.

JiC u need a hollow/semi lol. Correct number of guitars is always “the ones I have +1”

Seriously. I've thought about a Rickenbacker.

xpost It's a '61 reissue with '57 classic PAFs, have to check the actual year of reissue (I think '99?). The guy I got it from had an active Duncan pickup put in the bridge and Sperzel tuners, but I had the original reissue stuff put back in. Still have all that extra stuff though.

after years of fender partisanship i recently acquired a fujigen gold top les paul with p-90s. realizing i should have done this years ago but otoh it's way more guitar for the $$$ than gibson usa could ever hope to do.

I had one of the matte black Rickenbackers from a couple of years ago w/ no fretboard finish. It was incredible except that all the finish on the neck started flaking off after a week and the dealer couldn’t get another one.

I’ve transferred that desire to a Rick bass.

I had a black Ric 4001 back in the 90s when I was the bassist in a band for a hot minute. Sold it when I moved to Florida, but should have kept it. They're like 10x as expensive now as they were 20 years ago :(

cad that is a dope, dope choice. I have two fujigen Orville by Gibsons. Should really sell one of them for something with P90s...

right on, i looked at those, and looked seriously at used epiphone elitist LPs as well. this is dorky but i'm a huge, huge, fan of clay tarver's work in chavez and he only ever plays a goldtop with p-90s, which the elitist line never did. when i got home with the FGN and plugged it into my very basic amp/overdrive setup i was immediately like oh yeah, that's exactly the sound i wanted.

My Les Paul is an Epi Gold Top '56 reissue with Fralin P-90s and upgraded electronics, etc (that I got for a pittance), and currently it's the guitar I gravitate to the most, and the one that simultaneously makes me feel like and wish I was a better player.

Just like strats I always kind of hated les pauls despite never playing one but not long ago I started thinking about a gold top one. But I like single coils and already have a frankensteined tele deluxe with p90s so it would fit no niche.


Also I would love a rickenbacker bass but they tend to cost more than the six guitars I own combined (minus the 1974 sg I bought during early covid panic). I kind of gasp when I see old pictures of like shitty punk bands where the bass player has one.

I should do a collection picture, I haven't done one in about 10 years

i'm kind of in awe at how rickenbacker has managed to hold their market position and the value of their instruments, there are literally no deals on ric stuff

Yeah, there was that time about 8 years ago when they just jacked the price of the entire range, and the used market followed. They've been super litigious about clones, even mentioning them online draws legal threats for discussion forums (looks over shoulder nervously).

current production fender lines were naff for a while, but i have been so surprised at the quality of squier models lately when trying out in the shop. solid builds, unlike new epiphone... they feel terrible. i used to own a korean made epi les paul, probably around 2006 model, and it was a tank, never went out of tune.

I just got a Korean Tokai Les Paul and I love it.

Anyway on the question of why tele/strat are slanted, the story I heard is that when Leo Fender was developing the Tele he wanted to use an existing pickup from a lap steel. Being too wide it had to be slanted in order to match the string spacing.

I have a Squier Thinline Tele that I rather like. It's a fun little kick-around instrument.

Over the years I've had a bunch of Epiphones - notably a Les Paul and a 339. Good quality instruments but they just didn't fit me, sonically speaking. I am a single-coil dude at heart.

They've been super litigious about clones,

I've seen maybe 3-4 faux-Rickenbackers ever. And only in photos/film/video (Wendy Melvoin played one in Purple Rain).

When companies started copying strats, teles, and Les Pauls did it simply not occur to Fender or Gibson to go after those manufacturers? Or was it that there were so many that the number of lawsuits would've been overwhelming in terms of time and resources?

Gibson did sit pretty hard on PRS.

For Fender, the horse had long since left the barn.

as i understand it fender/gibson went after manufacturers that copied their headstock designs closely but not other aspects of the design. as it happens both companies were being run into the ground by horrible management when the asian copies started ramping up. one would think that more thoughtful leadership might have done more to protect the brands.

