Stratocaster vs. Telecaster

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