Stratocaster vs. Telecaster

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.