I would say as a first guitar it actually doesn't matter that much. It's after a few years of playing you truly get to appreciate what each model has to offer and the benefits of both...
It's not, just get 'em both at the same time. I know I did, but that's because I started playing as an adult having a job. My first guitar was a Gibson Les Paul
Pro tip for the volume knob: Try placing a rubber sealing ring (you can find them on some beer bottles) under the knob. The friction will prevent the it from moving unintentionally and it makes for really smooth and precise adjusting.
The first time I changed pickups and pots myself I accidentally wired the volume knob backwards. I decided to leave it though since it solved my problem of accidentally hitting the volume switch and turning the volume down.
You can also buy high-friction knobs. The brass knobs on my Slick "SL'51" telecaster take considerable torque to turn them, almost too much, but they do feel good and solid. It's a great telecaster for the money ($250-ish), pickups sound good too, I like it more than two American Standard Telecasters I had in the 1990's, beautiful though they were. The volume knob on stratocasters needs (imo) to be moved down to neck tone knob, and the bottom tone knob used for all three pickups. Doing that, along with a shorter switch that takes more force to change it, will solve the problems Paul mentioned. Then put a Telecaster bridge and pickup in place of the bridge strat pickup and wang-bar bridge, and you have a "Stratotele" (trademarked?) with the best of both models. Telecasters look crude and ugly compared to stratocasters, BUT they are great musical instruments too!!
@@pharmerdavid1432 I agree, teles definitely look more comfortable to play, but you just don’t look as cool as you do playing on the strat. I dunno why man.
You mean something where the youtuber gives his honest unfiltered opinion on famous guitar models or even songs? That would be so innovative maybe he should name it HUFO Edit: I might have gotten a bit too sarcastic but you get my point. Have a nice day :)
Nice idea! There is a TH-camr here in Chile who made some videos like that. "5 five thing I don't like about my Gibson SG" for example, or the same with the LP. Paul definetley need to do that
Lol Amen. -6 HE CAN REALLY PLAY most EVERY STYLE without any judgment. And he has zero in common with "Mus is Wn" deuschbg. LOL... right? hte that guys vids - - -evrywhere. Uggh.
As a bassist, what I'm getting from this is that strats are to jazz basses as teles are to precision basses. More versatility and controls, more room to mess up. One's a pair of really nice looking skinny jeans that doesn't fit that great while the other is a old pair of levis that fits right every time.
@@roachdoggjr155 , you can get sounds out of a jazz which are not great for rock, too muddy. Actually when using a jazz in rock you dial in the p bass sound.
Are you left-handed? If yes, you got take a right-handed guitar and turn it upside down. If no, you got take a left-handed guitar and turn it upside down. This is the first step.
Omg it’s not only my strat then!?! You saying it’s me? 😱 Btw there is the JH strat that is a left handed one set up as a right handed. So the opposite of what he did ☺️. I love it.
I think those little imperfections - while bothersome, make up the guitar :3 I have a Jazzmaster and my circuit selector can be like this sometimes; But I still love the sound either way - even if I might switch between them by accident!
This reminds me of how Slash said "“As far as I'm concerned and Gibson probably wouldn't want me to say it, the Strat is, hands down, probably one of the best, most versatile guitars there is.” and people were boggled. As a LP player that came from a high-end 59RI to a Mexi-Strat, there was a ALOT to get used to especially all the things you mentioned. Unfortunately, the only solution I've arrived at is to buy them all.
Played strat for 20 plus years, was good enough for me. Only thing I just don’t like is the action feels high. I just got a telecaster to change it up a bit and realised I bought the wrong guitar 20 years ago. The Tele is just ace. The simplicity and how easy you can spec it up to your liking. I love the strat but the Tele will be in my hands for the coming 20 years.
@@MrVersipellis Yeah i don't know why he's so upset for that lol?🤣 really saying you picked the wrong guitar because the set up wasn't suited well for you.
The last point is EXACTLY what I discovered when I bought my Tele. I was a strat guy from the beginning, but - I hate to admit it - the tele freed me from strat cliches and led me to discover my voice. That’s why I use it more now. With a strat you play stratty, but the tele is more like a neutral pallet. It makes you focus on the way you play and the notes you choose. But that’s just me
You are in pretty good company with Danny Gatton, Robben Ford (for a period), Roy Buchanan. I am harmonica player but, those are some of who I listen to.
@@GuitarFeels of course amplifiers make a difference! I like the early BB King tone when he was playing out of fender tweed amps and I think a 335? I plug into either one or two 1959 Bassman amps depending on the gig! Any guitar sounds good plugged into one of those with the original Jensen speakers 😊
Gabriel N totally agree! I’m amazed when sometimes I see 3000$ pedalboards plugged into entry level amps! To me amp/guitar combination is key and must sound great by itself. These days I’m finding myself gravitating more towards Vox amps: good amount of mids and sparkle, never get lost in the mix... love Bassman, great choice 😉
@@GuitarFeels between Bassman is just a great harmonica amp. Also the narrow panel pro and deluxe, for bigger amps the concerts are good too. Yes on the pedals, I plugged straight in or at possibly most just a little delay pedal. Look at people like Buddy Guy, They just plugged straight in the amp and all the tone comes out of their hands. It's actually kind of the same with harmonica, your tone develops internally over time and years. I listened to quite a bit of Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix also, any guitar players that are good tone shapers 😊
Random Strat Guy: *"Laughs at mud-bucker."* You can make a single coil sound like a HB any day of the week. Just roll off the tone knob. It's a lot harder to go the other direction and not introduce a lot of high frequency noise! =]
Dudes, I like SGs. SGs and telecasters are way better than strats. I know I'll get hate for this, but I genuinely do not like Les Paul's. They're really uncomfortable
I would add more: 6. Bad access to high frets (not as bad as on Les Paul, but still bad). 7. Screws sticking out of the saddles that make palm muting uncomfortable (there are 3rd party solutions, but why Fender can't fix it from the box is beyond me, since they already adopted 2-point tremolo unit, which is not historic, but superior to 5-point one). 8. Bridge pickup is barely usable (unless it is humbucker) 9. 3-pot layout is sort of stupid. Go either master volume - master tone or full Les Paul layout with individual pots for pickups. But classic Strat wiring makes no sense for me. Even more so because bridge pickup need tone knob the most - and it is one that doesn't have it! 10. It is too thin and flat. It could be personal preference, but for me thick arch top guitars are more comfortable, I don't have to bend my hand while playing. 11. You can't get that sweet neck tone on any other guitar. You just can't. So you have to deal with all drawbacks of Strat to have that.
Your guitar is your tool to make music, i don't care if someone find strats be the best or not i just love the way i can have different tones 3 single coils, 2 tone knobs, over 10 different tone variations, plus a lot of confortable and playable, and is way more fun to dive the tone with the whammy bar, i just love it. i dont know if strat is the best guitar in the world i just know is the best guitar for me.
@BigBrain Time or those guys who brag about how good they are and then you ask them to play and they play smoke on the water on one string muting every note after ringing it immediately and getting a buzzing sound on every fret change.
To overcome Strat tuning problems, when fitting new strings I used to: 1. Give them a few really good pulls (not enough to break them, obvs) and repeat until they stay in key when you tug them. 2. Mistreat the whammy bar a few times up and down (dive bombs etc) to iron out slippage 3. Retune and repeat as necessary until the beast stays in tune. Probably three, maybe four times. Job done. Helpful hint - when you do have to make tuning adjustments on the hoof, keep adjustments as small as possible and always finish with an upward adjustment to mitigate sticky nut syndrome. Nobody likes sticky nut syndrome.
Unlike acoustic guitars, electric guitars dont "sound better" the more expensive they are. Sound is completely subjective. There's gonna be an electrric guitar for YOU, but it doesnt always have to be expensive.
@fouccodefire i wasnt replying to that. i was replying to his statement about sound is subjective in the end of the video. did you not watch the whole thing?
In my experience, anything under £300 ain't worth it. Poor sustain, very tinny sounds. Granted, when you go above the £2k mark, it's not really the sound you're buying it for, you're paying that additional for customisation and finish.
I think this is a valid point, but only if you look past beginner models. It definitely is worth it to go past the $300-400 mark usually, since this is where the craftmanship starts getting better, and you start to have diminishing returns. Once you get past this its more of a placebo, since you think the guitar will sound better, you play it more confidently. If you really are set on improving your sound you would probably want to look towards upgrading amps and pedals. But that isn't as fun as getting a new guitar :/
I got my first electric guitar in 1982, a Peavey T-30, with a Statocaster style body, 3 single coil pickups, 5-way switch, and I've been a Strat guy ever since. My main guitar is a Mexican Strat, but I also have a Squire Heavy Metal Strat with an HSS configuration as well as a Hohner SG Lion HSS with a quilted maple cap. Up to this point I've been playing hard rock, heavy metal and some blues. But this coming year, my 2023 New Year's resolution is to focus on new genres with clean, tone and plenty of "jangle". I'm getting into Surf, Rockabilly, and Johnny Marr styled song-writing. With the new guitar goals, I plan to reward myself with a Fender Vintera '60s Jaguar Modified HH. It has the tonal flexibility to tap and blend in infinitely varying degrees of single coil or humbucking sounds to get the classic Jaguar jangle or push it into high-gain mode. Following Johnny Marr's example, I plan to string it with an Ernie Ball Power Slinky 11-48 set, and leave the overdrive / distortion off the pedal board, instead opting to expand my modulation effects, lush spring reverb, tremolo, Boss CE-2W chorus, and maybe a Memory Man delay.
About the tuningstability: Take a serious look at the nut. Friction means tuning trouble. If the string has friction because of the narrow slots it will never return to "point zero". Locking tuners defenitly help but that's only half the problem. It's all about friction! And the bridge can easily been set up floating. Again: friction! Use the outer 2 (of 6) screws as pivot points. The inner 4 adjusted a fraction higher so they only function as stability points.
Absolutely right! Welding torch tip cleaners are often sold as nut files. A cheap solution to widen the slots a bit and keep them round on the inside. + what I just wrote: "The fact that your guitars stays in tune despite the frequent tremolo 'abuse' has nothing to do with the tremolo itself. It means that your nut slot resistance is either ZERO % (graphite lubricated) or A HUNDRED % (nut-lock or lock-nut). Anything between 0% and 100% sucks, because a part of the strings (mostly the [round]wound ones) won't slide back in place. If you have a classic bone or white plastic nut, it is wise to "lubricate" the nut slots with a graphite pencil each time you replace your strings. It is also possible to replace the nut with a GraphTech String Saver nut, but if you want to keep the original nut, the pencil trick mostly works fine."
What I hate about my Strat; only one thing.......having to change the strings! Trying to thread the strings from the back of the guitar is like trying to thread the eye of a needle, gggggggr!
Well , I have been playing Strats and Teles for over 50 years . I still own 2 Teles , 2 Strats , and 2 Jazz Basses .I love Strats , but the tele can sound like almost any guitar in any style . Of course , the Strat has it's own sound , which is beautiful, and I love , but if I could only own one guitar , it would be a Tele . You were right on with your video . Both my Strats have the whammy disabled , because it is more of a problem , than the added effect is worth . You still need a 335 , and a Les Paul , and that is the truth . For the same reason you need a Dreadnaught and a parlor guitar . And nothing replaces a nylon string classical .So , that is why most guitar players own so many guitars . God Bless any genius who can do it all with only one guitar . I cannot , I love all my guitars , and play them every day ( I am 72 years old ) . I gigged from the time I was a teenager , until I retired from my day job ( Gotta have one of those to have any financial stability ). Oh , and everybody needs an archtop Jazz box . I have an Epiphone Joe Pass model , which takes care of anything I need in that department ! Thanks for so many great videos . Love your podcasts !
@@dimitrisaivaliotis5616 , that depends on your amp . The Joe Pass is more of a Jazz guitar for me . I play clean without a lot of volume . I will tell you this . If I would use it like my Telecaster on stage , it would feedback for sure ! Hollow body guitars are not designed for that kind of application . Some guys use them , but sometimes they fill the body with something to absorb the vibrations . I think it would be better to mic your amp to get the volume . I almost always played in Bars , and when you are playing loud with people dancing a hollow body guitar will feedback . That is why you will see most guys playing solid bodies or semis in that situation !