I looked up the Gibson/PRS lawsuit, and it's kind of amazing that a) Gibson waited until 2000 to sue another manufacturer, and b) because of how dumb and shaky Gibson's basis for the suit was:

https://reverb.com/news/the-true-stories-behind-6-famous-gear-lawsuits

Gibson claimed that people at a dark concert venue would confuse the PRS Single Cut with its Les Paul when seen played on a smokey stage. Their case was outright baffling, though, given the huge amount of exact Les Paul clones that had hit the market since the ‘70s. It seems like Gibson's impetus behind the suit was to try to edge out one of its few competitors in the high–end market.

until recently gibson was operated by some of the stupidest and worst people alive

I was wrong: Gibson did file a suit in the late '70s, but limited it to headstock design for some reason, as you pointed out (from the reverb link):

In the 1970s, Japanese manufacturers began producing guitars and basses that were on par, and sometimes at higher quality than, instruments made by America’s biggest brands. Famously, these were generally exact clones of the products offered by these brands.

Sometimes, like in Martin's case, that was the result of an outsourcing partnership. Sometimes it was just outright copycatting.

The instruments built in this era tend to be referred to as “lawsuit” guitars, based on the widely held misconception that these American companies went after Ibanez, Greco, Univox and others for cloning their designs. The truth is that most companies didn’t bother chasing down these companies on account of the difficulties of enforcing copyright overseas.

But in 1978, Gibson found a way to fight back and took the Elger Company to court in Philadelphia. Elger was initially a distributor who imported Japanese–made guitars from the Hoshino Gakki manufacturer to the states. This is where those Ibanez clones came from. Eventually, Hoshino bought Elger, which kept its base in Pennsylvania. That’s how Gibson was able to take Hoshino head on.

Gibson didn’t fight to stop Hoshino from producing or importing the clones, but simply from cloning the exact “open book” or “mustache” design of its headstocks. The idea was that consumers might confuse those Japanese imports with the real deal, and the judge ruled in Gibson’s favor.

until recently gibson was operated by some of the stupidest and worst people alive

Cf. CBS Fender

Greco made a Rickenbacker clone called the Rockinbetter, last one I saw for sale was a bit over $1k so only a few hundred off a real used 330, seemed kind of pointless.

er wait Tokai was the Rockinbetter IIRC, Greco just used numbers

Rogue made a fake Rickenbacker 330 in the mid ‘90s. I saw it once in a Musicians Friend or American Music Supply catalog, and then it disappeared.

Walnut and maple Rickenbacker is wrong but also v. v. right

https://i.imgur.com/IneXhXp.jpg?1
https://i.imgur.com/cWE1qh2.png?1

I often think that if I had to own one Rick, it would be the 340 mapleglo as played by Peter Buck on the Rockpalast show in ‘85

I'm smitten with these Rivolta Combinata line guitars that are obvs inspired by Ric but not direct copies. If the inlays didn't go from edge to edge on the fretboard (which seems a little much), they'd be an absolutely perfect match with my tastes.

https://i.imgur.com/GtWLiXz.jpg

ugh yes that inlay is awful

So bad. Rest looks cool. Do we have a general gear show n tell and want list thread?

that is a good idea

I Make Music has a couple of threads where folks have shared their stuff.

(also that Rickenbacker bass is $1900 and I just received a credit card that's 0% interest for the first year and $300 back after I spend x dollars and it's real tempting to make a poor life choice)

DO IT

this has been on Craigslist, Melody Maker with what looks to be Gretsch Filter'tron type pickups, would love to get this and put a Bigsby on it

https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ram/msg/d/saint-paul-anniversary-edition-gibson/7303242274.html

yeah that’s dying for a bigsby

(also asking price looks a little steep based on a quick search)

I thought so, the big attraction is the color and I love those Gretsch/TV Jones style pickups but feels at least a couple hundred high

Why do I dislike painted necks so much? It’s not like there is any material difference to a clear coat.

late to thread but yeah I love the look of the combinata and could live with the headstock but the inlays absolutely kill it for me.

xpost It's a '61 reissue with '57 classic PAFs, have to check the actual year of reissue (I think '99?). The guy I got it from had an active Duncan pickup put in the bridge and Sperzel tuners, but I had the original reissue stuff put back in. Still have all that extra stuff though.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, April 9, 2021 5:47 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh nice. let me know when you want to sell i may be interested.

