I dont doubt they could but I simply love Fender amps and cleans more than any other amp manufacturer. I never blame bad gear either but as a pro I refuse to play crap cos music is what pays my bills and puts food on the table. Thats just me.

CC

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Fender Stratocaster (parts build)
Fender Telecaster 72 Custom RI
Fender Telecoustic Deluxe
Gretsch Electromatic Pro-Jet
Gibson Les Paul Standard Plus
Gibson ES-135
Zenith Type-17
Marshall 70's JMP Superbass 100w
Blackstar HT-5

Of course you have to be able to play or gear is just Wire and Wood. I didn't get the impression that the responses in this thread were Blaming or Crediting gear for talent, just tone and comfort.

There's no denying that a Les Paul's Humbucker in the bridge position will sound totally different that a Strat's Bridge Pickup, even if Billy Gibbons is playing it. Listen to La Grange from ZZ's Live From Texas compared to Clapton's Crossroads Festival 2004. When he uses his Gretch its Fat, when he uses his Custom "Tele", it's more Crisp than Fat.

Clapton on an SG sounds like Clapton on an SG. The Clapton is unmistakable and so is the SG. Give 461 Ocean BLVD a listen and tell me you can't hear Tele all over it. You can almost hear the color.

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"Persistence Is The Father Of Invention"
-Crazy Old Man In Training

Well said!

CC

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Fender Stratocaster (parts build)
Fender Telecaster 72 Custom RI
Fender Telecoustic Deluxe
Gretsch Electromatic Pro-Jet
Gibson Les Paul Standard Plus
Gibson ES-135
Zenith Type-17
Marshall 70's JMP Superbass 100w
Blackstar HT-5

Understood about not playing crap. Nor do I play on crap. At this time in my life I am fortunate enough to be able to afford pretty much any gear I desire. Having made my living at it, on the road and on a local basis, I played for years to pay the bills and buy the necessary items. It became a rat race in the mid 1980's and I cut way back, so I could enjoy playing again. Top fourty five nights a week, week after week, wears on you.
Amps are much the same tho. I have several (including a couple of really good Fenders, a '59 Bassman, and a Jazz King) I also have other amps that sound every bit as good clean as those. Vox, Peavey, a class A tube Crate, an Epiphone or two, and a custom built class A hand wired point to point. I have in the past fifty years experienced playing on crap -which I didn't own for long-
and have found that the price, and name doesn't always mean it is or isn't crap. I've owned and played thru some very high dollar crap, a couple of which were Fender. They, along with Marshall, Vox, Ampeg, Sun, Peavey, Crate, and on and on too numerous to mention, have turned out some real stinkers. That's why I gotta say brand loyalty is not always warrented. Out of all the Amps I've owned over the years, the least number of stinkers and the most consistant over all has been Peavey..............I can hear some saying E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-W-W! Opinions vary. Anyway, like you I play what I like, and what works for me.

The notion that a master musician can pick up a crap guitar and make it sound wonderful is misleading. Yes, a master musician may be able to make it sound better than a novice could but that doesn't mean great sound is all in the player. A crap guitar is still a crap guitar no matter how you slice it. I've played enough $75 Walmart Christmas presents to know that sometimes it really is the guitar's fault.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

Exactly! You have better gear than me anyway
I'm not completely loyal, only amp wise as I fancy a Gibson ES-175 and I have a thing for EH pedals but Fender pedals are crap anyway.
I do love a Tele clean through ANY Fender amp more than anything though.

When I was in Twisted Rose I had to use a JCM 800 in rehearsal a lot and I couldn't stand the clean and found it hard to find anything I liked. Wasn't wet and sparkly enough and definitely affected my performance, dynamically at least.

CC

_________________
Fender Stratocaster (parts build)
Fender Telecaster 72 Custom RI
Fender Telecoustic Deluxe
Gretsch Electromatic Pro-Jet
Gibson Les Paul Standard Plus
Gibson ES-135
Zenith Type-17
Marshall 70's JMP Superbass 100w
Blackstar HT-5

Ha! I thought I was the only one out here that had a problem with Marshalls.
Not all of them, you understand, but the recent crop of DSL's I can't seem to warm up to. I did have an OLD JCM 800 years ago that rocked. Should have kept that one.....................

Ah, the older the better you see. I just think their cleans are dung, lol. I think there are a lot more people who are 'brand loyal' to Marshall than most other guitar/amp/pedal/string companies. At least it seems so here in the U.K. and Ireland.

CC

_________________
Fender Stratocaster (parts build)
Fender Telecaster 72 Custom RI
Fender Telecoustic Deluxe
Gretsch Electromatic Pro-Jet
Gibson Les Paul Standard Plus
Gibson ES-135
Zenith Type-17
Marshall 70's JMP Superbass 100w
Blackstar HT-5

I love my Fenders quite simply because they sound great, feel great, and can take the punishment. I love all my guitars but my 2 American Strats are on a pedistal. I feel like my Gibson might break if I play it too hard. All my Fenders can really take a beating.

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Live guitars: 2009 LTD Truckster, 1989 Strat Plus, 2001 Am Standard Strat, 1996 MIJ Jaguar, 2007 Gibson Explorer 76 reissue, 1999 Ibanez RG7621, LTD MH-301, LTD FM400, 1999 Jackson Kelly, Mystery Les Paul, Hamer Chaparel, Fender FM 62SCE A/E Mandolin

I don't know about breaking from playing too hard but I did learn a lesson when I was a young man. At that time some older and more experienced players were teasing me because I installed a set of them there fancy newfangled strap locks on a Tele I was using at the time. The three of us went to this club one night to hear a guy play. The guy was playing a Les Paul. He let go of the neck to adjust his mic stand and the strap came off the button and when the neck hit the floor the headstock came clean off the neck. Nobody said anything out loud right at the moment, our mouths were on the floor in shock but after the show one of the old guys I was with asked me where I bought my strap locks and how much they cost.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

I remember Pete Townshend said in an interview that Gibsons were flimsy junk and that Fenders were almost indestructable,he said that the Tele was the hardest guitar to break.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Believe me, they will ALL break. Anything man made will break. Les Paul's having a glued set neck will break away from the body. But you can't get that LP sound from a Strat or Tele, and vice versa. So certain short commings must be accepted. That said,Strap-locs are a worth while upgrade.
As for Pete, altho he's consisered a "god", his habit of breaking up good equipment as part of a show always kind of made me feel he was being paid a little too much above scale. I consider the act of breaking up and destroying good equipment a little on the stupid side of things. No offence Pete.

David Lindley might disagree.

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

I started on cheap copies of Gibsons, then played odd, cheaper Gibsons for years - the S1 and after that an L6S. I thought humbuckers were the sound of 'rock', but I struggled to get all the sounds I wanted.
Finally I bought a real beat-up '76 black Tele in a hock shop in LA to use for slide. I figured that's all a Tele was good for. How wrong I was! There were sounds I'd never been able to achieve before that just poured out of the Tele, and it changed my playing, in a good way. So I bought a Strat too, and that extended me even more. Later I bought a Jazzmaster. The Fenders give me sounds and ways of feeling about a tune that I just couldn't pull out of any Gibson. They also hang differently, different weight, different swing... and make me move differently on stage. Strange but true.

I had to sell that Tele to get an airline ticket home, and even tho it was a dog I still miss it, for opening my mind to Fender guitars.
I still have a Gibson, and a bunch of other guitars, but if I had to be stranded on an island with only ONE guitar (and a solar powered Fender amp of course) it would be my Jazzmaster... and my Strat

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"...Compared to the flowers and the birds and the trees, I am an Apeman."