@@dimitrisaivaliotis5616 , you are very welcome . I am 72 years old now , and am retired , but if I can ever help you out let me know . Keep on playing , learn everything you can , and remember that everybody has something valuable to learn . The best experience you can get is to play with more experienced people , and gig as much as you can . Experience is the best teacher !
I agree with everything--the love and the hate. One more thing that bugs me is the middle pickup. That's RIGHT where I like to pick 90% of the time. What do strat whammy legends like David Gilmour do to keep their instruments in tune despite using the bar every 5 seconds? Rolling bridges and string trees? Graphite spray?
Jeff beck has modern 2 point trem locking nut and locking tuners, but gilmour has classic strat-non locking tuners, non locking nut, 6 point trem, so Gilmour is wizard.
2 springs, floating bridge and 0 tuning issues. Locked tuners help, but if springs are well set, there are no issues with tuning on Strat. Much better than Gibson design, despite lack of tremolo (G string always out of tune)
Well, you _could_ try shimming the neck. You might need a 2-point tailpiece if that's going to have any hope of working, though, depending on how high you want it.
Interesting piece. Tuning instability on a Strat, however, is mostly caused by improper string stretching in addition to the string sticking in the nut and/or string tree due to friction. This friction also causes the ticking noises you sometimes hear while tuning. It can be completely eliminated by lubricating the nut or, better yet, replacing it with a Tusq nut, also lubricating or replacing the metal string tree with a Tusq one, in addition to properly stretching in new strings all the way up to the tuning post. This combo in my experience solves literally all tuning stability issues with a Strat, even when using the whammy bar like a Floyd Rose one. There's quite a few informative videos on YT on properly achieving Strat tuning stability. Surprisingly, the Tusq nut/string tree are not often mentioned, which is weird, as they actually work superbly. Anyway, interesting video (again). Keep it up!
Yep, that's been my experience too. The strat requires more attention to little details to get tuning stability with the trem, but it's absolutely capable of it with the right setup. One other thing to mention is the saddles not being level -- if any are tilted even a little bit, the string pushes them slightly off to the side as the trem is used, which causes tuning to shift.
@@rzeka the worst is the people who answer questions as if it was directed at them only, and are clueless on how the product question section works. "I haven't tried it in the cold I live in Florida." ....wtf are you even responding??
Thing3.: Squier fixed this with the Contemporary Strat: It has one volume + one tone pot and the volume pot is positioned a bit lower compared to the regular Strat. Thing4.: Many player blames the 6 point tremolo for tuning stability issues but my experience is that in most cases it is the string tree which does not let the string slip back to it's original location. Swap the nut and the string tree to graphtechs and you have a much more stable instrument.
If you have a floating setup, you can use the whammy bar to tune back. Otherwise, if the tuning is flat during bending, no way to tune back except tweaking the machine head. I recommend the GOTOH 510 tremolo unit (if possible, select the FST block.). They has improvements of the major friction points, such as tremolo block holes and bridge plate holes. Many people consider the friction and deflection of nuts and machine heads to be a problem in tuning stability, but the most important point to consider is the friction points of the unit itself.
You need to drink some Grolsch beers with the “swing top” caps and place the rubber washer under your volume knob-it won’t move when you bump it anymore.
Wow, I hadn't heard that one yet! And I'm DUTCH! I still have at least 10 old bottles of Grolsch (filled) in my garage because I got a terrible headache of the first two... I went straight back to my white and Belgian beers. But I will probably empty the bottles for the rubbers, throw the beer away and get my money back for the bottles and the box. Generally speaking I hate Pilsener beers... But I can always ask some buddies in the East of the country to save up the rubber rings for me. They don't mind, as long as they can drink the beer.
Or just press the volume knob down further on the shaft ... to keep it from accidentally moving on you. Rep;ace it with a tough to turn CTS pot. I do agree very much on last statement. I guess you could use it as a challenge, however: Write a piece on a strat that doesn't sound like a strat.
For everyone agreeing with these points: try a Yamaha Pacifica. Looks, feel and tone of the strat but without most of the design problems of the Fender. (humbucker in the bridge, just one tone + master volume, volume knob out of the way, blade switch in a better position, sleeker body).
Many years ago now I bought an oddity, an Oakland XS 100. It was everything I wanted, Strat shaped, thru neck, and 2 humbuckers with none of the issues dicussed here... I still prefer my Tele though
i had a strat as my first guitar, now i have the pacifica 612 and its like all the advantages you get with a strat (twang, comfortable shape, classic look) without all the disadvantages (tuning issues, since it has a wilkinson locking bridge and grover locking tuners) also its HSS setup so its very versatile, and all 3 pickups are seymour duncans. playing open chords also sounds so much better since it comes with graphtech tusq nut since i got the pacifica, i almost never touch my les paul anymore lol, but im looking forward to trying a tele in the future
I play a squier that got custom rebuilt and its my absolute favorite. Dual humbuckers instead of the triple single coils, and the middle position on the three way switch is the sound from both the bridge and the neck. When I buy a real strat, i'm going to do the same thing to it.
My squire with Seymour Duncan hot rails is my number one guitar. It has a sweet spot right between the bridge and the middle pick up that just no other guitar’s sound can touch !
It's good to see someone mentioning the annoying volume and switch positions. My first guitar was a strat and when I went out to buy my second guitar I had a list of "deal breakers" in my head based on what I did and didn't like about my strat. One of the most important "deal breakers" was that, no matter how much I liked the guitar, I would not buy another one that placed any knobs or switches anywhere near the positions where my strumming hand goes. I also wanted a fixed bridge because I ended up blocking the bridge on my strat because I never use it and find it annoying. Strats are great for people who want to use effects like volume swells and tremolo wobbles to spice up their playing, but for people who have a more "no frills" approach to playing, teles and Les Pauls seem to be much more user friendly option. Incidentally my second guitar was a gretsch pro jet (very similar to a Les Paul). I'm now thinking of getting a third guitar and leaning towards a Tele, although the contoured body of a strat seems like a total no brainer to me and I don't really get why they aren't a more popular design feature on teles.
I played a Strat for years. Upgraded it, changed the look, played hundreds of gigs with it. Then played a telie ONE TIME and knew I wanted it. After I gone one my beautiful Strat just started collecting dust. I ended up selling it but instantly missing it when I seen it again in my local guitar store 20 miles from where I sold it.
@@MatthaeusEbonah hell nah man I can't get along with my telecaster shame it was an 18th birthday gift I can't sell it lol I'll take my beaten up squier strat all day long lol
I was waiting for you to talk about how close the volume control is to the strings; you didn't let me down! John Suhr worked in the Fender Custom Shop for a couple of years before starting his own company and I think he learned as much about what not to do as what to do. He moved that volume knob away from the danger zone; one of several reasons why the only Strat I now own is a Suhr.
The thing I don't like about the strat is that the middle pickup usually doesn't sound that great by itself, but you need it to get those wonder 2nd and 4th position tones. It's like it's just there for the extra magnetic interference.
I can definitely relate to what Paul David was saying about pos 2 & 4. I think they might sound better in isolation than 3, but I think pos 3 is often under utilised in a full band setting.
I own both. I prefer my Tele for its playability. I also agree 100% that there is something special about the Strat. I'll always have both. I pick the guitar up that suits my mood.
A couple of things re playing a Strat live: Cutting through the mix in a big band: Totally amp dependent in my case. Makes all the difference. Set your guitar up properly: practically no tuning issues - even dive-bombs Volume pot being in the wrong place: Move the volume pot down to where the first tone pot sits normally. Run all pickups [except maybe the lead pickup] through this pot. One volume + one tone pot. Sorted. I've never hit the pickup switch while strumming - my strumming technique comes from playing a Les Paul for years so it shaped the way I strum in a way that removes this possibility. Lucky, I guess. Oh, and one other thing: I LOVE the Strat! ;-)
Telecasters are my thing. 1: The controller layout is better. You are spot-on with Stratocaster controls being annoying. Telecaster controls are better. 2: NO TREMOLO. Seriously. I am all about hardtails. Yes, you can block a tremolo, but I prefer something I don't need to modify. 3: The Telecaster body shape is much more me.
My first guitar was a Strat. When I bought a Tele I totally abandoned the Strat (which I am re-discovering now) for the tone, and the easiness of Tele. The thing that annoy me more in the Strat is the middle pickup which I hit sometimes. I really hate it. Of course I don't have that issue with a Tele.
@@brianschwartz5673 In my case I use the middle pickup a lot so lowering it isn't that good of an idea. I would have to use a hotter pickup and then lower it but I'm too broke for that
I went out and bought a telecaster and it was cool to play but I couldn’t fully bond with it! I kept going back to my Strat! It was much lighter , easier for me to play and I love the Strat tones way better
I don't remember who said this: "Tele is like: strollin' through the woods in heavy snow in winter, enter the pub, go on stage, wipe the snow off, plug it in and it works". I tend to agree... :-)
Yeah, cool how some of the best players, just kept playing the same guitar or model for years, or decades. Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues put a lot of mlles on his Gibson ES-335, for sure.
Paul I thought we talked about this, we never hate on a strat because that would be disrespecting the dead. A tree had to die before it could exist. The wood had to be worked into the proper shape and merged with metal and plastic to achieve its final form. Its abilities are legendary just like you.
I was just thinking that. I scanned the interview, feels like they took it out of context, as usual ;-), but it sparked some cool ideas :-). Recommend everyone reads the interview. I feel he was not judging anyone or any guitar. Enjoyed this video, even if we got baited into it a little :-).
Childhood dream to own a real Strat. Finally bought one in my retirement. Love it love it, but recently bought a Tele - wow why didn't I do this before, its amazing. I now regularly use both in any live set.The Tele is all round easier to live with but the Strat has more tonal options.
I've been primarily a bass player for almost 20 years. I recently decided to start learning guitar and picked up a telecaster and a vox ac4. Compared to my friends fender american strat which is wonderful and perhaps more comfortable to play sitting down, I feel that I can achieve a wider range of sounds and tones from the tele. Flip to the neck pickup and it sounds nice and bass filled and jazzy. Flip to the bridge and it's got natural rock distortion and just screams. Best of all, it NEVER goes out of tune. Every time I touch a strat I spend more time tuning than playing....
The tuning systems for strats and teles are literally exactly the same. The only thing that could cause a strat to hold tune worse is if the bridge is floating or if the tremelo is being actively used... which is a choice not a requirement... not sure where the logic is in saying teles stay in tune but you always have to tune strats.
Paul that's my problem too. I absolutely love how strat looks (and sounds in those middle positions). But for the road I'd rather prefer a tele, it's just much more reliable...
Watched an interview with Jeff Beck a few years ago on a tv show "Jeff Beck Talks Music". The interviewer Malcolm Gerrie asked Jeff about changing "his weapon of choice from the Les Paul (featured on all Jeff's early albums) to the Stratocaster". Jeff replied that the Strat gave him "Endless colour!" Jeff then proceeded to demonstrate exactly what he meant. Each man to his own...........
A lot of players stick a Grolsch washer underneath the volume knob, just enough friction. For me the bad thing about Strats is that I never remember on which pickup the tone and volume control is working... 3 pickups but 2 tone controls always looked weird to me. (But I mainly play Tele and LP)
@@annalipiarz3884 Thank you! It's a brand spankin' new 2017 American Professional lefty JM in mystic seafoam finish. My only other electric is a cheap offbrand strat from the early 2000's, so this is a _huge_ step up! The pickups sound amazing in every position, and _good God_ the tremolo is better than I could've ever imagined. I don't know why more guitars don't go for a similar configuration. The melty vibrato tones I can get out of this thing are out of this world!
Cameron Moore wow that’s amazing! Great choose of quality equipment, no wonder you like it so much. Well Fender knew exactly what to do to crate magnificent work horse - pickups and tremolo go so damn well in every genre of music especially in clean channel with proper reverb and delay! Enjoy your amazing guitar :)
I've been with my Strat for 40 years and never had a problem. I had it set up by a master when I got it and it has been an absolute joy ever since. Tuning is not a problem. Till death us do part.