Spottie - what's your opinion on the Telecaster Cabronita (MIM) w/the Filtertron style pickups?

those are awesome imo. i remember them a/b testing the custom shop one vs the mim one and it was pretty close. those fidelitron pickups are good. visually i liked the thinline version a bit more. they even did a squier one with a bigsby that people were into.

cool, they are nice looking. i love filter'trons, had a gretsch electromatic i really regret trading

lol i'm having such g.a.s. that i'm looking at a brian may guitar

well shit...thank you to everyone for getting me all tele nuts bought something I don't really need....however this is EXACTLY the guitar I've wanted, tele with a bigsby and filtertron at the neck...big thing was it has a Mastery bridge AND a replacement Lindy Fralin bridge pickup and locking tuners

https://reverb.com/item/39853390-squire-vintage-modified-cabronita-telecaster

That guitar is rad.

wow man thats super nice

i'd been looking at cabronitas, but still wanted the trad telecaster sound too. this one, i figured buying the pickup, tuners and bridge and getting them professionally installed would be getting close to the price he's selling it for

spottie - be curious on your opinion but i don't detect a ton of different between the higher end squier stuff (classic vibe, vintage modified, etc) and the MIM stuff anymore

looks great! big fan of buying stuff with the mods you want already done so you can get right down to enjoying the guitar.

the good squier stuff is really good. loads of pros use squier and just mod them like what you're doing. that one you got will hold value, if not increase (if you care about such things). the mim stuff is really great. there was always this unspoken competition between the corona factory and ensenada factory. the mexico factory had a ton of pride in their work and wanted to show they could make guitars better or at least as good. they would take on some pretty cool projects (like the troy van luween jazzmaster). the main issue you'll find with mim stuff is like fret sprout. tonal differences and playability are minimal between mim/squier and if you're putting new pickups in and coloring it with pedals/fx then it doesnt matter. classic vibe/VM squiers are almost too good, there was rumblings of making them worse to not eat into the fender line but in the end i think they just raised the prices.

that's interesting, love all the inside baseball stuff like that

shit that blows my mind is the custom shop stuff people pay so much money for something that still like 90% a stock American strat with a cool color and a couple interesting wiring gimmicks

https://www.chicagomusicexchange.com/products/fender-custom-shop-1960-stratocaster-chicago-special-1026985?variant=39299360161927

custom shop is mostly all prestige collectibles for rich boomers, not really much more to it. they sell like CRAZY tho believe it or not. even inside a lot of the people roll eyes at the relic stuff but when they do their showcase at namm that stuff sells to dealers really fast. the master builders are mostly all super nice though and they really love what they and they do some incredible work (yuriy shishkov's stuff is insane and super gaudy but if that's your thing and you have unlimited funds then there's no one better). it's not unlike the sneaker head market really, most people dont get it but it's not for most people. the custom shop calendars are hilarious, just so much nonsense made for people with zero taste. having said all that i own a (non-relic'd) master built strat :)

there was pretty big drama when we got this one new ceo and he wanted to create a regular fender line (fender select) with like all snazzy appointments and figured woods and what not and it was basically just a custom shop guitar for a few hundred less. so much dumb leadership in my tenure but they seem to be in a really great place right now. he was trying to take them public but luckily it fell through at the last minute.

lol at 9.5" radius being "a modern upgrade" as if it wasn't possible in the 60s.
7.25 til I die baby, except of course for acoustics and my wonderful Casino.

xxxposts congrats on going with it ums. that looks like a glorious ride.

look at this murderer

https://reverb.com/shop/douglas-re-imagined-instruments

https://reverb.com/item/33582205-telecaster-style-douglas-usa-electric-guitar-fender-usa-pickups-and-saddles-partscaster

like renovating a kitchen by leaving all functional equipment the same but replacing the floor with rope netting

