CKY2K

Recently sarted playing the guitar and am totally loving it. Im using a cheap Peavy strat copy at the moment but at some point I do want to invest in something a bit nicer.

Heres my question is there a great deal of difference between the Fender Telecaster's made in Mexico that retail for £399 and the USA made ones for £700 ish. I know the US Fenders and hand made but is that it?. Does the more expenive US model sound better. If there is no great difference I cant see the point in spending all that extra cash.

Ta,

Dave

Pogue

No great difference in sound, build quality is slightly better but not much (not a fan of Fenders though)

I'd buy a Gibson Les Paul The new "cheaper" one though

http://www.guitars.co.uk/acatalog/On..._Paul_802.html

Give Richard a call, top bloke.

CKY2K

Thanks for the advice, cant see that link for some reason - keep getting page connot be displayed!

Pogue

Ooops, try it now

milo

the US ones are made in the US, and use better quality parts.

the mexican ones are made in mexico and use lesser quality parts.

thats it.

will you notice the difference? try both and see.

and then try a decent (mid-90s or earlier) PRS ce or custom and realize how much better that its my 94 prs ce24 is still the best guitar ive ever played bar none.

like most things, you get what you pay for to a large extent, but theres a diminishing returns curve, and you do end up paying some for a name. whats your budget and what styles do u play?

CKY2K

I dont want to spend more than £500 if I can help it. I could stretch to the cost of a US made one but if the difference is minmal then I wotn bother. I listen to alot of stuff like the Libertines / White Stripes / Kings Of Leon. Could you reccomend anything else that may be better for this sort of music?

Peanuts

iTrader: (15)

does no one play acoustics anymore?

I have built up a lovely collection of semi/acoustic guitars and I have one electric, the elctric one gets played only for practicing finger work without an amp

Bonehead

The difference between the US Fenders and the Mexican ones is (as explained to me by someone who very much would know) is,
With the US guitars you're paying for US wages - and that's it!

If you want a really nice well made electric guitar - get a Japanese made Strat or Tele.
The build quality on any Japanese guitar I've ever seen is sooo much better than even the big US brands.
A friend bought a v v expensive US Hendrix ltd edition strat and the quality of was shocking. The neck wobbled in the joint.

With £500 to spend you could go for a early eighties Squire JV, JQ or Silver Series. I've got two JV Strats and they really are the dogs danglies
They're a really great quality guitar.
If you then want to improve things (better pick-ups, etc) then you cant really get a better platform to build on, really.

Get into a few decent shops and have a play around with the guitars on offer.
You'll know when you find soemthing that suits...just dont buy a PRS, because has anyone ever heard someone get a really great sound out of one of those things!?!?
Horrible muddy lifeless sounding guitars....urrrgghh!!

milo

carlos santana

Bubba po

Amen to that.. Ive got a Jap Squier from the early eighties- the Black-bodied rosewood fingerboard "70s Popular Strat" model. I had a go on the U.S. original that this was supposed to be copying and it was fecking appalling!!

The pickups have a superb sound, too.

Bonehead, my Serial No. starts with "SQ" what does that signify? I bought the guitar brand new in 1983, I think.

Bonehead

Sorry m8, total bollox.
His tone now is dead and lifeless - check out his classic stuff when he used a les paul and then the Yamaha SG with his customary Boogies.
Now that was a sound!



As far as I remember. The JV series means Japanese vintage and I'm not too sure if SQ actually means anything. I think the SQ's were the 2nd earliest batch into the UK (the first had Fender in large writing and Squire in small - the reverse of our guitars). Most of those guitars were intended to go to the US
Funnily enough a couple of my fav guitarists use Squires.
80's session ace the late great Alan Murphy used a JV57 with a 18w Fender Super Champ (totally proving that you dont need mega bucks to get an awesome sound) and Steve Rothery from Marillion used a couple of modded black sqs for a number of years.
They were areally well made guitar for not a lot of money
I've got a 70's squire and a 57 reissue squire.
The 70's is actually an SQ (forgotten that!)
If someone can tell me how to post pics I'll put some up of the guitars.