A lot of this could be considered more of a pickup problem than a strat problem, per se. That being said I customized my strat by changing to one volume and one tone (hate the knob right where my hand needs to be) and went to a three way pickup selector. Oh, and a seymour duncan hot rail in the bridge. Love it now.
I traded my favorite Stratocaster, a purple, 1998, with rosewood fretboard, for a Gibson Les Paul, Special w/single cutaway, bound fretboard, zebra pups, push/pull knobs for coil splitting, and a beautiful gloss finish over a brown stain. Freaking gorgeous guitar! Oh yeah, it also has the slim taper, 60s neck. Got a standard Gibson Les Paul case too, in brown. I loved my strat but that was the best trade I ever made!
Nope I got the same thing, or maybe not. I get a buzzing sound that normally tops for a second when I cover the higher strings but it still comes back.
Teles are just as bad for hum, so it's kind of irrelevant in a strat vs tele discussion, but both have noise/hum issues (at least if you have only single coils)
My first guitar was a Squire strat for about 300-400 Euros. 20 years later it's still crazy how this thing stays in tune even though I "abuse" the tremolo...
20 years ago there were no euros. The euro was introduced in 2002. The price of a Squier Stratocaster or Telecaster before the introduction of the euro was ± hfl. 495,- which is only ±€222.75 in today's currency. There were some special ones from Japan that were just as expensive as the MIJ Fender (the ones with the black headstock), but that was in the end of the 1980s, The fact that your guitars stays in tune despite the frequent tremolo 'abuse' has nothing to do with the tremolo itself. It means that your nut slot resistance is either ZERO % (graphite lubricated) or A HUNDRED % (nut-lock or lock-nut). Anything between 0% and 100% sucks, because a part of the strings (mostly the [round]wound ones) won't slide back in place. If you have a classic bone or white plastic nut, it is wise to "lubricate" the nut slots with a graphite pencil each time you replace your strings. It is also possible to replace the nut with a GraphTech String Saver nut, but if you want to keep the original nut, the pencil trick mostly works fine.
Totally agree about the cut through the mix issue. The volume used for sound check never worked when the audience came. I also checked my volume pot often to make sure it was fully open but most of the times it was
Same here, im fairly heavy handed when i play (not because i dont care if it breaks, i just like how it pushes my amp a luttle more). The middle one is always getting knocked around. Then there's Simon Neil of Biffy Clyro, he drops it down as low as possible and doesn't even use it or the neck pickup.
You can always put a higher output single coil in the middle position and then you can lower it quite a bit. By doing this you don't lose any tone and the pickup sits lower and out of the way of your picking/strumming. I actually do this with both the neck and middle pickups and it works great.
Now that's a solid argument. I love my 335. But, I'm only 5'7 and I disappear on stage with the thing. In my next life hopefully I'll be taller...and make all of my students learn arps all over the neck before a single pentatonic scale. Lol.
Yes indeed! I love my 335 too - does so many different things well. I'm 6'3 and somewhat heavier than I should be, so its size is something of a plus - makes me appear thinner (unlike my Strat, which looks slightly toy-like on me)!
I am harmonica player, 45 years and was full-time by age 20. I do not play guitar but, saw Duane Allman and check out other instruments (mostly Drummers, Bass & Sax Players but, like this channel sometimes). Have been around some good guitar players though. I had a Swing Dance, Jazz, Blues, R&B Soul band for 10 years with excellent guitarists (Carl Miner, Bob Anglin, Gary Wade) 1 played Tele, 2 Strats, several Swing Jazz Players 335's. Opened for Chris Cain, Elvin Bishop- they were both on 335's and sounded pretty darn good! I love Robben Ford & Danny Gatton on Teles though. Still.......If I were playing it would be Strat. Just spent 7 years in Austin....heard plenty of guitars!
another thing I would add: when I palm mute (close to the bridge) I end up picking right on top of the pickup, and I have to lower it quite a bit in order to avoid hitting it.. what I like about Les Pauls in contrast is they have a massive empty space in the middle to be able to pick without worrying about the pickups being in the way.
I'm a strat guy, and everything you said is absolutely true. I've blocked and installed a brass FU bridge, heavy duty springs, graphtec nut the whole bit. But it doesn't "stay" when I go crazy on bends. But I love the feel of it so much that I ignore my other guitars completely. Which is a shame, really.
@@TubeOrNotTube I did both, but wanted to keep it short. The brass stoppers are offset just a tiny bit. When I pull up it gives me a unique sound. It def holds its tune better than my others. It's just when I go bonkers on bends.
My problem with the Strat has always been the middle pickup. I try to move my hand, but naturally my hand gravitates back to where I feel comfortable, but I wind up hitting the middle pickup with my pick.
I love my Telecasters! More versatile than any other guitar I've owned. A Telecaster, a Vox AC30 and a fuzz box, I'm in Yardbird Heaven- that's what I want!
I think, I heard someone make a comment the other day that went something like " I wonder how many Les Paul's and Marshalls a Telecaster plugged into a Vox AC30 have sold?"
The most playable guitar is the one you feel comfortable on. I personally find a Les Paul very playable. So does my brother, his best mate is a strat man, someone else is gretsch white falcon. There’s no such thing as a bad guitar, just a guitar you’re not in love with.
I've played a Strat for 50 years. In all that time, I surely must have hit the volume control or selector switch at some point - but I don't remember it. For me, neither of those things have ever been an issue. I have NEVER understood the appeal of a guitar which has it's volume control in a different county. It just makes no sense. I often modify such guitars and put the volume control where it is on a Strat, my Brian May(cheap) copy being the latest victim. Perhaps a lot of "the problem" is lack of time on the Strat? I've played the Strat for well over 95% of the time, so perhaps I am just conditioned to play in a way which avoids hitting those controls and it is so ingrained in me that I don't even know I'm doing it? You can of course cut down the size of the selector knob a lot by a bit of careful DIY and you can also use a volume knob of lower height etc if you have these problems, but realistically, after a while you just learn how to play around these things. Lots of things can change when you move onto another guitar - string spacing and scale length being two big ones. On a Strat, I can change volume and pickups whilst playing and certainly without moving my hand whatsoever from the playing position, whereas on a Les Paul, your hand has to travel a long way if you want to change pickups and alter tone and volume settings. Yes, it can be done but it takes a lot of hand movement that just doesn't arise on a Strat. The "hollow" tone that the Strat is famous for in the 2 and 4 switch positions is a distinctive and beautiful tone. Saying it does not cut through the mix live is like complaining that when you get onstage with a Death Metal thrash-band, you can't hear your nylon-strung acoustic guitar. Either you have chosen the wrong tone for the situation or else the rest of the band is failing to reflect the change in the musical mood and is drowning you out by playing too loud overall or too loud at the frequencies you need uncluttered to let the softer tone cut through. So turn up! (...the Volume control should be just under your picking pinky ;-) ) I am reading your points as relating to just playing with a live band - if you are in a situation where you have a sound-engineer on the PA then any problem you have is with the failure of the sound-guy to do his job - you already did yours. The Hendrix Experience make a LOT of noise when they're in full flight, but listen to Red House from Monteray or Hear My Train A Coming from Rainbow Bridge. Back then, they did not have Concert PA systems and a sound engineer - the other guys in the band shut the hell up to ensure that the succulence of the guitar tone in those quiet clean-ish wah sections was going to be heard. They HAD to be on-the-ball because Hendrix was apt to make an sudden unscheduled left-turn on a momentary whim :-D Tremolo systems (actually VIBRATO systems) are a total Pain In The Ass - but I have one by choice on almost all my guitars. The range of things you can do with a tremelo arm are beautifully expressive and to me worth the aggravation. Even just initially tuning up with a trem-equipped guitar is a PITA because of the way the tension of every string affects every other. For string-breaks playing live, the only answer is a swap out to a backup guitar to finsh the song. As for hearing your guitar tone - from the first I have always pointed my speakers at my upper body and head. I cannot understand players who have a small combo on the floor a metre or two behind them pointing at the back of their calves. I cannot understand how they can hear what they are doing because the player can hear little of the high-end detail even when playing solo - once the rest of the band strikes up even that bit utterly vanishes. Keeping your amp low-ish, on the floor or perhaps a chair, but tilting it up owards your head also means that should you produce those shrill high-frequency drilling tones that make people wince and shout Turn Down, those tones are heading up towards the ceiling, not straight out towards the audience in a horizontal ear-level beam that makes even those at the back of the hall keel over. You can position your amp so that it is not pointing towards the rest of the band or not pointing at the audience. I've played two gigs that I remember where my amp was in front of me, alongside the wedge monitors - it was the only way I could get enough volume to work properly without the older audience complaining. Jeff Beck is the foremost exponent of The Strat. He seems to have no significant tuning problems despite very frequent trem use. He does have a roller-nut and locking tuners though. What Beck does would be utterly impossible on any other guitar. He sometimes changes tone a couple of times within a single melodic phrase. I've used a Strat from about a year after I switched from acoustic to electric. I have noted with some glee that many established guitar-godz who made their name playing Les Pauls etc all eventually switch to a Strat, Clapton, Beck and Lifeson being the most notable and known. ....so my failure to take the world by storm was NOT down to me choosing the wrong guitar then...... :-p
Wow... My first guitar was a strat, I just got a les paul custom, and I can say that the points brought up by both are valid in some way. My strat's worked well for 5 years, and the les paul has worked beautiful for the past two months. I have hit the pickup a few times on the strat, and it's annoying, but it's a rare occurrence. I do like that I can change it on the fly, but I also like the pickup on the les paul because of the different sounds it has from the strat. For me personally I like the volume knobs where they are on the strat on the les paul I have to stop for a second to find them, but it's probably because I've played the strat for years while I've played the paul for a month.
Clapton's best tones were with a Gibson. My problem with a stratocaster isn't with the instrument , but with the stratocaster fans and players who think it's the end all and be all of electric guitars. It isn't .
The greatest thing to help with a trem guitar staying in tune is heavy gauge strings. When I started using 11s I could dive bomb a cheap squier strat and still come back in tune
I, too have hit the pickup selector by accident many times. And I've nudged the volume control accidentally, too. My least favorite thing about the Strat is the drastic tonal differences between positions 2/4 and positions 1/3/5. I want two separate amp&pedal setups for these positions: positions 2/4 need more treble and more volume to match up with positions 1/3/5. else 2/4 can be dark and weak; lost in the mix.
Two great guitars. A Tele is easier to work with. But a Strat just feels so right. In large bands, I can flick over to the bridge pickup on a Strat. Talk about cut through. Or play high chords on the high strings. With 5 options for tone, you’re bound to get in the mix somewhere. A tele tends to sustain more and has a full sound. It’s rich in the bridge pickup, comes stereo like in the middle position and sometimes a muddy mess in the neck position, but with a really good amp, that tone is a go to for blues and jazz. If I don’t want to fuss about, and I need to tune to different tunings on the fly, or get a heavy sound with a single coil, it’s the tele. If I want to work a little and try different sounds, or play percussive, it’s the Strat.
As soon as I saw the title, I thought to myself “I always knock the damn pickup selector to a different position!” I was so excited to find out that something about my playing was similar to Paul Davids😜
@@wahkean wow ...u are a dick...I wasnt bragging at all I was just saying what I thought and threw in a lame joke, I dont think I'm a great player nor was I trying to imply that in any way.
Hey I've noticed that Teles really seem to be in at the moment. But I think most - not all - people sound country on them. Strats are super versatile. They are the most popular electric for a reason. Having said that, I've been right into Gibson styles (copies as I'm not rich) By the way, my tuning is stable except over the season.as I live in Germany. I have about 7 and they all stay in tune.
I would agree with the 'not all'... some cases in point: Jimmy Page. George Harrison. Tom Morello. Steve Cropper. Andy Summers. Jeff Beck. Mike Campbell. Muddy Waters. Graham Coxon. Joe Strummer. Frank Black (mostly). Bruce Springsteen. Johnny Greenwood. Jeff Buckley. Johnny Marr.