Here at Douglas Renovated Instrument Co., I take in and evaluate less than perfect or perhaps otherwise lackluster guitars from famous makers . I then begin the process of fixing, upgrading, crafting and reshaping them into affordable, treasured, comfortable, quality instruments for years to come. Through this process I squeeze out the absolute best instrument possible for an affordable price

Always impressed by/jealous of the self-confidence of these people - he didn’t just take a chance on ruining one guitar to see how people would respond, he ruined perhaps dozens of them just knowing in his heart people would love them.

when you're torn between being a vintage fender enthusiast but also really love steinberger basses

"mostly I squeeze the guitar body through a somewhat H-shaped hole. this is an upgrade to the old guitar shape, which was not looking like an H at all."

i ... don't hate the body shape. it's mostly the body shape combined with the standard strat/tele pickups and pickguards that looks dumb

bizarrely reminiscent of those no-headstock steinbergers

it's like an 8th grade shop class tried to make an Ovation Breadwinner

https://reverb.com/item/39403721-ovation-modified-rat-rod-electric-guitar-rebuilt-breadwinner-1970s-black

One of the best threads on Offset Guitars details the "un-Voxing" of a 1961 Jazzmaster.
https://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=111273

the "butchering of a classic" aspect of that reminds me that somewhere in the woods next to my parent's old house is my uncle's original late 60s dallas arbiter fuzz face (Reverb Estimated Used Price $1,340 — $3,035) that my cousin and I buried because it looked like a land mine

hahaha wow

lmao incredible

you need a metal detector
geddit?

One of the best threads on Offset Guitars details the "un-Voxing" of a 1961 Jazzmaster.
https://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=111273

― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, April 21, 2021 5:20 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is absolutely amazing. i'm so impressed at people who can do stuff like this.

well, it's been an emotional roller coaster! found my dream guitar upthread...bought it

right away get a message from the seller, hey thanks i'll ship it asap, all cool
next day he's like UPS location closed early, couldn't get it all the packing stuff and get it out, okay cool no worries

weekend goes by...no word...write on monday, write hey just wondering if it's going out today, just let me know

he writes back:
Hi there, I want to greatly apologize for this inconvenience, but I won’t be able to ship this out anymore. It’s my first time dealing with this situation, and to proceed I am initiating a full refund here through reverb. Again, I apologize for this whole situation.

so I write back, i'm a little confused here, anything can be shipped. do you want $75 for shipping instead of $50 (this is chicago to minneapolis so i think that's more than generous), never writes back...i get a refund to my account, write again hey if we can work something out let me know...never hear back

today though I went to Music Go Round to check out this Godin guitar. I'm a huge fan of their guitars especially the Seagull acoustics. Quality wise they are really amazing for the money. Only problem, usually their designs are a little "off" and dorky looking, but this new model looks pretty cool (looks better in IRL than in photos)

https://godinguitars.com/product/radium-winchester-brown-rn

not as cool as the tele, but honestly this thing just feels and sounds so good. it's weird, tele shape but it has a belly cut like a strat...neck is actually shorter, like a gibson sg neck kinda?

HSH pickups, tele style switch but 5-way...coil tap for the humbuckers so it can basically be a strat or super strat

the woodgrain looks really nice IRL, the shape is decent, not quite tele but close enough. the whole guitar just feels exceptionally high quality, got a good price on it. for a (mostly) home recording guitar it's got about as much flexibility as you'd want.

i think it might look good with a bigsby down the road

that's nice looking, especially as godins go. are you thinking about doing a filtertron in one of the HB slots?

yeah I think so, the humbuckers do sound good though

the fit/finish is pretty incredible for a $750

I think a Bigsby will make it look better

bummer about the offerup fiasco. wonder if he got a better offer after the fact and bailed.

yeah sounds like. randos are gonna flake whether it's on reverb or anywhere else.

just noticed that the godin has that kind of open routing around the pickups. nice utilitarian vibe.

shout out to joanie - they had a really great catalog beyond sex packets

lol oops but yeah I like the routing

lol

not personally feeling the Guthrie Govan x tele x stoptail vibe BUT I def know the feeling when an oddball gets its hooks in.

if it plays good it is good!

