The Bassist and Guitarist thread

[Rhythm Thief]

None of my favourite music was made on a £10k custom shop master built signature series made in America road worn reliced Stratocaster.

That's just it. I think those are like Rolex watches, or Ferraris: no one buys a Rolex because they want to know what time it is, or a Ferrari to commute in. Likewise, I think high end Fenders are lifestyle brands too, mostly bought by people with lots of disposable income who keep them in the case with all the tags on, under the bed as an investment. Most gigging musos are using lower end models which are perfectly good instruments.

 

[Drago]

None of my favourite music was made on a £10k custom shop master built signature series made in America road worn reliced Stratocaster.

Clearly not a Boyzone fan, eh?

 

[winjim]

That's just it. I think those are like Rolex watches, or Ferraris: no one buys a Rolex because they want to know what time it is, or a Ferrari to commute in. Likewise, I think high end Fenders are lifestyle brands too, mostly bought by people with lots of disposable income who keep them in the case with all the tags on, under the bed as an investment. Most gigging musos are using lower end models which are perfectly good instruments.

It's the same as bikes. A reasonably priced bike / guitar, well set up by a competent mechanic / tech will be more than good enough for the vast majority of people. An expensive bike will make you a faster cyclist in the same way that an expensive guitar will make you a better musician. In both instances I would advocate buying from a good local shop as the setup is as important as the bike / guitar itself. Unless you're happy working on it yourself of course, but I would expect a mail order bike and a mail order guitar to each need a bit of work on them out of the box.

Was the current fad for relic guitars foreshadowed by the L'Eroica craze of a few years ago?

 

[DRM]

In terms of finish my Classic Vibes are an easy match for my Fender Player series basses. Impeccably assembled.

Yes, when I bought my Strat from P.M.T, I was struggling to see any difference in terms of finish quality between it, and the Fender Players & American built ones, the Indonesian factory, certainly know how to make a well built guitar, as also proved by my P.R.S SE Custom 24-08, the law of diminishing returns is definitely at work here, over £1000 and you're wasting money I reckon

 

[Drago]

The Mexico and US Fender factories are about 60 miles apart and large waves of staff flit between the two on overtime, so they're pretty much made by the same people on identical gear. The main difference on the US spec ones is they're more likely to have kit from Schaller, or whoever,that sort of thing. If mine are anything to go by they're certainly not any 'better'.

£2.5k is about my diminishing return limit, my Ricky 4001S being about as far as id go there. But thats interesting in itself - Schaller finishing kit, and the paint is polished for 75 minutes instead or the 15 minutes on Fenders, but any improvement in finish is minimal. The diminishing returns have diminished to almost nothing by that point.

 

[DRM]

I believe other than dodgy Chinese knock off's, all Rickenbacker's are built in the U.S only, they refuse to have an import model

 

[Drago]

Yeah, US built.