You associate teles with country because of a cultural association with teles and country - not because teles make the notes you play sound like country music. Maybe if all you ever do is set the tone knob all the way up and keep it in the bridge position and play exclusively through fender style amps, which a lot of people do just because that’s what they were taught and they don’t know any better. But set the tele in the parallel position, dial the tone knob back, play through literally anything but a fender amp, and tell me it still makes everything sound like country music. Seriously, people just need to walk like three feet out of their comfort zone. I played a tele in a prog-metal band and got compliments on my tone left and right and nobody ever said I sounded country. It’s not in the tele, it’s in your head.
@@PleiadeezNutz Teles are very versatile indeed. The first Rage Against the Machine Album is pretty good at showing why Telecasters are amazing guitars for hard rock. Then you can pop over to Tim Lerch's TH-cam channel, or YT search Julian Lage to see why a Telecaster can be a fantastic jazz guitar... and the list goes on.
fun fact the tele is the most recorded electric guitar in history, thats why i bought mine as my first. Weirdly enough I flipped my control plate to do volume swells!
@@joonasarmpalu7805 i heard it somewhere i could be wrong don't crucify me haha but id bet its close to true. i mean some of the most recorded guitarists in the world play telecasters lol idk
BimodalHealer I don’t think I’m crucifying you, but presenting something that you don’t know for a fact by saying it’s a “fun fact” is what’s wrong with the internet - people spread misinformation without really giving it a second thought. If you *think* something is true, but don’t actually know for sure, then please either 1. look it up first or 2. let people know it’s your opinion, not a fact.
The reason why strats will continue being popular is not because of the build quality but the countless of tones guitarists can get out of it and the versatility strats have they fit in on almost any genre you can think of.
I guess I always think of Telecasters as being for country music, and I know that's not fair, because Jimmy Page for instance used one in the early days of Zepellin. I play a Strat because I like the tones you can get, but I don't use the whammy bar, and I have never even put it on the guitar yet, it is just sitting in a drawer. I think either guitar is a good choice because they are both versatile.
I'm biased. As the great Greg Koch says: "After the apocalypse all there is left is cockroaches and Tele's" - It is just a stable, simple and indestructible tone monster :) I kind of get overwhelmed with the many choices on a strat and how long it takes to dial up a tone that sounds great and doesn't drown in the mix. I play in a band with two guitars and that point in particular I experienced myself. But yeah - I still respect the strat players ;)
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Yeah for pure reliability a telecaster style guitar is hard to beat.
The strat is beautiful though. When you first see a strat as a kid, you know it looks right and you are drawn to it for the same reason you put a Lamborghini poster on the wall. I am planning one day, to build a modified strat. The selector switch is going under the neck pick up.
I think some guitar players can agree. When you get some quality guitar it’s not about the manufacturer or shape, it’s about the feeling you get when you play it, I think of it as the guitars have souls, some match, some don’t and that’s fine, doesn’t mean that guitar is any worse. Play what feels right, that’s my advice
My only real beef with the strat, and I'm surprised you didn't mention this: try playing natural harmonics on the 5th fret with the pickup on the neck position. Impossible due to the the pickup placement (directly under a node). That's a real design flaw.
that happened to me on my first tele, but the issue went away when i lifted the action and changed to 11's gauge, i still wonder why....it never happened to my on any strat, but it is a truth that natural harmonic in the 6th string on the 5th fret sounds a bit drowned, only in the 6th string.....
That's uh, not a flaw. The strat neck pickup is one of the best and most pervasive electric guitar sounds of all time. The pickup is low output under a spot with wide string amplitude, that gives you less compression and less treble peakiness. That smoothed out dynamic sound is unmistakable, and as soon as you make it too high output or move it back then you lose that sound. There's a reason so many strat players live on the neck pick up but so many people with HH or 24 fret guitars rarely touch their neck pick ups at all.
So you're trying to convince me that there is absolutely no combination of position and output that WOULD allow you to play a nat harmonic on the 5th? Plenty of other manufacturers seem to nail it, without losing "unmistakable" sound. It was a design flaw to start with, but to not address has mostly to do with 1) very little demand for it and mostly 2) incredible traditionalism
@@PANICBLADE Also, the string amplitude argument doesn't make any sense, because the point of maximum amplitude changes with each note you fret. By your logic, every fretted note will lose that "best and most pervasive sound of all time". And if it somehow doesn't change the sound, the pickup could easlily have been in any other place.
Definitely Teles for me, but I've been playing a lot of surf rock lately (Ventures and Shadows covers) which require a whammy bar. I've been using my 2001 Yamaha Pacifica for this. Not a high end instrument price-wise, but it stays in tune just fine. The Pacifica is basically an imitation strat, including that pesky volume pot position. I solved it by just taking the plastic cap off and adjusting the volume with the metal stub that's left. Actually, I liked the aesthetic of it so much that I ended up taking both pot caps off. What other whammy endowed non-strats would anyone recommend for surf rock?
Sorry, Paul I don't agree. I have a solid counterargument. Strat is the only guitar that I got. I can't afford another guitar.
If I had to pick one, a Strat it's very high on the list...
Best guitar that you can have is the guitar that you can play!
Paul Davids so hypothetically if I were to buy my first electric should I go strat or tele?
I would say as a first guitar it actually doesn't matter that much. It's after a few years of playing you truly get to appreciate what each model has to offer and the benefits of both...
I love a Strat. I love my Tele. I love my Tele. It's the controls for me.
I heard Greg Koch say : after the atomic bomb drops, two things survive : cockroaches and telecasters...and the telecasters will be in tune.
Its funny, everyone says this, but I havent found my tele stays in tune better than my other guitars
and tuning a cockroach is a real bitch. That's why I prefer Teles, really....
That and the shure sm57
@@fhqwhgads1670 damn man i choked a broadbean reading your comment! 🤣🤣🤣
Does the guy know a country called japan?
It's not a matter of which to buy, it's a matter of which to buy "first".
I bought a Yamaha I really like it why do many people not use them?
@@nammar6435
Don't they have a bit different shape from regular strat ?
@@jackconnor6172 ye they do Im talking in general but I'm a begginer so maybe that's why
It's not, just get 'em both at the same time. I know I did, but that's because I started playing as an adult having a job. My first guitar was a Gibson Les Paul
@@nammar6435 I bought upgraded Pacifica 112v, wonderful quality and tone, 2nd hand for a silly price - highly recommended.
Pro tip for the volume knob: Try placing a rubber sealing ring (you can find them on some beer bottles) under the knob. The friction will prevent the it from moving unintentionally and it makes for really smooth and precise adjusting.
Also trim the pickup selector switch down to a nub.
The first time I changed pickups and pots myself I accidentally wired the volume knob backwards. I decided to leave it though since it solved my problem of accidentally hitting the volume switch and turning the volume down.
O-rings are the best! They work for knobs on pedals too in case you hit one with your foot. (Got that from Paul Gilbert).
You can also buy high-friction knobs. The brass knobs on my Slick "SL'51" telecaster take considerable torque to turn them, almost too much, but they do feel good and solid. It's a great telecaster for the money ($250-ish), pickups sound good too, I like it more than two American Standard Telecasters I had in the 1990's, beautiful though they were. The volume knob on stratocasters needs (imo) to be moved down to neck tone knob, and the bottom tone knob used for all three pickups. Doing that, along with a shorter switch that takes more force to change it, will solve the problems Paul mentioned. Then put a Telecaster bridge and pickup in place of the bridge strat pickup and wang-bar bridge, and you have a "Stratotele" (trademarked?) with the best of both models. Telecasters look crude and ugly compared to stratocasters, BUT they are great musical instruments too!!
@@pharmerdavid1432 I agree, teles definitely look more comfortable to play, but you just don’t look as cool as you do playing on the strat. I dunno why man.
This should become a series about every brand and model of guitar! I'd love to see your honest opinions about guitars that are amazing!
You mean something where the youtuber gives his honest unfiltered opinion on famous guitar models or even songs? That would be so innovative maybe he should name it HUFO
Edit: I might have gotten a bit too sarcastic but you get my point. Have a nice day :)
@@oskarliedtke6440 😂😂 it would be awesome tho ... if Paul started a serie like sammy's!!
@@mohamedaherrisse3844 They should collaborate on that haha.
Yes please
Nice idea! There is a TH-camr here in Chile who made some videos like that. "5 five thing I don't like about my Gibson SG" for example, or the same with the LP. Paul definetley need to do that
5 things I like about Paul Davids:
- Honesty
- B E A R D
- Soothing Voice
- Musical Style and thinking kinda outside of my bubble
- Very knowledgeable
also massive golden retriever energy
Agree
Andy T. Always ready to play!
I love how Paul is to the point while being gentle, trying not to hurt anyone.
Lol Amen. -6 HE CAN REALLY PLAY most EVERY STYLE without any judgment. And he has zero in common with "Mus is Wn" deuschbg. LOL... right? hte that guys vids - - -evrywhere. Uggh.
The best guitar is air guitar, because it dont have cons, you can play any music do you want, any tone, you can imagine the body of guitar.
Yeah but air guitars don’t get the girls! Lol
@@BlueRivers do real guitars?? What have I been doing wrong
You gotta rap nowadays to get a girl lmao
Yes
@@BlueRivers if it gets the men, it's just as much of a win tbh
As a bassist, what I'm getting from this is that strats are to jazz basses as teles are to precision basses. More versatility and controls, more room to mess up. One's a pair of really nice looking skinny jeans that doesn't fit that great while the other is a old pair of levis that fits right every time.
Well said
more room to mess up on a jazz? how so?
@@roachdoggjr155 , you can get sounds out of a jazz which are not great for rock, too muddy. Actually when using a jazz in rock you dial in the p bass sound.
@@HumblyServingGod *can dial in the p bass sound
its not necessary
I play guitar and bass - I prefer a P Bass too, great sound.
Number one problem with strats is it doesn’t automatically turn me into Jimi Hendrix :(
biggest problem for me too....
Have you tried stringing it backwards?
Are you left-handed? If yes, you got take a right-handed guitar and turn it upside down. If no, you got take a left-handed guitar and turn it upside down. This is the first step.
Nor Mark Speer... 😪 well with floating Tremolo, no wonder he's looking at his Polytune clip ever so often
Omg it’s not only my strat then!?! You saying it’s me? 😱
Btw there is the JH strat that is a left handed one set up as a right handed. So the opposite of what he did ☺️. I love it.
I started off like, nah the strat is perfect. "thing one: flicking the selector" Me: yeah okay you might have a point
Totally! Same here! Haha
I think those little imperfections - while bothersome, make up the guitar :3
I have a Jazzmaster and my circuit selector can be like this sometimes;
But I still love the sound either way - even if I might switch between them by accident!
exactly my thoughts watching this
Same hahahahahaha
This really seems like a design detail they could have improved at some point
This reminds me of how Slash said "“As far as I'm concerned and Gibson probably wouldn't want me to say it, the Strat is, hands down, probably one of the best, most versatile guitars there is.” and people were boggled. As a LP player that came from a high-end 59RI to a Mexi-Strat, there was a ALOT to get used to especially all the things you mentioned. Unfortunately, the only solution I've arrived at is to buy them all.
He did have some strat copies during the making of AFD before getting the LP
I have to agree with this line of reasoning!
He played a black strat alot in the early days before GnR
Played strat for 20 plus years, was good enough for me. Only thing I just don’t like is the action feels high. I just got a telecaster to change it up a bit and realised I bought the wrong guitar 20 years ago.
The Tele is just ace. The simplicity and how easy you can spec it up to your liking.
I love the strat but the Tele will be in my hands for the coming 20 years.
Never picked up a guitar that plays and sounds as good as a tele (imo).....
I took mine to a luthier, who lowered the action by filing the nut slots.
Action is a setup/hardware issue, not a Tele issue
@@MrVersipellis Yeah i don't know why he's so upset for that lol?🤣 really saying you picked the wrong guitar because the set up wasn't suited well for you.
Action has absolutely nothing to do with the kind of guitar. What you have is a bad set up
The last point is EXACTLY what I discovered when I bought my Tele.
I was a strat guy from the beginning, but - I hate to admit it - the tele freed me from strat cliches and led me to discover my voice. That’s why I use it more now.
With a strat you play stratty, but the tele is more like a neutral pallet. It makes you focus on the way you play and the notes you choose. But that’s just me
You are in pretty good company with Danny Gatton, Robben Ford (for a period), Roy Buchanan. I am harmonica player but, those are some of who I listen to.
