Stratocaster vs. Telecaster

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.