Stratocaster vs. Telecaster

I just cleaned up my '93 Strat plus and I'm thinking I'll sell it. It's in pretty great condition other than a few dings on the neck. Advice on unloading this thing? I'd like to replace it with another electric... should I go to a shop and look for a trade in?

You’d probably do better listing it locally for cash but sometimes shops will surprise you.

I traded a Mexican strat recently and was able to negotiate a bit more, they said they were having trouble keeping stocked with standbye models during covid

if youre not in a hurry, try selling on offerup and craigslist first. local shop 2nd. reverb 3rd.

on reverb, looks like 93s are selling from 1200 to 1700, depending on condition

ums, I have also had really good luck with Mexi Fenders holding their value.

Like, if I lose my job or need a new kidney or something I know I can sell a coupla guitars

on reverb, looks like 93s are selling from 1200 to 1700, depending on condition

dang i think my parents paid like $400 for this back in the day

Yeah the American standard tele that I bought for like $350 in 1997 is now selling for four times as much. I had no idea.

I'm really conflicted the more I fix up this '93 strat plus. It's sounding really good. Still don't love the action and I haven't had much luck fixing it myself so I'm thinking I'll get someone to set it up. It has a warmth that I don't get from my Gretsch.

Two critical factors for setting action. 1: make sure the neck relief is right. Looking up the neck from the body, does it slope down from the nut ever so slightly and straighten out, without raising into a hill before it reaches the body? If not, give the truss rod a cautious quarter turn to hollow it out (anticlockwise) or straighten it up (turn clockwise). If it's angled up overall, or down overall, you may need to shim it at the heel. The nut is probably cut well being a US made Fender. 2: adjust saddle heights to match neck radius, with a very slight angle toward you as you look down from the playing position (i.e. bottom screw is a hair longer than the top screw). Meaning, the middle strings should sit a bit higher than the thickest and thinnest strings. But Strats are a pain in the ass because of the floating bridge. If you can find a good luthier it'll be a night and day difference. The Tele I posted upthread played like shit until I did this stuff and now it's great.

yeah a few of the set screws for adjusting the saddle height are stripped so I just ordered some more. i've had this guitar for for 26 years now (jesus!) and this is the first time i've touched it with a screw driver. it's fun learning this stuff

If the stripped screws are frozen in place, one way to get them out is to turn the saddle over, grip the protruding part with pliers and twist it out that way. A shot of WD40 and an hour or two to allow it to penetrate will help a lot.
Also if you need a hex/Allen key to adjust them, nearly all of the ones I've seen use 1.5mm size, but that's probably because most of my guitars are Japanese. 0.050" seems to be the size for US parts.

Finally got my long lost ‘93 American Standard strat back. It’s in the shop right now getting checked out / set up and then I’ll probably sell it and buy a tele. Never liked the thing.

Incidentally, why is Fender's naming scheme so damned confusing? Player series, Modern Player Series, Deluxe Series, Classic Series, American Professional Series, American Elite Series, American Original Series, American Performer Series. Yeesh.

The amps are bad too - for years they made the "princeton chorus" which was a solid state amp having nothing apparently to do with the "princeton reverb." Then of course there's deluxe reverb, pro reverb, twin reverb. There's the Fender Champ (5w tube amp) and the Fender Champion (40w solid state) and many variations on each (vibro champ, super champ is actually 15w, etc.). Then there are the "reissues" except that while the 65 series is literal reissues and the 64 series is handwired reissues, the 68 Custom series is not actually reissues but "modified" reissues.

Trying to sell solid states by copying tube amp names is nothing new - CBS did it across the line around 1970 (run away if you find one). And even the Custom Telecaster and Telecaster Custom are a source of perpetual confusion.

big reason is they already have the naming rights to those and its a lot easier to rehash something you already have/own

we were all confused when they chose to name the new amp line 'mustang' cos well... they already had a fender mustang. but thats how it was explained (still dumb to me)

If I wanted a very classically nashville-sounding telecaster, what would be the reach option, the midrange option and the budget option? Or should I be looking for older? MIJ? Some other brand?

- 52 american vintage (used) or the now titled american original (50s or 60s)
- classic series baja 60s tele
- squier classic vibe tele

haha of course the clasically nashville tele is called baja.

I like the look of the body on this one a lot
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/lKoAAOSw1PdgonmY/s-l1600.jpg

perhaps also subliminal because my music room has the exact same crappy grey faux-wood flooring.

If it wasn’t a particularly relic the metal flake Brad Paisley signature would be cool.