Gabriel N Great taste mate ;)
@@GuitarFeels of course amplifiers make a difference! I like the early BB King tone when he was playing out of fender tweed amps and I think a 335? I plug into either one or two 1959 Bassman amps depending on the gig! Any guitar sounds good plugged into one of those with the original Jensen speakers 😊
Gabriel N totally agree! I’m amazed when sometimes I see 3000$ pedalboards plugged into entry level amps! To me amp/guitar combination is key and must sound great by itself. These days I’m finding myself gravitating more towards Vox amps: good amount of mids and sparkle, never get lost in the mix... love Bassman, great choice 😉
@@GuitarFeels between Bassman is just a great harmonica amp. Also the narrow panel pro and deluxe, for bigger amps the concerts are good too. Yes on the pedals, I plugged straight in or at possibly most just a little delay pedal. Look at people like Buddy Guy, They just plugged straight in the amp and all the tone comes out of their hands. It's actually kind of the same with harmonica, your tone develops internally over time and years. I listened to quite a bit of Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix also, any guitar players that are good tone shapers 😊
Davids: "Where's my guitar?"
Random other guitarist: *Laughs in humbucker*
Random Strat Guy: *"Laughs at mud-bucker."*
You can make a single coil sound like a HB any day of the week. Just roll off the tone knob. It's a lot harder to go the other direction and not introduce a lot of high frequency noise! =]
If only they made HSS Strats (looks lovingly at the one sitting on my rack). :-)
@@RandyKeelingJr They do actually
@@UninstalledGamer I think you missed the joke here
@@Dartheomus or just buy a decent guitar with a full-bodied tone...? 🤔
😜
Robby Kreiger, who’s played a Gibson SG for 50 years lol
Exactly what I thought
@@JohnDoe9764 yeah, me too
Ha ha ha SG stands for Shitty Guitar
@@gretschbasher lol nice
Dudes, I like SGs. SGs and telecasters are way better than strats. I know I'll get hate for this, but I genuinely do not like Les Paul's. They're really uncomfortable
I would add more:
6. Bad access to high frets (not as bad as on Les Paul, but still bad).
7. Screws sticking out of the saddles that make palm muting uncomfortable (there are 3rd party solutions, but why Fender can't fix it from the box is beyond me, since they already adopted 2-point tremolo unit, which is not historic, but superior to 5-point one).
8. Bridge pickup is barely usable (unless it is humbucker)
9. 3-pot layout is sort of stupid. Go either master volume - master tone or full Les Paul layout with individual pots for pickups. But classic Strat wiring makes no sense for me. Even more so because bridge pickup need tone knob the most - and it is one that doesn't have it!
10. It is too thin and flat. It could be personal preference, but for me thick arch top guitars are more comfortable, I don't have to bend my hand while playing.
11. You can't get that sweet neck tone on any other guitar. You just can't. So you have to deal with all drawbacks of Strat to have that.
which guitar is the best for high access to high frets?
@@gjkoyr SG or neck-thru superstrats.
@@gjkoyr oh and I forgot Yamaha Revstar. It is like seriously improved SG (at least geometry-wise).
@@gjkoyr Gibson '59 Flying V
i find it easy to reach higher frets
Your guitar is your tool to make music, i don't care if someone find strats be the best or not i just love the way i can have different tones 3 single coils, 2 tone knobs, over 10 different tone variations, plus a lot of confortable and playable, and is way more fun to dive the tone with the whammy bar, i just love it. i dont know if strat is the best guitar in the world i just know is the best guitar for me.
'Wait a second, I really don't agree.' That is not how you argue on the internet. Attack them personally, be as petty and offensive as possible! ...jk
Lol
Why win an argument when you can insult a person’s family tree and look so cool for your fellow Cheeto stained keyboard wizards?
hahaha
There are no bad guitars; there are, however, bad guitar players: I'm one.
Lmaoo
@BigBrain Time or those guys who brag about how good they are and then you ask them to play and they play smoke on the water on one string muting every note after ringing it immediately and getting a buzzing sound on every fret change.
This hits too close to home lol
oof
Me too, and i have Strats Teles Les Pauls and lots of others, just love buying guitars and diddling around on them
To overcome Strat tuning problems, when fitting new strings I used to:
1. Give them a few really good pulls (not enough to break them, obvs) and repeat until they stay in key when you tug them.
2. Mistreat the whammy bar a few times up and down (dive bombs etc) to iron out slippage
3. Retune and repeat as necessary until the beast stays in tune. Probably three, maybe four times. Job done.
Helpful hint - when you do have to make tuning adjustments on the hoof, keep adjustments as small as possible and always finish with an upward adjustment to mitigate sticky nut syndrome. Nobody likes sticky nut syndrome.
Sticky Nut Syndrome Sucks.
Greasy Nut Syndrome, much better.
Yep
Unlike acoustic guitars, electric guitars dont "sound better" the more expensive they are. Sound is completely subjective. There's gonna be an electrric guitar for YOU, but it doesnt always have to be expensive.
@fouccodefire he asked about the sound of strats. i answered with the subjectivity of guitar sounds.
@fouccodefire i wasnt replying to that. i was replying to his statement about sound is subjective in the end of the video. did you not watch the whole thing?
In my experience, anything under £300 ain't worth it. Poor sustain, very tinny sounds.
Granted, when you go above the £2k mark, it's not really the sound you're buying it for, you're paying that additional for customisation and finish.
@fouccodefire dont try to be a smartass youre really not being smart
I think this is a valid point, but only if you look past beginner models. It definitely is worth it to go past the $300-400 mark usually, since this is where the craftmanship starts getting better, and you start to have diminishing returns. Once you get past this its more of a placebo, since you think the guitar will sound better, you play it more confidently. If you really are set on improving your sound you would probably want to look towards upgrading amps and pedals. But that isn't as fun as getting a new guitar :/
Since you did one on the Strat, you should probably do one on the guitars like the Tele and Les Paul
@@matej2268 thank you very much !
@@matej2268 and I actually fell for that xD
@@matej2268 damn you... baha
@@matej2268 well played
You got me!😆😆🙌🏻
Paul’s next video to trigger his subs
“8 things I hate about guitar”
“Im gonna turn this into a bass channel”
episode 3 is "top 10 things i hate about music"
"5 things I hate about TH-cam"
and THAT is exactly why we love this place
I got my first electric guitar in 1982, a Peavey T-30, with a Statocaster style body, 3 single coil pickups, 5-way switch, and I've been a Strat guy ever since. My main guitar is a Mexican Strat, but I also have a Squire Heavy Metal Strat with an HSS configuration as well as a Hohner SG Lion HSS with a quilted maple cap. Up to this point I've been playing hard rock, heavy metal and some blues. But this coming year, my 2023 New Year's resolution is to focus on new genres with clean, tone and plenty of "jangle". I'm getting into Surf, Rockabilly, and Johnny Marr styled song-writing. With the new guitar goals, I plan to reward myself with a Fender Vintera '60s Jaguar Modified HH. It has the tonal flexibility to tap and blend in infinitely varying degrees of single coil or humbucking sounds to get the classic Jaguar jangle or push it into high-gain mode. Following Johnny Marr's example, I plan to string it with an Ernie Ball Power Slinky 11-48 set, and leave the overdrive / distortion off the pedal board, instead opting to expand my modulation effects, lush spring reverb, tremolo, Boss CE-2W chorus, and maybe a Memory Man delay.
About the tuningstability: Take a serious look at the nut. Friction means tuning trouble. If the string has friction because of the narrow slots it will never return to "point zero". Locking tuners defenitly help but that's only half the problem. It's all about friction! And the bridge can easily been set up floating. Again: friction! Use the outer 2 (of 6) screws as pivot points. The inner 4 adjusted a fraction higher so they only function as stability points.
So true. All those points. My Strat never goes out of tune. Unless I break a string of course.
Absolutely right! Welding torch tip cleaners are often sold as nut files. A cheap solution to widen the slots a bit and keep them round on the inside.
+ what I just wrote:
"The fact that your guitars stays in tune despite the frequent tremolo 'abuse' has nothing to do with the tremolo itself. It means that your nut slot resistance is either ZERO % (graphite lubricated) or A HUNDRED % (nut-lock or lock-nut).
Anything between 0% and 100% sucks, because a part of the strings (mostly the [round]wound ones) won't slide back in place.
If you have a classic bone or white plastic nut, it is wise to "lubricate" the nut slots with a graphite pencil each time you replace your strings.
It is also possible to replace the nut with a GraphTech String Saver nut, but if you want to keep the original nut, the pencil trick mostly works fine."
I have both Strat & Tele love em both 👍🔥🎸🦅
What I hate about my Strat; only one thing.......having to change the strings! Trying to thread the strings from the back of the guitar is like trying to thread the eye of a needle, gggggggr!
Take the tremolo backplate off, far easier . Haven’t had mine on a Strat for at least 20 years.
@@christophertodd1980 Ah ok thanks.
I don't have any strings to change and I have a dean vendetta so an
"Offbrand"
Strat
The Backplate is the first i throw away after buying 😂
You have this same problem for tele too. At least for my tele.
Well , I have been playing Strats and Teles for over 50 years . I still own 2 Teles , 2 Strats , and 2 Jazz Basses .I love Strats , but the tele can sound like almost any guitar in any style . Of course , the Strat has it's own sound , which is beautiful, and I love , but if I could only own one guitar , it would be a Tele . You were right on with your video . Both my Strats have the whammy disabled , because it is more of a problem , than the added effect is worth . You still need a 335 , and a Les Paul , and that is the truth . For the same reason you need a Dreadnaught and a parlor guitar . And nothing replaces a nylon string classical .So , that is why most guitar players own so many guitars . God Bless any genius who can do it all with only one guitar . I cannot , I love all my guitars , and play them every day ( I am 72 years old ) . I gigged from the time I was a teenager , until I retired from my day job ( Gotta have one of those to have any financial stability ). Oh , and everybody needs an archtop Jazz box . I have an Epiphone Joe Pass model , which takes care of anything I need in that department ! Thanks for so many great videos . Love your podcasts !
Hello
One question please
Joe Pass is a hollow body ?
Can hollow body's quitars sound full volume with no feedback?
@@dimitrisaivaliotis5616 , that depends on your amp . The Joe Pass is more of a Jazz guitar for me . I play clean without a lot of volume . I will tell you this . If I would use it like my Telecaster on stage , it would feedback for sure ! Hollow body guitars are not designed for that kind of application . Some guys use them , but sometimes they fill the body with something to absorb the vibrations . I think it would be better to mic your amp to get the volume . I almost always played in Bars , and when you are playing loud with people dancing a hollow body guitar will feedback . That is why you will see most guys playing solid bodies or semis in that situation !
@@gangnamstylegrandpa6352 All right 👍
I'm semi begginer
It was very kind of you
@@dimitrisaivaliotis5616 , you are very welcome . I am 72 years old now , and am retired , but if I can ever help you out let me know . Keep on playing , learn everything you can , and remember that everybody has something valuable to learn . The best experience you can get is to play with more experienced people , and gig as much as you can . Experience is the best teacher !
Yes sirr
I agree with everything--the love and the hate. One more thing that bugs me is the middle pickup. That's RIGHT where I like to pick 90% of the time. What do strat whammy legends like David Gilmour do to keep their instruments in tune despite using the bar every 5 seconds? Rolling bridges and string trees? Graphite spray?
And Jeff Beck too! I think his guitars have a locking nut and modded, friction reduced bridge.
Jeff beck has modern 2 point trem locking nut and locking tuners, but gilmour has classic strat-non locking tuners, non locking nut, 6 point trem, so Gilmour is wizard.
I have 5 springs in my Strat and mine barely ever goes out of tune. I guess I just have a one in a million guitar lol
2 springs, floating bridge and 0 tuning issues. Locked tuners help, but if springs are well set, there are no issues with tuning on Strat. Much better than Gibson design, despite lack of tremolo (G string always out of tune)
Well, you _could_ try shimming the neck. You might need a 2-point tailpiece if that's going to have any hope of working, though, depending on how high you want it.
