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Post subject: Your genuine opinions appreciated
Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:32 pm
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Hey there, im becoming very skeptical here when it comes to picking a guitar. I used to work in a huge guitar shop in london, and i've had the pleasure of playing and testing alot of vintage and new gitars together, and tried to tell the difference

- we had 13 different les paul's all standard les pauls (standard written on the trus covers). mostly different years ranging from 79 to 2011 at the time. I sat for hours, plugging 3 guitars in at a time, and just strumming them gently 1 at a time 1 after the other and listening to the tone and resonance.
10 of the guitars were identical. literally identical. 2 of the others were slightly bassier but sound the same as eachother. and the newest guitar was a thinner sound than all of them. there was 10's of thousands of pounds worth of guitars there and they literally all sounded identical for the most part.

- now of course i have a decent enough ear for a guitar. you can easily tell the difference between gibson's and fenders etc. you can always identify a strat, tele, les paul, explorer etc. but im convinced now there's almost (if any at all) NO difference between the same models with the same pickups and materials.

- i played 7 fender strats. 3 of them were identical. 1994 never sold so basically new fender strats. 2 of them had maple necks, 1 had rosewood, identical hardware, even the colours were all sunburst.
Now i spent 25 mins strummung loud, soft on all 3, and there wasn't even the tinest.. i repeat not even the TINEST bit of difference between all 3. so totally trashing for me the idea of "ooh the rosewood gives a much warmer tone). to me now it makes no differece.

- i then tried a couple of other strats. a brand new 2011 standard USA strat, with alder body and maple neck like the 1994s. and again almost identical sound to the other 3. you wouldn't be able to tell the difference honestly.

- lastly i tried a couple of other strats with different pickups. a strat pro and a strat with noise cancelling pickups. (2 actually from different years). Now they all sounded a bit different to the standard strats, but again, sounded identical to eachother provided they had the same pickups. The wood in the body/neck made 0 difference that i could tell.

my question is, do you guys think that the name on the headstock and the date it was made creates imaginary sounds in people's minds to enable them to come up with sentences like "you can just hear the amazing quality that only a strat from that era has, that high end twang, the new ones don't have that sound"

i must admit i did something a bit wanky, this german knowit all guy came into the shop one day looking for a classic strat (he had plenty of cash). and he said i don't want a new strat as "the older pre 85 strats just had a warmer more precise quality to the sound, completely unique). OK?
so i tested him, i took out my own strat which was a 2003 usa standard that i'd played very rarely, and bought from new, didn't play it because i was playing my tele when gigging and to be honet i just thought the strat was just meh.. not a thick enough sound.

Anyway. i gave him my 2003 strat, hardly used, never fully tested live. and he was picking away at it, doing the old blues things, moving his head closer to the strings to let them ring out, and he said "you see? can you hear that, it's just incredible.. you don't get a quality mesmorizing sound like that on newer guitars, you can tell these were made back then by the true masters who understood what guitars were about, not the new generation guys).

now i know it's cruel, i told him it was a 2003 and he said "well you must have gigged it like hell to get that classic sound from it, the pickups obviously have been run through the mill for a long time". told him again that i've never gigged it, and only spent a pit of time picking at it unamplified at home writing songs.

any opinions on this? i'd really appreciate your feedback. thank you

Basically, different models sound different to eachother. guitars of the same model with different bodys and pickups (and or) sound a bit different from eachother. Guitars of the same model of different years with the same hardware (even vintage) all sound the same, of course providing it's the same pickups and same build process. and the neck of a guitar doesn't change the tone a jot


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Post subject: Re: Your genuine opinions appreciated
Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:40 pm
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Two weeks ago I swapped a Mighty mite neck with a rosewood board for a genuine USA Fender neck with maple fingerboard. The guitar sounds very different now, especially when overdriven. The notes don't mush into each other and the midrange response has shifted up noticeably. And I'm not one to believe pseudoscientific nonsense about guitars.