Lol at “pro reliced”

https://reverb.com/item/40275573-fender-2021-mim-limited-custom-color-capri-orange-standard-player-pro-reliced-upgraded-62reissue-usa?utm_source=rev-ios-app&utm_medium=ios-share&utm_campaign=listing&utm_content=40275573

OMG

Is the professional doing the relicing like an accountant or something?

that is someone who started to take off the inch thick polyester finish to repaint it and then realized how much work was going to be involved

When the stage blowtorch bit goes wrong

what on earth are these people doing to these guitars
https://reverb.com/item/40331699-charvel-custom-chop-shop-heavy-relic-pro-mod-dk24-hh-2pt-stained-maple-neck-with-tweed-hard-case

THOSE GUITARS SUCK A LOT

AND I AM ANGRY ABOUT IT

comedy gold

In my head I can see the """luthier""" going to town with a chisel and hammer while the Meat Loaf song about killing a boy with a Stratocaster plays.

that guitar looks like it has some kind of tree disease

Reliced guitars are the stupidest trend ever.

I don't really get the appeal of the Esquire, I don't understand why you'd want one over a Telecaster, you're just giving yourself less options and not gaining anything (and I mean it's not like the Telecaster is some overly complex guitar to begin with)

https://guitar.com/news/gear-news/squier-esquire/?amp

I'd be kind of shocked if those weren't routed for a neck pickup anyway rather than setting up some sort of new cnc machine to NOT cut them

the Brad Paisley Equire even goes so far to hide his special "Secret Agent" neck pickup underneath the pickguard! like what are we doing this for?

https://shop.fender.com/en-US/electric-guitars/telecaster/brad-paisley-esquire/0140322398.html

wow that one is extremely silly.

and yeah, as for the esquire in general it's funny to treat it as some sort of classic model and not what it was which was a budget option based on 1950s cost factors where the extra $20 or whatever for a second pickup actually mattered.

i'm sure it's cool if you find an actually old one

being the guy who relics guitars seems like a fun job, just flinging acid and whipping belt buckles at ugly guitars all day

Technically an Esquire should have wiring that you can't replicate with a Telecaster but I don't know how modern ones are wired.

I use the bridge pickup 99% of the time, I would like an Esquire.

The secret pickup on the Paisley doesn't seem any sillier than any of the million other aesthetic concerns that govern guitar purchases - "looking cool" (whether that means pointy metal guitars or looking like a 1952 Bakersfield guitar to you) is why Fender is worth half a billion dollars.

Reliced guitars are the stupidest trend ever.

― Three Rings for the Elven Bishop (Dan Peterson), Thursday, April 29, 2021 6:32 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

natural wear with strange mods will never not be cool tho

Been enjoying this thread. I like Telecaster and Strat equally now but didn’t like like Strats for a long time as they seemed like guitars for high schoolers.

Question for all you guitar nerds regarding reliced guitars: you see like Bruce Springsteen or whoever playing this super beat up looking guitar that looks cool from all the use and abuse over the years. Man! He’s really been playing the shit outta that guitar!! So cool that people want to buy new guitars that look distressed.

I have a guitar, an American Tele, that my band bought new about 20 years ago. That band was drunk and irreverent and very hard on our equipment, and toured quite a bit with that guitar. The band broke up and I ended up with the guitar and formed another band that toured hard for years with that guitar. That was the only guitar I played for twenty years and hundreds upon hundreds of shows. Dropping it. Throwing it in air to band members on stage. Throwing into the crowd. Seeing luggage handlers throwing it (in its case and breaking multiple cases) across the tarmac from the plane.
This guitar does not look distressed or worn out AT ALL. It has nicks all over it but that’s about it.

I also have a 70’s Musicmaster bass that someone found in a barn behind an abandoned house and that one has been on several tours and it doesn’t look beat up either.

I am inclined to think all beat up guitars are frauds and these people are taking sand paper to try to make them look road worn.