Interesting piece. Tuning instability on a Strat, however, is mostly caused by improper string stretching in addition to the string sticking in the nut and/or string tree due to friction. This friction also causes the ticking noises you sometimes hear while tuning. It can be completely eliminated by lubricating the nut or, better yet, replacing it with a Tusq nut, also lubricating or replacing the metal string tree with a Tusq one, in addition to properly stretching in new strings all the way up to the tuning post. This combo in my experience solves literally all tuning stability issues with a Strat, even when using the whammy bar like a Floyd Rose one. There's quite a few informative videos on YT on properly achieving Strat tuning stability. Surprisingly, the Tusq nut/string tree are not often mentioned, which is weird, as they actually work superbly.
Anyway, interesting video (again). Keep it up!
Yep, that's been my experience too. The strat requires more attention to little details to get tuning stability with the trem, but it's absolutely capable of it with the right setup. One other thing to mention is the saddles not being level -- if any are tilted even a little bit, the string pushes them slightly off to the side as the trem is used, which causes tuning to shift.
Yess!👍🏼
"I have no idea what you're talking about" - My dad who doesn't play guitar but wanted to have a comment
Dass noice innit
@@silvermediastudio BEARMINGUM
Is he the guy that writes those amazon reviews that are like "I don't know I don't have the product"?
@@rzeka lol yeah, family tradition.
@@rzeka the worst is the people who answer questions as if it was directed at them only, and are clueless on how the product question section works. "I haven't tried it in the cold I live in Florida." ....wtf are you even responding??
For the knob, i guess that's why Cobain didn't often play a strat, there is something in the way (5:48)
He would have sounded like a gut shot cat no matter what he played 😵
He played strats all the time live and mostly destroyed them
Well I just remove the knob Easy fix
Owen 4602 it’s a pun
Not Applicable FINALLY ! Somebody finally get it
Thing3.: Squier fixed this with the Contemporary Strat: It has one volume + one tone pot and the volume pot is positioned a bit lower compared to the regular Strat.
Thing4.: Many player blames the 6 point tremolo for tuning stability issues but my experience is that in most cases it is the string tree which does not let the string slip back to it's original location. Swap the nut and the string tree to graphtechs and you have a much more stable instrument.
Although the tuning stability is horrible, and I never use the whammy, I still let it float because it just sounds better that way.
If you have a floating setup, you can use the whammy bar to tune back. Otherwise, if the tuning is flat during bending, no way to tune back except tweaking the machine head.
I recommend the GOTOH 510 tremolo unit (if possible, select the FST block.). They has improvements of the major friction points, such as tremolo block holes and bridge plate holes.
Many people consider the friction and deflection of nuts and machine heads to be a problem in tuning stability, but the most important point to consider is the friction points of the unit itself.
The notes float morr
th-cam.com/video/Iy-F7iSIopA/w-d-xo.html
Need to keep working on your set up. I float set up for intervals and do not lose tune.
To each their own, and I'm perfectly happy with my hard tail.
What I love about the Strat. EVERYTHING.
love is blind as they say
I'm saving up for a Fender American Ultra Stratocaster
@@hamishkay3010 worth the wait, American Professional II looks like a solid one too. Jesus loves u bro
@@vincentdalai6807 thank you respect bro
Smith Js sienna burst, rosewood fretboard and black pickguard and backplate👍🤔
You need to drink some Grolsch beers with the “swing top” caps and place the rubber washer under your volume knob-it won’t move when you bump it anymore.
Or do it Cory Wong style and tape the switch into 4th position
Also make great strap locks!
Wow, I hadn't heard that one yet! And I'm DUTCH!
I still have at least 10 old bottles of Grolsch (filled) in my garage because I got a terrible headache of the first two...
I went straight back to my white and Belgian beers.
But I will probably empty the bottles for the rubbers, throw the beer away and get my money back for the bottles and the box.
Generally speaking I hate Pilsener beers...
But I can always ask some buddies in the East of the country to save up the rubber rings for me. They don't mind, as long as they can drink the beer.
Or just press the volume knob down further on the shaft ... to keep it from accidentally moving on you. Rep;ace it with a tough to turn CTS pot. I do agree very much on last statement. I guess you could use it as a challenge, however: Write a piece on a strat that doesn't sound like a strat.
For everyone agreeing with these points: try a Yamaha Pacifica. Looks, feel and tone of the strat but without most of the design problems of the Fender. (humbucker in the bridge, just one tone + master volume, volume knob out of the way, blade switch in a better position, sleeker body).
As a pacifica owner,
I agree
Many years ago now I bought an oddity, an Oakland XS 100. It was everything I wanted, Strat shaped, thru neck, and 2 humbuckers with none of the issues dicussed here... I still prefer my Tele though
Pacificas don’t sound like Strats.
@@jsullivan2112 they don’t lmao at all
i had a strat as my first guitar, now i have the pacifica 612 and its like all the advantages you get with a strat (twang, comfortable shape, classic look) without all the disadvantages (tuning issues, since it has a wilkinson locking bridge and grover locking tuners)
also its HSS setup so its very versatile, and all 3 pickups are seymour duncans. playing open chords also sounds so much better since it comes with graphtech tusq nut
since i got the pacifica, i almost never touch my les paul anymore lol, but im looking forward to trying a tele in the future
1 thing I like about the squier...
It is cheap but it doesn't sound cheap!
I play a squier that got custom rebuilt and its my absolute favorite. Dual humbuckers instead of the triple single coils, and the middle position on the three way switch is the sound from both the bridge and the neck. When I buy a real strat, i'm going to do the same thing to it.
My first guitar, a red Squier... Legendary.
@@PaulDavids Didn't you hate the colour red? Love/hate relation i see.
Ps. Succes verder met de hittegolf. Nog een paar dagen, als het goed is.
but it does feel cheap, except classic vibe s
My squire with Seymour Duncan hot rails is my number one guitar. It has a sweet spot right between the bridge and the middle pick up that just no other guitar’s sound can touch !
It's good to see someone mentioning the annoying volume and switch positions. My first guitar was a strat and when I went out to buy my second guitar I had a list of "deal breakers" in my head based on what I did and didn't like about my strat. One of the most important "deal breakers" was that, no matter how much I liked the guitar, I would not buy another one that placed any knobs or switches anywhere near the positions where my strumming hand goes. I also wanted a fixed bridge because I ended up blocking the bridge on my strat because I never use it and find it annoying.
Strats are great for people who want to use effects like volume swells and tremolo wobbles to spice up their playing, but for people who have a more "no frills" approach to playing, teles and Les Pauls seem to be much more user friendly option. Incidentally my second guitar was a gretsch pro jet (very similar to a Les Paul). I'm now thinking of getting a third guitar and leaning towards a Tele, although the contoured body of a strat seems like a total no brainer to me and I don't really get why they aren't a more popular design feature on teles.
I played a Strat for years. Upgraded it, changed the look, played hundreds of gigs with it. Then played a telie ONE TIME and knew I wanted it. After I gone one my beautiful Strat just started collecting dust. I ended up selling it but instantly missing it when I seen it again in my local guitar store 20 miles from where I sold it.
Forget it. That's your ex. Now you have wifey 😁
@@invdvr4034 yeah but that ex was looking reeeeeal pretty 😭
@@MatthaeusEbonah hell nah man I can't get along with my telecaster shame it was an 18th birthday gift I can't sell it lol I'll take my beaten up squier strat all day long lol
Same experience !!!
Learned how to play guitar on my dad’s Stratocaster and recently bought a Tele. Strats are cool but I really prefer Teles.
I was waiting for you to talk about how close the volume control is to the strings; you didn't let me down! John Suhr worked in the Fender Custom Shop for a couple of years before starting his own company and I think he learned as much about what not to do as what to do. He moved that volume knob away from the danger zone; one of several reasons why the only Strat I now own is a Suhr.
I've owned three Gibsons, still own one. My latest guitar is a Strat Professional. The neck is silky smooth, absolutely love that guitar.
Couldn’t agree more.
Specially the “cutting through the mix” part.
yeah Iron maiden sounds terrible
Adrian Moreno elaborate
@@frunnkk I'm being sarcastic
Gotta adjust that amp bra
@@gretschbasher ye
The thing I don't like about the strat is that the middle pickup usually doesn't sound that great by itself, but you need it to get those wonder 2nd and 4th position tones. It's like it's just there for the extra magnetic interference.
Prince played strats later in his career but if you look, he always had the middle pickup taken out. I think it made it a nice compromise to the tele.
That's not a con to the strat then. It's a necessary component for it to create some of its good sounds.
I can definitely relate to what Paul David was saying about pos 2 & 4. I think they might sound better in isolation than 3, but I think pos 3 is often under utilised in a full band setting.
@@sammyj.d6101 It's great getting different people's perspective. Middle pick up is my Go To position!
My Strat middle position is bridge and neck pickups together just like a Tele and sounds fantastic.
I own both. I prefer my Tele for its playability. I also agree 100% that there is something special about the Strat. I'll always have both. I pick the guitar up that suits my mood.
A couple of things re playing a Strat live:
Cutting through the mix in a big band: Totally amp dependent in my case. Makes all the difference.
Set your guitar up properly: practically no tuning issues - even dive-bombs
Volume pot being in the wrong place: Move the volume pot down to where the first tone pot sits normally. Run all pickups [except maybe the lead pickup] through this pot. One volume + one tone pot. Sorted.
I've never hit the pickup switch while strumming - my strumming technique comes from playing a Les Paul for years so it shaped the way I strum in a way that removes this possibility. Lucky, I guess.
Oh, and one other thing: I LOVE the Strat! ;-)
Telecasters are my thing.
1: The controller layout is better. You are spot-on with Stratocaster controls being annoying. Telecaster controls are better.
2: NO TREMOLO. Seriously. I am all about hardtails. Yes, you can block a tremolo, but I prefer something I don't need to modify.
3: The Telecaster body shape is much more me.
Also a tele can be used as a weapon to smack a fool around, then go back to playing no problem
And Keith Richards agrees with me
I hate tremolo systems just because they're incorrectly named
Guitar Nerd
I don’t play either of these models anymore but yes, I absolutely agree.
Lawrence Redmacher
Vibrato!
;)
And be used to chop broccoli.
My first guitar was a Strat. When I bought a Tele I totally abandoned the Strat (which I am re-discovering now) for the tone, and the easiness of Tele. The thing that annoy me more in the Strat is the middle pickup which I hit sometimes. I really hate it. Of course I don't have that issue with a Tele.
ZoSo so why not just not use the middle pickup?
Like the Tele has a middle pickup?
You don't HAVE to use it
@@brianschwartz5673 In my case I use the middle pickup a lot so lowering it isn't that good of an idea. I would have to use a hotter pickup and then lower it but I'm too broke for that
@@brianschwartz5673 If I can't use that pickup why don't use just the telecaster so? :)
I went out and bought a telecaster and it was cool to play but I couldn’t fully bond with it! I kept going back to my Strat! It was much lighter , easier for me to play and I love the Strat tones way better
I don't remember who said this: "Tele is like: strollin' through the woods in heavy snow in winter, enter the pub, go on stage, wipe the snow off, plug it in and it works". I tend to agree... :-)
There is no one perfect guitar....just the one that is perfect for you.
1000%
Yeah, cool how some of the best players, just kept playing the same guitar or model for years, or decades. Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues put a lot of mlles on his Gibson ES-335, for sure.
Yes, it would be a Les Paul
Recently bought a Fender Telecaster. Love it and it’s my new favorite guitar. It’s up there above my Hagstrom III and SG.
The end of the video sounded like you're in an abusive relationship with your strat
Paul I thought we talked about this, we never hate on a strat because that would be disrespecting the dead.
A tree had to die before it could exist.
The wood had to be worked into the proper shape and merged with metal and plastic to achieve its final form.
Its abilities are legendary just like you.
As a matter of fact two or three trees, depending on what fretboard you bought.
@@gingerbeer914 Plus a cow (pr a pig, goat..whatever had bad luck that day) for a proper bone nut.
If it’s one person I didn’t expect to talk about Fenders, it’s the SG master Robby Krieger
I was just thinking that. I scanned the interview, feels like they took it out of context, as usual ;-), but it sparked some cool ideas :-).
Recommend everyone reads the interview. I feel he was not judging anyone or any guitar. Enjoyed this video, even if we got baited into it a little :-).