Particularly ugly*

2 thoughts about a Nashville sounding Tele - "Nashville" often refers to the practice of installing a Strat middle pickup (below). and of course Nashville tuning replaces the low wound strings with plain strings tuned an octave higher. Never tried it myself but now that I think about it ...
https://www.fmicassets.com/Damroot/LgJpg/10002/0147502301_gtr_frt_001_rr.jpg

yah they do have a 'nashville tele' but who wants to look at three pickups in a tele!?

amen

Def don’t mean that, just want something bright, spanky and twangy

I would like a Syd Barrett Esquire - ‘60s style with rosewood instead of butterscotch or blonde with maple.

And a toploader bridge IIRC

got my Squier Classic Vibe 50s with B and G-benders....guitar itself is gorgeous, neck feels great, overall fit and finish is really impressive for a low/midline guitar

never seen a bender mechanism quite like this....so you basically put the crook of your elbow between the two bars, if you push down on the lower one that bends the B and if you push up on the higher one it bends the G

definitely going to be a lot fucking harder to learn how to play with this than I thought...watched too many videos of Nashville hotshot guys like Brad Paisley using benders they make it look so easy

https://i.postimg.cc/bv2v9v8n/PXL-20210611-123825953-MP.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/q7g1m9Zy/PXL-20210611-123832494-MP.jpg

take it to the other thread! i wanna see your other guitars too :)

whoa - I assume that's not stock/you had it done custom? I'd love to have benders on my eventual extremely nashville tele. The strap hook ones look fun.

haha I will Spottie didn't know what the protocol was for actual Teles

ma - it was already installed, bought it off Reverb, was only $450 and I never see b bender guitars for cheap

the mechanism itself is a mystery, it's probably closest to what Hipshot does for benders but I haven't been able to find another guitar with this particular bridge

it's definitely not stock

yeah I mean that was semi-rhetorical, clearly that is some homebrew stuff there

it could be a one-off someone made, my one worry is if it breaks or gets way out of wack who's going to be able to service it?

but at the end of the day, it's still a nice Tele so I could always go back to a regular bridge

does anyone have opinions on replacement pickups for a Squier? worth it? any particular brands/models?

Yeah I've seen the smaller ones that are on the bridge and I guess you operate with the palm of your hand or something, but I've never seen one like that.

does anyone have opinions on replacement pickups for a Squier? worth it? any particular brands/models?

The bender design I am familiar with is an internal mechanism linked to the strap button, so you just press down on the neck.

That crook-of-the-elbow design is intriguing but I know I would never be able to use it accurately

I don't think I'll be a hot shit nashville guy but my hope is that it could be cool in a non country context, like using looper/delay soundscape shoegaze type stuff? Maybe?

Finally got the long lost 93 American strat back and had it set up. It plays and sounds “good” but I still have a love-hate relationship with that glassy Strat tone. This was one of the better tones I got out of it on my first run. It’s a bit blues bar band for my liking.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CQUJbdLDEDA/?utm_medium=copy_link

UMS it looks like a Timara bender or a copy thereof? https://www.timarastringbenders.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=bg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SKmW0ptzxs

Man alive, I getcha, but for me the glassiness is the whole point. In that clip (fun!) where you're on the bridge pickup, it sounds almost Telecasterish. Which is certainly a way to approach the instrument but for me it shines most up in the neck position, in a Gilmour stylee.

Yeah, I was definitely going for that. I’ve heard some country guys do the almost-tele thing on a strat but it’s usually disappointing. Otherwise though I feel like the Strat has such a strong tonal personality that it’s very hard not to either sound like you’re doing faux-Gilmour or faux-srv or faux-knopfler or faux-Hendrix.

mattkkkk - thanks so much for finding that! it's definitely the same design. that's actually comforting I was thinking what if something goes bad with it and I need a replacement part

No worries! Looking at the action it seems like the B would be bent by tucking the elbow in to the body, but it might be possible to bend the G by pulling up on the neck (if the G arm is resting in the crook of your elbow)?

Starting to warm to the strat a little tbh, although it's really easy to devolve into very smooth, buttery blues solos with a crying-looking-out-the-window-of-my-private-plane vibe

maybe give Adam Granduciel a buzz?

you might be right about the g bender, it hadn't occurred to me to move the neck I was trying to "pull" it with my arm which is awkward

right now I'm just using the b bender which is already a lot to get my head around

can anyone who’s worked on guitar electronics help me diagnose something?

over the weekend i replaced the volume and tone pots in my 72 thinline with 1 meg pots. i put everything back together today and the results were odd. guitar works, pickup selector works, no weird noises, but....both knobs don’t do anything. i assume the sound i am getting is wide open, no pots active.

my soldering skills are not amazing but i can follow a wiring diagram and the fact that i am getting sound suggests that everything is connected. the way it is wired is that the selector switch and tone pot are soldered to one lug of the volume pot, the output jack is connected to the second lug, and the tone capacitor is connected to the third lug.

help! my powers of logic and reasoning are not telling me what the problem is.