Thoughts?

poly finishes don't wear like nitro

It's a Telecaster, their durability is both myth and some time joke meme in some musician circles.

The same as the idea you can break a Gibson head stock by looking at it too hard.

I don't know, from belt buckle rash to worn necks, I can't imagine playing any guitar so much that I literally leave my mark on it. Someone like Springsteen ... maybe. For sure his famous (more or less) Esquire, which he bought used and used a lot, saw its share of abuse, and had its share of repairs; I saw a show once where a sliver of the body literally flew off mid-song, much to Bruce's amusement. Anyway, they were constantly gluing it, fixing it, doing stuff to it, but I know he also not too long ago finally had to retire it, because it was falling apart. On the other hand, there are so many famous, iconic guitars, and very few of them afaict look totally beat to shit. Like, Joe Strummer's did, Stevie Ray Vaughan's did. But Neil Young's, Paul McCartney's, tons of guitars played by Mike Campbell, all sorts of old guitars played by folks might be beat up but not on the verge of death. Some folks probably play relics or replacements (Springsteen, for example, is not some vintage guitar purist), but I bet most acts just have their techs take good care of them.

Willie Nelson has entered the chat

agree with SA, I have an early 90s MIM Fender jazz that's been through hundreds of shows and doesn't really look that beat if up except for some nicks here and there

also I generally wear a belt and I really don't understand what kind of Blackie Lawless saw codpieces must be involved in creating the "buckle rash" on some of these relics

Bench plane belt buckles

poly finishes don't wear like nitro

― Larry Elleison (rogermexico.), Saturday, May 1, 2021 10:44 PM

This is honestly a considerable part of the reason. Once those nitro finishes begin cracking, playing them nightly is gonna start wearing them the fuck out.

I see the appeal of wanting to buy something that's been (tastefully) relic'ed. Whenever I have a brand new guitar, I treat it gingerly, which keeps it looking new, which keeps me treating it gingerly. If I bought something that's already worn in, I'd feel better cutting loose on it. But I've never been in a touring band, just one that played shows around my college town for a few years. If you're traveling and playing a certain guitar every night, it's gonna show wear eventually. But if it's a more recent one with a poly finish, it will wear differently and less.

YMMV but I cannot imagine relying on just one guitar night after night. The idea of going to a gig without a backup instrument gives me hives.

When drumming, I have a second snare, and at least two hi-hat clutches.

I have pretty much never needed them, but that's kinda not the point.

My the neck of my mim Telecaster that I bought new in 1998 has noticeable wear through the finish in the “cowboy chords” area which is kind of surprising because there were long stretches where I didn’t play it at all and I’ve never played guitar in a band.

The body on the other hand is finished with some sort of adamantium/vibranium alloy.

an early 90s MIM Fender jazz that's been through hundreds of shows

jazz bass

(that was always my main instrument)

My 3-year old nitro Jazzmaster has quite a bit of checking on the back and arm area, but it’s all in the color coat and hasn’t broken through to the top finish layer.

Yeah, and I have 45-50 year old poly finished Japanese Tele and Strat clones where the finish has yellowed, but there's essentially zero wear apart from chips and breaks in the finish on edges. But just the other day I saw this 80s Japanese Tele, a low end model so the finish would definitely be poly:
https://i.imgur.com/ItamoMs.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ztv28jf.jpg

Thin is thin, as I understand it - thin poly will sink into wood and wear like that, maybe more likely on a cheap guitar back then.

The Fender finish these days is polyester and comes out thick whether it's a cheap Squier or an expensive American Fender.

That's a pretty guitar

when it comes to ash, gotta say swamp ash is right near the top

Northern Ash is good if you want to lift weight. That was the source of a lot of heavy ‘70s guitars.

I found the world’s lightest Peavey T-60 - normally they’re 10+ pounds, mine is 7.5. Waiting on an aluminum neck to make it playable, the frets were non-existent.

one of my great regrets is not buying a T-40 bass a couple of years ago for $250 or something because it weighed like fifty pounds.

shit I just bought that 80s Telecaster I posted upthread