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Post subject: Re: Your genuine opinions appreciated
Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:46 pm
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there's a video i watched i'll link when i find it. where a guy has a chibson les paul. a 5a 2000 something standard and a 79 vos. i kept flicking between him plaing the latter pair on the bridge pickup and they are completely identical. and they were made 20+ years apart.
they just have the same pickups and wood. so the vintage thing seems to be micky mouse now, im so disappointed


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Post subject: Re: Your genuine opinions appreciated
Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:51 pm
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also those guys from Andertons . co . uk had 4 tele's in a video comparing them. neither of them when blindfolded could tell the difference between the the 4. especially the 1200 2000 dollar custom shop and the 350 dollar classic vibe squier. why would that be do you think? if the squier sounds so similar that you can't tell the difference, then surely all the "quality wood that was hand picked" etc is purely asthetic?

thanks


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Post subject: Re: Your genuine opinions appreciated
Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:52 pm
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GilgaFrank wrote:
Two weeks ago I swapped a Mighty mite neck with a rosewood board for a genuine USA Fender neck with maple fingerboard. The guitar sounds very different now, especially when overdriven. The notes don't mush into each other and the midrange response has shifted up noticeably. And I'm not one to believe pseudoscientific nonsense about guitars.


oh yeah thats what i meant. the wood in the neck makes a big difference. but the different woods used in the fingerboard don't make any difference at all that i can see.

like a fingerboard using ebony or rosewood or maple. makes no difference if the neck is the same, and the body and pickups are identical, what do you think?


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Post subject: Re: Your genuine opinions appreciated
Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 8:00 pm
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The difficulty in proving anything here is that it's very difficult to compare like with like. Unless you're going to dismantle two guitars and swap the bodies then there's no easy way to compare say ash with alder. Sure my ash Strats sound different to my alder ones but they all have different pickups.

All you can do is play a lot of guitars and form general non-scientific opinions about whether ash sounds brighter than alder. As for the question of more expensive guitars sounding the same as standard models ... well, I've never felt the need to buy anything more extravagant than US Standard Strats. That's all anyone would ever need isn't it?

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Post subject: Re: Your genuine opinions appreciated
Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 8:22 pm
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yeah you're correct. i do notice a different between ash and alder on guitar bodies. but the fretboards as the only difference between 2 guitar makes 0 difference.

and i think the fender custom shops are basically pure rippoffs.
The standard strat is basically the highest quality sound they can make. but then to get one made in the custome shop, using the same wood but "hand picked" and the same pickups and all the rest of it. paying 3k more for basically an identical guitar with a signature on it makes no sense to me. there's no difference.

i mean if the top luthier there was asked "make me one with the same specs as a standard american strat". it would be and sound identical to a standard american strat. the fact that the guy "hand picked" the wood for the body and neck doesn't make a jot of difference, as the standard uses pretty decent wood anyway. so why is it 5k instead of 1k?

Les Paul's though. Seriously, identical in every way apart from the looks :\ it hurts my heart to say it


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Post subject: Re: Your genuine opinions appreciated
Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 8:28 pm
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As long as the build quality is good, newer strats sound as awesome as the vintage ones. Is there some hype in the vintage vs new argument... I feel there is. Just because an instrument is "vintage" doesn't mean it's better. Have played some vintage dogs as well as newer dogs. Played a Custom Shop strat that I felt was an absolute POS. Then again, have played other Custom Shop's that were outstanding. Have played American standards that totally sucked... and have played American Standards that were downright awesome.
A lot of what makes a Strat (or other guitars...) kick butt instruments is if the build quality is on, good materials are used (decent wood, hardware & electronics) and that the setup works for you.
Do I feel a Squire is on par with an American Standard or Deluxe... absolutely not. It can be "upgraded" to a higher level of awesomeness if you replace the stock pups and hardware with something higher end. May even want to refret it etc... but why go thru that? Investing apprx. the same amount doing those things than if you simply go for the better guitar out the gate.
Good wood, quality build/construction, quality hardware and pups with a decent setup = Awesome Guit-Fiddle... Vintage or New :wink:

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Post subject: Re: Your genuine opinions appreciated
Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 8:33 pm
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you know what happens now though.

most of the "vintage only" players, who only like the sound of vintage guitars, don't like brand new american strat/tele/les pauls etc, because they say the vintage ones sound better.
yet in 20 years even if they make 0 changes to the build process, they'll only play the 2013 models because they will magically sound better than the 2033 models lol it's all make believe im coming to believe :\


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Post subject: Re: Your genuine opinions appreciated
Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 8:37 pm
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well the Squier 50's vibe telecaster has been praised all over the world as being the closest thing to a standard tele to date. people saying even the frets, build quality, finishing AND sound are almost identical to the 50's model.
so i think if you bought a set of old 50's pikcups and replaced them, you'd have a 50's tele almost identical for 400 bucks instead of 5 thousand?

