Stratocaster vs. Telecaster

it really is perfect that the guy who revolutionized how we make music was an engineer who couldn't play and whose favorite style of music was dead by 1955

that G&L espada is dope btw

I've thought about/wanted to get a cheapo Squier Tele for a long time, but something else always came along instead. Now I'm thinking I want to set a few bucks back for a while and pick up the Isbell Mexican Tele that just dropped. Hope it's not a super limited run and they're still around in 2022, because that's the one!

xxp yeah he was really just building radios and speakers which happened to pick up string vibrations instead of AM waves

and Johnny you'll always be able to pick up a used sunburst Fender Japan TL62B and put a black pickguard on it, those guitars are awesome.

I have a Squier thinline tele (70s vibe)

It is lovely and I like it

Now a part of the Telecaster* club

Refinished 1974
https://i.imgur.com/V4P65f6.jpg

oh wow that's gorgeous

I'm really wanting a tele bad lately. I'm getting my old strat back so I can finally sell it, at which point I will buy one.

that thing is sweet btw milo

thats a dream guitar right there milo

Damn, milo. Congrats!

how long ago was it refinished?

Just a few years, the refinisher reliced it. Apparently someone along the way had taken out the wide ranges in favor of EMGs (kept the originals luckily). The guy I got it from fixed the metal mistakes, had it refinished and refretted.

thats cool. looks great.

So cool, Milo. I always dug the look of those big-headstocked ‘70s Teles.

Some day I'd like to build a big-headstock Strat in Olympic White like Michael Karoli's.

Milo is that Inca Silver? Beautiful Deluxe. Would love to try those pickups.

Really like the color on that guitar, milo.

Cool guitar Milo

Yeah it's cool to see an old one that isn't natural/black/mocha. I looked at a bunch of those when I was looking to buy a guitar from 1974 (when I was born).

I feel like you don't see that style pickguard in white a lot - it's kind of an interesting look with the chrome screws and chrome pickups, something a little bit industrial or DIY about it in a cool way

Just a couple of cool clips I came across recently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnQYoRYedF0

And this one I posted somewhere else, but don't want it to get lost in the shuffle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DpIUdFFr3w

so this is the 1985 Fender Japan Tele from upthread - what colour do you think it is?
https://i.imgur.com/vYmbFn0.jpg

that's right, it's Sonic Blue

https://i.imgur.com/LDdzmRA.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/iccTSDL.jpg

That Jerry Donahue is sick

I had a GE Smith Tele, those are some nice guitars. Held value too, sold it for more than I paid to some dude in France.

I think once you know what you like and if you got someone local that you can trust to not shaft you in the deal, parts guitars are the way to go. The modularity of Leo Fender's designs is really the most powerful part of what he did. I'm close to building another one and have been getting the parts together. It is going to be another Gibson/Fender hybrid with a Strat mahogany body and I have a Duncan '78 and a couple of P90s, all Alnico II. Output wise, they should hang together pretty well (fingers crossed).

Hopefully ending up looking like this...

http://www.ysw-tct.com/temp/img/20210522221547_2495138204_2197_1.png

I'm pretty spoiled, I got a friend that I have known for like 20+ years that has lived working as a luthier/guitar tech and has worked on a bunch of pro's and old vintage gear doing restoration and building stuff. RS Guitarworks is local to me and they have done work for boodles of people and do some amazing work, they are cutting the mahogany strat body for me.

Me, twenty minutes ago: why the hell would I watch a 20 minute video ge smith?

That was oddly compelling and soothing for some reason; getting sucked into watching it reminded me of when I somehow ended up watching joe walsh talk about setting up a les paul for 20 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7gMwE7phoM

Walsh is an oddly compelling personality. There's a part of me that is inclined to dislike him, but there is a goofy edge to his schtick that is disarming.

And one can quibble with the history - Les did not "invent" the LP. As the well-told story goes, he had approached Gibson with his solid-body prototype (on which which they passed). They named it after him for commercial reasons, but one could argue that Gibson was going to jump into solid bodies anyway, with or without Les.