Love the sound of a Strat, but I absolutely agree about the placement of the volume knob! It's so often in the way for me
Childhood dream to own a real Strat. Finally bought one in my retirement. Love it love it, but recently bought a Tele - wow why didn't I do this before, its amazing. I now regularly use both in any live set.The Tele is all round easier to live with but the Strat has more tonal options.
Both brilliant guitars... stood the test of time and design. Wonderful sounds for all styles. No complaints... cheers Leo and Co.
I've been primarily a bass player for almost 20 years. I recently decided to start learning guitar and picked up a telecaster and a vox ac4. Compared to my friends fender american strat which is wonderful and perhaps more comfortable to play sitting down, I feel that I can achieve a wider range of sounds and tones from the tele. Flip to the neck pickup and it sounds nice and bass filled and jazzy. Flip to the bridge and it's got natural rock distortion and just screams. Best of all, it NEVER goes out of tune. Every time I touch a strat I spend more time tuning than playing....
The tuning systems for strats and teles are literally exactly the same. The only thing that could cause a strat to hold tune worse is if the bridge is floating or if the tremelo is being actively used... which is a choice not a requirement... not sure where the logic is in saying teles stay in tune but you always have to tune strats.
@@Doubtful-optimism rewatch thing 4 in the video, it starts at 5:54. I was just adding my own personal experience relevant to that point.
Paul that's my problem too. I absolutely love how strat looks (and sounds in those middle positions). But for the road I'd rather prefer a tele, it's just much more reliable...
Watched an interview with Jeff Beck a few years ago on a tv show "Jeff Beck Talks Music". The interviewer Malcolm Gerrie asked Jeff about changing "his weapon of choice from the Les Paul (featured on all Jeff's early albums) to the Stratocaster". Jeff replied that the Strat gave him "Endless colour!" Jeff then proceeded to demonstrate exactly what he meant. Each man to his own...........
What
@Caleb Stevens. .........choice.
A lot of players stick a Grolsch washer underneath the volume knob, just enough friction. For me the bad thing about Strats is that I never remember on which pickup the tone and volume control is working... 3 pickups but 2 tone controls always looked weird to me. (But I mainly play Tele and LP)
People argue which is better and I just sit here with my jazzmaster :D
I just got a Jazzmaster last week. Holy moly, it has changed my world. I don't think I can go back to anything else!
Cameron Moore 100% agree with you. JM are just pure perfection for my ear. Congrats on your purchase! What model did you get?
@@annalipiarz3884 Thank you! It's a brand spankin' new 2017 American Professional lefty JM in mystic seafoam finish. My only other electric is a cheap offbrand strat from the early 2000's, so this is a _huge_ step up!
The pickups sound amazing in every position, and _good God_ the tremolo is better than I could've ever imagined. I don't know why more guitars don't go for a similar configuration. The melty vibrato tones I can get out of this thing are out of this world!
Cameron Moore wow that’s amazing! Great choose of quality equipment, no wonder you like it so much. Well Fender knew exactly what to do to crate magnificent work horse - pickups and tremolo go so damn well in every genre of music especially in clean channel with proper reverb and delay! Enjoy your amazing guitar :)
@@annalipiarz3884 Thanks so much! I definitely will. Time to turn the reverb up and melt away into those velvety vibratos. :-)
I've been with my Strat for 40 years and never had a problem. I had it set up by a master when I got it and it has been an absolute joy ever since. Tuning is not a problem. Till death us do part.
A lot of this could be considered more of a pickup problem than a strat problem, per se. That being said I customized my strat by changing to one volume and one tone (hate the knob right where my hand needs to be) and went to a three way pickup selector. Oh, and a seymour duncan hot rail in the bridge. Love it now.
i kinda dislike hot rail pickups in telecasters....never tried them in a strat....
@@mytelecasterworld3336 only in the bridge my friend
I traded my favorite Stratocaster, a purple, 1998, with rosewood fretboard, for a Gibson Les Paul, Special w/single cutaway, bound fretboard, zebra pups, push/pull knobs for coil splitting, and a beautiful gloss finish over a brown stain. Freaking gorgeous guitar! Oh yeah, it also has the slim taper, 60s neck. Got a standard Gibson Les Paul case too, in brown. I loved my strat but that was the best trade I ever made!
Every guitars amazing in there own ways, but they all have there downsides, that’s why no one should disagree with this video
110% Agreed. That's what makes being a guitarist so great....I mean how ELSE can I justify buying so many haha
And everyone have different styles and preferences
I was waiting for "Hum" on that list. Maybe It is just me..
Nope I got the same thing, or maybe not. I get a buzzing sound that normally tops for a second when I cover the higher strings but it still comes back.
@@sharko3211 probably from the pickups
Doesn't Paul have one of the new pro series Strats with the noiseless pick-ups now?
Teles are just as bad for hum, so it's kind of irrelevant in a strat vs tele discussion, but both have noise/hum issues (at least if you have only single coils)
unless you have a very cheap strat or a faulty pickup, or a problem in your power outlets, noise should not be a problem.
My first guitar was a Squire strat for about 300-400 Euros. 20 years later it's still crazy how this thing stays in tune even though I "abuse" the tremolo...
20 years ago there were no euros. The euro was introduced in 2002.
The price of a Squier Stratocaster or Telecaster before the introduction of the euro was ± hfl. 495,- which is only ±€222.75 in today's currency.
There were some special ones from Japan that were just as expensive as the MIJ Fender (the ones with the black headstock), but that was in the end of the 1980s,
The fact that your guitars stays in tune despite the frequent tremolo 'abuse' has nothing to do with the tremolo itself. It means that your nut slot resistance is either ZERO % (graphite lubricated) or A HUNDRED % (nut-lock or lock-nut).
Anything between 0% and 100% sucks, because a part of the strings (mostly the [round]wound ones) won't slide back in place.
If you have a classic bone or white plastic nut, it is wise to "lubricate" the nut slots with a graphite pencil each time you replace your strings.
It is also possible to replace the nut with a GraphTech String Saver nut, but if you want to keep the original nut, the pencil trick mostly works fine.
Totally agree about the cut through the mix issue. The volume used for sound check never worked when the audience came. I also checked my volume pot often to make sure it was fully open but most of the times it was
Get an EQ pedal?
Just play a “left handed” start upside down; all problems solved
Just change to a pickguard with a different layout. Much easier, and better ergos.
Agreed.
My sentiment exactly :D
Or just buy a HSH or HSS super strat and change the pickups to Single coil xD
YOU ARE A GENIUS
To add one more annoying thing about the Strat, at least for me - the middle pickup. I keep hitting the poor thing by accident when picking so often.
Same here, im fairly heavy handed when i play (not because i dont care if it breaks, i just like how it pushes my amp a luttle more). The middle one is always getting knocked around. Then there's Simon Neil of Biffy Clyro, he drops it down as low as possible and doesn't even use it or the neck pickup.
That is indeed very annoying
Yup, that's a major reason why I sold my strat. Didn't want to lower the pickup enough to avoid hitting it or move to a HH type.
You can always put a higher output single coil in the middle position and then you can lower it quite a bit. By doing this you don't lose any tone and the pickup sits lower and out of the way of your picking/strumming.
I actually do this with both the neck and middle pickups and it works great.
and no one likes it's tone lol
strat, tele, les paul...they're all inferior to the 335. I'll die on this hill.
Now that's a solid argument. I love my 335. But, I'm only 5'7 and I disappear on stage with the thing. In my next life hopefully I'll be taller...and make all of my students learn arps all over the neck before a single pentatonic scale. Lol.
😂 Respect 🤘
I call you and raise by an Epiphone Casino... Man those P90s...
Yes indeed! I love my 335 too - does so many different things well. I'm 6'3 and somewhat heavier than I should be, so its size is something of a plus - makes me appear thinner (unlike my Strat, which looks slightly toy-like on me)!
I am harmonica player, 45 years and was full-time by age 20. I do not play guitar but, saw Duane Allman and check out other instruments (mostly Drummers, Bass & Sax Players but, like this channel sometimes). Have been around some good guitar players though. I had a Swing Dance, Jazz, Blues, R&B Soul band for 10 years with excellent guitarists (Carl Miner, Bob Anglin, Gary Wade) 1 played Tele, 2 Strats, several Swing Jazz Players 335's. Opened for Chris Cain, Elvin Bishop- they were both on 335's and sounded pretty darn good! I love Robben Ford & Danny Gatton on Teles though. Still.......If I were playing it would be Strat. Just spent 7 years in Austin....heard plenty of guitars!
another thing I would add: when I palm mute (close to the bridge) I end up picking right on top of the pickup, and I have to lower it quite a bit in order to avoid hitting it.. what I like about Les Pauls in contrast is they have a massive empty space in the middle to be able to pick without worrying about the pickups being in the way.
“There are no bad guitars”
*B.C. Rich Warlock had entered the chat*
I'm a strat guy, and everything you said is absolutely true. I've blocked and installed a brass FU bridge, heavy duty springs, graphtec nut the whole bit. But it doesn't "stay" when I go crazy on bends. But I love the feel of it so much that I ignore my other guitars completely. Which is a shame, really.
Those FU make some great products!
@@TubeOrNotTube I did both, but wanted to keep it short. The brass stoppers are offset just a tiny bit. When I pull up it gives me a unique sound. It def holds its tune better than my others. It's just when I go bonkers on bends.
I love when someone with knowledge and a lot of experience is giving the talk. Thanks Paul!
Been playing a Strat since I was 20. Got my 1st Tele-style (Carvin) at 42. Got my CS NOS Nocaster when I was 50. Know what? I love them both.
I've always played a Telecaster, just love them so versatile.
My problem with the Strat has always been the middle pickup. I try to move my hand, but naturally my hand gravitates back to where I feel comfortable, but I wind up hitting the middle pickup with my pick.
Do what Robbie Robertson did, just remove it.
I always drop the middle PU.
Don't blame the guitar if you don't know how to strum properly.
I love my Telecasters! More versatile than any other guitar I've owned.
A Telecaster, a Vox AC30 and a fuzz box, I'm in Yardbird Heaven- that's what I want!
I think, I heard someone make a comment the other day that went something like " I wonder how many Les Paul's and Marshalls a Telecaster plugged into a Vox AC30 have sold?"
That's my setup too!
The most playable guitar is the one you feel comfortable on. I personally find a Les Paul very playable. So does my brother, his best mate is a strat man, someone else is gretsch white falcon. There’s no such thing as a bad guitar, just a guitar you’re not in love with.
I've played a Strat for 50 years. In all that time, I surely must have hit the volume control or selector switch at some point - but I don't remember it. For me, neither of those things have ever been an issue. I have NEVER understood the appeal of a guitar which has it's volume control in a different county. It just makes no sense. I often modify such guitars and put the volume control where it is on a Strat, my Brian May(cheap) copy being the latest victim. Perhaps a lot of "the problem" is lack of time on the Strat? I've played the Strat for well over 95% of the time, so perhaps I am just conditioned to play in a way which avoids hitting those controls and it is so ingrained in me that I don't even know I'm doing it?
You can of course cut down the size of the selector knob a lot by a bit of careful DIY and you can also use a volume knob of lower height etc if you have these problems, but realistically, after a while you just learn how to play around these things.
Lots of things can change when you move onto another guitar - string spacing and scale length being two big ones.
On a Strat, I can change volume and pickups whilst playing and certainly without moving my hand whatsoever from the playing position, whereas on a Les Paul, your hand has to travel a long way if you want to change pickups and alter tone and volume settings. Yes, it can be done but it takes a lot of hand movement that just doesn't arise on a Strat.
The "hollow" tone that the Strat is famous for in the 2 and 4 switch positions is a distinctive and beautiful tone.
Saying it does not cut through the mix live is like complaining that when you get onstage with a Death Metal thrash-band, you can't hear your nylon-strung acoustic guitar. Either you have chosen the wrong tone for the situation or else the rest of the band is failing to reflect the change in the musical mood and is drowning you out by playing too loud overall or too loud at the frequencies you need uncluttered to let the softer tone cut through.
