Hi, I just recently received a brand new Fender acoustic and i loved it so much i was considering the purchase of an electric, although I am not sure of what i should be purchasing. What are the differences between Stratocasters, Telecasters, Jaguars, and Jazzmasters. I would really appreciate if someone explained what each one is primarily used for and what are its advantages and disadvantages. thanks alot.

This is a complicated question.

Telecasters are brighter
Stratocasters are not as bright and more versitile
Jazzmaster and Jaguars are their own animal.

My advice would be to go find some and play them all. Do not, I repeat do not buy a guitar without playing it first. Every instrument is different.

I played 5 Strats of the same model and they all sounded different to me. I turn the 1st 4 down before I finally settled on the one I purchased.

Go to a music store and play each of the guitars and their different versions. A lot of it has to do with your own personal likes and dislikes.

In my opinion, telecasters are the better guitars, they seem to be as versatile with a strat, if not better. Other than that, personal preference is on top I guess.

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A good tele has that country twang sound, the classic telecaster tone. A good strat has very bright and glassy clean tones, and isn't quite as "honky" as the telecaster. Other than the strat having a tremolo, both the strat and tele can be used interchangeably for the most part. Jaguars have the thin, very bright tones used in the old 60's surf tunes. All fender's sound like fender's, just with unique little variances in the overall tone You need to play a few of each to decide for yourself. I am a Stratocaster man! Except for when I play my old Musicmaster LOL

The bottom line here is that anyone can post a reply to this thread saying what THEIR experiences have told them, and they aren't necessarily wrong. But, the fact of the matter is that you need to follow what YOUR experiences tell YOU. Go out and play these guitars, man. Get to know each one and find out what suits you. And trust me, when you find the guitar that's right for you, you'll know. She will tell you (sorry. I consider all guitars to be female. Dudes shouldn't have that nice of curves )

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Definitely do what everyone else said and play all the guitars before buying one. And do some searching to find famous recordings of those guitars so you can get a sense of what they can be made to do. I just know for me personally, as a kid I was stumbling through the whole abyss of crap-rock in the 90s, and then I heard Frusciante on "Blood Sugar Sex Magic," and THEN I really "heard" Hendrix, and I just knew I would be a "Strat guy" from that point on. I'm also a huge Keith Richards fan, who I associate primarily with Teles, even though he obviously went through a lot of phases and played a lot of different instruments on classic Stones records. Springsteen has pretty much exclusively played a Tele/Esquire and has a really bright, biting tone - see "Kitty's Back" or "Cover Me". I could never get into the short scale thing with Jaguars, even though they look really cool. Jazzmasters have been used to good effect on a lot of great recordings. Do some searching, and again, make sure you try all of them. I think you'll just "know" which one is right for you.