sure alot of the other squiers and epiphones are thrown together and shoddily made, but a few of them now, even the cheap ones are surprisingly great.
and to me it looks like it's only in the mind of the users that it sounds worse or feels worse. if you blindfold someone as proved in the andertons video. they can't tell the difference between the customeshop 3k guitar and a 300 dollar squier that's amazingly well built (note they did actually see and play both guitars so they had reference to both before hand and still couldn't decide which was the 300 and which was the 3000)


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Post subject: Re: Your genuine opinions appreciated
Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 8:42 pm
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i actually thought more people would have opinions on this


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Post subject: Re: Your genuine opinions appreciated
Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:12 pm
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The power of belief is real.
If I play better because I think I have a better guitar, that's good.
If you then prove to me that it isn't any better, you haven't done me a service.

Personally, I think you were disrespectful to a customer. You yourself say "I know it's cruel", and still you did it. If I were your manager reading this, you would be looking for a new job.


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Post subject: Re: Your genuine opinions appreciated
Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:31 pm
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lucky you're not my manager then isn't it. i wasnt cruel to the customer, i basically wanted to know if the differences people notice are real or psychological, just read on the fender list there someone wrote a review that he put some fat 50's in a 56 strat and he said "the guitar even before the new pickups just sounded out of this world, i've never heard a sound like it". if you told him that was a 2013 strat before he ever played it, he wouldnt have given the same guitar a second glance from my experience.

basically what i was doing with the customer was trying to get into a customers or buyers head. so i could judge better what people were looking for. Real quality and a quantifyably better sound, or basically having to play to people's ego about a make believe sound because of a guitars age and reputation etc.

im not evil. i just wanted to know the truth


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Post subject: Re: Your genuine opinions appreciated
Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:39 pm
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arth1 wrote:
The power of belief is real.
If I play better because I think I have a better guitar, that's good.
If you then prove to me that it isn't any better, you haven't done me a service.

Personally, I think you were disrespectful to a customer. You yourself say "I know it's cruel", and still you did it. If I were your manager reading this, you would be looking for a new job.


also arth, do you notice any difference at all between various standard strats of different years or les paul standards vintage to new?


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Post subject: Re: Your genuine opinions appreciated
Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 11:14 pm
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I think there is a LOT of Placebo Effect with respect to many people and subtle differences in Mass-Produced Guitars.

Fender (and Gibson, Heritage, Rickenbacher, et al) design their guitars so that they can be mass-produced, but still have commonality of features and tone - that's necessary to establish a model line. So all Stratocasters will sound like Stratocasters, all LPs will sound like LPs, etc.

That said, as each is made of individual pieces of wood - no two are ever exactly alike, there can well be differences.

I know that there is a difference between Rosewood and Maple Fretboards. This is FACT. If nothing else, a Maple Fretboard is one piece with the neck whereas a Rosewood Fretboard is a Laminate with the neck (whether it be Maple, Mahogany or Ebony). The 'solid' Maple neck will transmit more resonance and the Rosewood less.

This is not better/worse, just different. Some people prefer the 'brightness' of a Maple neck while others prefer the less bright (dare I say 'Duller' - oft referred to as 'richer', deeper', 'fuller' ?) Rosewood.

I have 3 teles - 1 Maple, 2 Rosewood. They are very different, but I believe I needed one of each for the diversity it allows me.

Another difference can be the way the body is assembled. For instance, if Fender produces one body from 4 pieces of stock and then produces another from 3 or 5 pieces, even if they're the same model once routed, there will be measurable differences between each of these bodies.

The same can be said for wound pickups, etc. There do exist subtle differences (all within a pre-determined manufacturing 'tolerance' or they're rejected).

Now, whether someone's hearing is so accute as to discern these differences is open for debate, but the differences are there nonetheless.

I also believe that most people who claim to discern the differences, especially if they highlight these in the their guitar's description, are simply using this as an excuse to show everyone how 'smart' they think they are.

We live in a society of Mass-Production. Many people find this disturbing on an underlying level, and so look for differences in their mass-produced 'stuff' to distinguish themselves from the Masses, even being willing to spend more just to acquire these differences - solely as differences.

In fact, we're all guilty of this to one degree or another.

cheers!

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