So turn up! (...the Volume control should be just under your picking pinky ;-) )
I am reading your points as relating to just playing with a live band - if you are in a situation where you have a sound-engineer on the PA then any problem you have is with the failure of the sound-guy to do his job - you already did yours.
The Hendrix Experience make a LOT of noise when they're in full flight, but listen to Red House from Monteray or Hear My Train A Coming from Rainbow Bridge. Back then, they did not have Concert PA systems and a sound engineer - the other guys in the band shut the hell up to ensure that the succulence of the guitar tone in those quiet clean-ish wah sections was going to be heard. They HAD to be on-the-ball because Hendrix was apt to make an sudden unscheduled left-turn on a momentary whim :-D
Tremolo systems (actually VIBRATO systems) are a total Pain In The Ass - but I have one by choice on almost all my guitars.
The range of things you can do with a tremelo arm are beautifully expressive and to me worth the aggravation.
Even just initially tuning up with a trem-equipped guitar is a PITA because of the way the tension of every string affects every other. For string-breaks playing live, the only answer is a swap out to a backup guitar to finsh the song.
As for hearing your guitar tone - from the first I have always pointed my speakers at my upper body and head. I cannot understand players who have a small combo on the floor a metre or two behind them pointing at the back of their calves. I cannot understand how they can hear what they are doing because the player can hear little of the high-end detail even when playing solo - once the rest of the band strikes up even that bit utterly vanishes.
Keeping your amp low-ish, on the floor or perhaps a chair, but tilting it up owards your head also means that should you produce those shrill high-frequency drilling tones that make people wince and shout Turn Down, those tones are heading up towards the ceiling, not straight out towards the audience in a horizontal ear-level beam that makes even those at the back of the hall keel over.
You can position your amp so that it is not pointing towards the rest of the band or not pointing at the audience. I've played two gigs that I remember where my amp was in front of me, alongside the wedge monitors - it was the only way I could get enough volume to work properly without the older audience complaining.
Jeff Beck is the foremost exponent of The Strat.
He seems to have no significant tuning problems despite very frequent trem use. He does have a roller-nut and locking tuners though. What Beck does would be utterly impossible on any other guitar. He sometimes changes tone a couple of times within a single melodic phrase.
I've used a Strat from about a year after I switched from acoustic to electric.
I have noted with some glee that many established guitar-godz who made their name playing Les Pauls etc all eventually switch to a Strat, Clapton, Beck and Lifeson being the most notable and known.
....so my failure to take the world by storm was NOT down to me choosing the wrong guitar then...... :-p
Wow... My first guitar was a strat, I just got a les paul custom, and I can say that the points brought up by both are valid in some way. My strat's worked well for 5 years, and the les paul has worked beautiful for the past two months. I have hit the pickup a few times on the strat, and it's annoying, but it's a rare occurrence. I do like that I can change it on the fly, but I also like the pickup on the les paul because of the different sounds it has from the strat. For me personally I like the volume knobs where they are on the strat on the les paul I have to stop for a second to find them, but it's probably because I've played the strat for years while I've played the paul for a month.
Clapton's best tones were with a Gibson. My problem with a stratocaster isn't with the instrument , but with the stratocaster fans and players who think it's the end all and be all of electric guitars. It isn't .
The greatest thing to help with a trem guitar staying in tune is heavy gauge strings. When I started using 11s I could dive bomb a cheap squier strat and still come back in tune
The very best guitar, is the one that is in your hands, at that moment when you hit a sweet note.
…on your telecaster.
@@dahliafiend true!
Unless it's a prs.
I, too have hit the pickup selector by accident many times. And I've nudged the volume control accidentally, too. My least favorite thing about the Strat is the drastic tonal differences between positions 2/4 and positions 1/3/5. I want two separate amp&pedal setups for these positions: positions 2/4 need more treble and more volume to match up with positions 1/3/5. else 2/4 can be dark and weak; lost in the mix.
Regarding that pickup selector switch it's way worse on a les paul.
Two great guitars. A Tele is easier to work with. But a Strat just feels so right. In large bands, I can flick over to the bridge pickup on a Strat. Talk about cut through. Or play high chords on the high strings. With 5 options for tone, you’re bound to get in the mix somewhere. A tele tends to sustain more and has a full sound. It’s rich in the bridge pickup, comes stereo like in the middle position and sometimes a muddy mess in the neck position, but with a really good amp, that tone is a go to for blues and jazz. If I don’t want to fuss about, and I need to tune to different tunings on the fly, or get a heavy sound with a single coil, it’s the tele. If I want to work a little and try different sounds, or play percussive, it’s the Strat.
The Nashville tele does the Tele thing and mostly nails the Strat tone. The combination of pickup styles and the options the selector switch offers.
It's honestly reassuring that I'm not the only one that hits the pickup switch when I play sometimes LMAO
That's your fault. Not the guitar's fault. You are the one who has to get used to the guitar and strum properly.
@@telecaster-freechannel9405 Nah I just don't play a Strat. I've got an SG that feels like a natural extension of me, I'll stick with that :)
Sounds like you've made your mind up. Send the strats 2 me
As soon as I saw the title, I thought to myself “I always knock the damn pickup selector to a different position!” I was so excited to find out that something about my playing was similar to Paul Davids😜
I just got my first "real" Strat today. Mex, but still Fender. Absolutely adore the spacious fingerboard and relatively massive neck. And the chime...
i love strat too, also love jazzmaster.....but i've always dwelled in a telecaster dream......i wouldn't say better or worst, each one's got its vibe
I have never hit the 5 way switch by mistake.. maybe I dont rock out hard enough
Maybe you rock out EXACTLY the right amount.
I hit it sometimes, just switch it back real quick it’s not too big of an issue imo
I have more trouble with the volume knob, but it always goes louder not quiter
@@wahkean wow ...u are a dick...I wasnt bragging at all I was just saying what I thought and threw in a lame joke, I dont think I'm a great player nor was I trying to imply that in any way.
Depends on your dynamics and where you pick (closer to bridge or neck etc.)
Hey I've noticed that Teles really seem to be in at the moment. But I think most - not all - people sound country on them. Strats are super versatile. They are the most popular electric for a reason. Having said that, I've been right into Gibson styles (copies as I'm not rich) By the way, my tuning is stable except over the season.as I live in Germany. I have about 7 and they all stay in tune.
I would agree with the 'not all'... some cases in point: Jimmy Page. George Harrison. Tom Morello. Steve Cropper. Andy Summers. Jeff Beck. Mike Campbell. Muddy Waters. Graham Coxon. Joe Strummer. Frank Black (mostly). Bruce Springsteen. Johnny Greenwood. Jeff Buckley. Johnny Marr.
You associate teles with country because of a cultural association with teles and country - not because teles make the notes you play sound like country music.
Maybe if all you ever do is set the tone knob all the way up and keep it in the bridge position and play exclusively through fender style amps, which a lot of people do just because that’s what they were taught and they don’t know any better. But set the tele in the parallel position, dial the tone knob back, play through literally anything but a fender amp, and tell me it still makes everything sound like country music. Seriously, people just need to walk like three feet out of their comfort zone. I played a tele in a prog-metal band and got compliments on my tone left and right and nobody ever said I sounded country. It’s not in the tele, it’s in your head.
@@PleiadeezNutz Teles are very versatile indeed. The first Rage Against the Machine Album is pretty good at showing why Telecasters are amazing guitars for hard rock. Then you can pop over to Tim Lerch's TH-cam channel, or YT search Julian Lage to see why a Telecaster can be a fantastic jazz guitar... and the list goes on.
i always thought of them as a 'country' guitar as well, until i saw prince.
fun fact the tele is the most recorded electric guitar in history, thats why i bought mine as my first. Weirdly enough I flipped my control plate to do volume swells!
How did you arrive at this fact?
I fully agree....."Crosbow"
ahem...."Crossbow"...(that's what I deserve for hitting backspace in the WRONG place on this tiny keyboard....).
@@joonasarmpalu7805 i heard it somewhere i could be wrong don't crucify me haha but id bet its close to true. i mean some of the most recorded guitarists in the world play telecasters lol idk
BimodalHealer I don’t think I’m crucifying you, but presenting something that you don’t know for a fact by saying it’s a “fun fact” is what’s wrong with the internet - people spread misinformation without really giving it a second thought. If you *think* something is true, but don’t actually know for sure, then please either 1. look it up first or 2. let people know it’s your opinion, not a fact.
The reason why strats will continue being popular is not because of the build quality but the countless of tones guitarists can get out of it and the versatility strats have they fit in on almost any genre you can think of.
I guess I always think of Telecasters as being for country music, and I know that's not fair, because Jimmy Page for instance used one in the early days of Zepellin. I play a Strat because I like the tones you can get, but I don't use the whammy bar, and I have never even put it on the guitar yet, it is just sitting in a drawer. I think either guitar is a good choice because they are both versatile.
And it's cheaper too compare to the other guitar in the market. And you know what people will get
Every guitarist needs a strat, tele, LP, semi hollow body, and an acoustic guitar... and a super strat.
I'm biased. As the great Greg Koch says: "After the apocalypse all there is left is cockroaches and Tele's" - It is just a stable, simple and indestructible tone monster :) I kind of get overwhelmed with the many choices on a strat and how long it takes to dial up a tone that sounds great and doesn't drown in the mix. I play in a band with two guitars and that point in particular I experienced myself. But yeah - I still respect the strat players ;)
Yeah for pure reliability a telecaster style guitar is hard to beat.
So you blame the Strat because you are unable to make it sound the way you want. That's your fault. Not the guitar's fault.
The strat is beautiful though. When you first see a strat as a kid, you know it looks right and you are drawn to it for the same reason you put a Lamborghini poster on the wall. I am planning one day, to build a modified strat. The selector switch is going under the neck pick up.
I think some guitar players can agree.
When you get some quality guitar it’s not about the manufacturer or shape, it’s about the feeling you get when you play it, I think of it as the guitars have souls, some match, some don’t and that’s fine, doesn’t mean that guitar is any worse. Play what feels right, that’s my advice
My only real beef with the strat, and I'm surprised you didn't mention this: try playing natural harmonics on the 5th fret with the pickup on the neck position. Impossible due to the the pickup placement (directly under a node). That's a real design flaw.
that happened to me on my first tele, but the issue went away when i lifted the action and changed to 11's gauge, i still wonder why....it never happened to my on any strat, but it is a truth that natural harmonic in the 6th string on the 5th fret sounds a bit drowned, only in the 6th string.....
That flaw is also why they sound so fundamentally awesome.
That's uh, not a flaw. The strat neck pickup is one of the best and most pervasive electric guitar sounds of all time. The pickup is low output under a spot with wide string amplitude, that gives you less compression and less treble peakiness. That smoothed out dynamic sound is unmistakable, and as soon as you make it too high output or move it back then you lose that sound. There's a reason so many strat players live on the neck pick up but so many people with HH or 24 fret guitars rarely touch their neck pick ups at all.
So you're trying to convince me that there is absolutely no combination of position and output that WOULD allow you to play a nat harmonic on the 5th?
Plenty of other manufacturers seem to nail it, without losing "unmistakable" sound.
It was a design flaw to start with, but to not address has mostly to do with 1) very little demand for it and mostly 2) incredible traditionalism
@@PANICBLADE Also, the string amplitude argument doesn't make any sense, because the point of maximum amplitude changes with each note you fret. By your logic, every fretted note will lose that "best and most pervasive sound of all time". And if it somehow doesn't change the sound, the pickup could easlily have been in any other place.
Definitely Teles for me, but I've been playing a lot of surf rock lately (Ventures and Shadows covers) which require a whammy bar. I've been using my 2001 Yamaha Pacifica for this. Not a high end instrument price-wise, but it stays in tune just fine. The Pacifica is basically an imitation strat, including that pesky volume pot position. I solved it by just taking the plastic cap off and adjusting the volume with the metal stub that's left. Actually, I liked the aesthetic of it so much that I ended up taking both pot caps off. What other whammy endowed non-strats would anyone recommend for surf rock?
Jaguar/jazzmaster, a little pricier i think but they have the quack/chime you need for that sound
I've had 4 Stratocaster's since acquiring my first in 1969. I have never accidentally knocked the pickup selector out of position.
A bit of foam fitted under the volume knob is reputed to help avoid accidental adjustments.