There's a couple of decent sites that deal with the Squires.
http://www.21frets.com/jvstrat.html
http://members.rogers.com/squierjvsite/

milo

disagree. he switched to prs for a reason, and that reason wasnt money... and it was for the better.

http://www.prsguitars.com/artists/list.html

some other artists who play prs. many of them on that list have great sound (for their genres), and the variety of musical styles in that list is a testament to how versatile prs guitars are.

Bonehead

I didn't say anything about Carlos switching for money. He loves those guitars, and fair enough. If he thinks that his tone now is the best he's ever had then fair play to him - but to my ears its awful.

If we're making lists on how versitile guitars are then I'll have to get everyone in the world off the net 'cause if you start writing a list of people using strats then you'll need all the space there is!

There's some top players using PRS.
People I really like (Alex Lifeson, Steve Stevens, Dave Navarro), but they simply sound sh**e when they pull out a PRS.
Last year I saw Rush at the NEC and in Manchester. He's never really been one for a great tone but during the set Alex Lifeson played a tune on a nice Gibson SG, he then switched to a PRS - wow, what a difference. All the body and warmth had gone from his sound and all that was left was a nasty thin brittle tone...very disapointing, urrggghh.

I'll admit, they do look nice and having played a few they're ok playability wise. But (and this is the most important part) they just cannot produce a sound that even vaguely appeals.
They either sound dull, muddy and lifeless or thin brittle and lifeless.

For versitilty, adaptabilty and character you cannot beat a strat.

hades

I do I'm happy enough with my baby ovation accousto-electric.

Bonehead

Me too

CKY2K

Cheers for the advice, i think I will send some time at sound control and see what suits me best.

milo

those are the key things. it might sound awful to your ears and appeal, but the popularity of prs guitars proves that most people think otherwise.

also, tone comes from the fingers largely imo. good players get the same tone out of most any reasonable guitar - and it just becomes a matter of playability as to which guitar they play.

i like strats too. i think you're right on about the character of them, and versatility too. for me tho, i love to shred, and while i could easily get my kind of sound out of a strat (as long as it had a bridge humbucker fitted), the trem system on strats is absolutely appalling - to an unusable level. this is why i play prs and ibanez.

have u ever heard a prs thru a cranked cornford amp? to me, thats the perfect sound.

Bonehead

And I'm truely lost to understand and mistified as to why some people play with such horrendous sounds!

Woh!, got to stop you on that one fella
Who uses then trem arm more in his style than any other big name guitarist going? - Jeff Beck
And what does he play?
A strat!
Now I use the trem arm a lot in my style, and over the years I've had Floyd Roses, different types of Kahlers, Wilkinsons and the best of the lot?
The trem system that stays best in tune, affects the basic guitar tone the least and is the most controlable?
A varitation on the basic strat trem.
All of my guitars have the two post Fender bridge, locking sperzel machine heads and/or a wilkinson roller nut or a well oiled nut.
And you can REALLY give it some and the thing will still be in tune.
Have a look at this link and the bridge you can see on the white guitar is the one I find works best
http://www.jeffbeck.com/

I've heard good things about Cornford.
The amp brand I've used for a long time is Rivera.

milo

steve vai, quite obviously... and thats an ibanez jem. no way could he do that with a strat trem.

many strat users block their trems, simply because they go out of tune so badly.

Bubba po

Thanks for the info, Bonehead... I'm just going to check the links.

FrenchBoy

Amen to that. I gave up the whammy when i started to play a strat (custom usa with dimarzio humbucker) Dont even know where my trem arm is these days!

But have to agree with Bonehead - prs are a p.o.s. I'm not saying that just cause i play a strat (after what i've had done to it there's very little strat left). You can pick out a prs anywhere, they have an appaling fuzzy sound. I also happen to think that Santana is one of the worst guitarist's ever. His vibrato is so bad it makes me cringe (it's almost as bad as Kirk Hammett's)

Sorry to go a bit off topic there CK. Don't get to chat about guitars much these days.