Joe Walsh has always struck me as a guy just happy to be there, wherever "there" happens to be at any given moment.

don't think I've ever posted this, but kind of a kooky bass I found on Reverb once. Made by McGibney Guitars, this was a prototype unit.

Basically it's sort of a replica of a bass that never existed in the first place. It's short scale and overall it's like a Gretsch Electromatic Double Jet like Malcolm Young plays mixed with a Guild Starfire.

Pickup is a TV Jones, it's got a cut knob like a Gretsch and the switch is has that "mud" setting.

Strung with flatwounds, pretty great for thumpy 60s kinda sounds.

https://i.postimg.cc/BnDdGth5/PXL-20210521-191415166-MP.jpg

that's fun! what are the black things? thumb rests?

Dag, I am into that. My band's bass player (ordinarily a standup aficionado) has been getting into some really glossy Italian short-scale instruments, strung with flats, and they are weird and lush and unexpected

xpost - yeah - the right one is for old school thumb playing

Deluxe update: damn it sounds good, Wide Range Humbuckers are everything I hoped for, needs a new pickup switch unless I can make intermittent drop outs work for me.

nice, i've never heard those wide range humbuckers before

goddamn I wish I could justify this

https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/hnp/msg/d/minneapolis-gibson-marauder-vintage/7327482434.html

You can buy a pretty nice guitar for $1200, crazy that Norlin Maurauders are going for that much.

yeah it's kind of annoying

lots of $500-600 guitars going for over a grand now

I just always loved the look of Marauders

lots of $500-600 guitars going for over a grand now

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, May 27, 2021 4:11 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i've always dug the squier venus and those have shot up to $1200 after sitting in the 600-700 range for years.

If it was a 2 humbucker one, you might be onto something but some of them have those weird active pickups too. Those and the tele pickup ones sound pretty dull to me.

The Norlins that are cool as heck to me are RDs. Those are expensive as hades now though.

Back in when I was Scarface level gearwhore I had a weirdo '72 SG custom at one point which had really oddball thin and narrow neck. Sounded ok, but it was weird to play. Long gone now.

I do still have an odd 'sg' '74 SB-450 bass which is pretty Norlin funky with a Fender scale length, made of maple. At some point probably in the late 70s someone put a Badass bridge on it. It's got some neck dive but it sounds grungy as heck. I record it through my 50 watt '68 Bassman head, it sounds pretty much Mel Schacter fart of doom tone wise. Bridge pickup is screwed up, not much signal at all, but when you mix with the neck pickup it kinda thin/cancels it out a bit and it has a great grind sound.

This is that bass through a Tech 21 xxl bass distortion into a Ampeg preamp. Probably my favorite recorded bass tone so far...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA3GPftNgM4

that is a good heavy tone

xpost - the other thing that annoys the shit out of me is prices on "lawsuit" guitars...like the whole fuckin point of it was hey you can get something approximating a 70s fender or gibson for a lot cheaper and if get a little work done and some upgraded parts it's pretty close

what is the point if they cost a lot?

I made some money on a couple of those Ibanez LP copies, which really were not "copies" as mine were both bolt on necks. They looked cool but they were not all that.

Those ESP/Edwards LP copies are pretty nice, in someways better than say a comparably priced Les Paul Studio etc. Tokai's are a bit more hit and miss, the newer ones are about like any late model Epiphone. Only Orville I ever got to play was a Firebird copy and it was nice one.

Its harder to find people to play music and make it happen than get instruments. I find them fun to look at but I'm kinda out of my whoring around phase. I would much rather be able to play in a band on a regular basis again.

They are all cool, but if you are not making music with them, it's just a stamp collection.

Edwards makes a nice looking ES-335 Dot, but they started climbing too much even before the pandemic. Wish I’d gotten one when they were $800 or even less.

made a more general thread
Guitars... what you've got / what you want