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.

 

[DRM]

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.

Yes the factories are so close, iirc the Ensenada factory had a fire in the early 90's & Fender made the bodies & necks in the U.S factory, sending them to Mexico for finishing, these became the most sought after cheaper Fenders (Fender Squier Series) when people found out you could get a made in the U.S, finished in Mexico guitar in 2nd hand shops for peanuts, prices eventually ramped up, I think they go for about £500-£600 nowadays

 

[Rhythm Thief]

This is my latest project in an ongoing attempt to show that you can, in fact, polish a turd. This is a horrible 1970s plywood thing which was cheap and nasty when it was new and which age has not been especially kind to. It came to me as a working guitar, but it was in a bit of a state. It was filthy and someone has butchered a hole for a third pickup.
I have a bit of a soft spot for these cheapies. They're full of character, which for me beats bling any day. I had a collection of maybe fifteen similar guitars, back when you could pick them up for peanuts, and two of them were my regular gigging guitars for a couple of years.
This one is an Audition, probably Japanese built. I've cleaned it (including scraping about half a pound of finger cheese off the fretboard with a Stanley blade 🤢), given the frets a level and crown (there wasn't much meat on them so I might treat it to a refret if I keep it), rewired it with CTS pots, replaced the horrible vibrato with a trapeze tailpiece and thinned down the headstock to take new Gotoh machine heads (not yet fitted). The wiring on these is unusual in that they're wired in series: I did design and build a circuit which allows switching between series and parallel on a previous similar guitar, but I can't find the diagram I drew and I couldn't be arsed to work it out again.
Anyway, here it is. Still a work in progress - I'm waiting for some varnish to arrive so I can refinish the back of the headstock where I had to sand it down - but you get the idea.
EDIT: autocorrect replaced "refret" with "regret". Which seems appropriate somehow.

 

[delb0y]

I have a made in USA Strat from 1979, a Tokai Tele from the "lawsuit" era of around 1984, and a Mexican Tele from around 2020. They all sound equally as good to me, and I don't play any better on the most expensive one versus the cheapest one.

Most of my guitars were less than £500 and I've only ever reached the £800s twice, which is where the point of diminishing returns kicks in for me. I imagine that point of diminishing returns is higher for better players, and I suspect it rises as one improves, but at my level, acoustic or electric, there are some amazing instruments available in the £800 range.

Derek

 

[Drago]

You think of the dire budget stuff when we we kids. Today £130 gets a well made, nice playing, decent sounding Harley Benton. We've never had it so good.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

You think of the dire budget stuff when we we kids. Today £130 gets a well made, nice playing, decent sounding Harley Benton. We've never had it so good.

Especially when you compare the cost of beginner guitars to other instruments. Try shopping for a £130 cello or bassoon and see how far you get! And as you say, the quality is great: my main acoustic is a Tanglewood Java which I paid about £300 for ten years ago.

 

[DRM]

"You check out guitar George, he knows all the chords
Mind, it's strictly rhythm, he doesn't want to make it cry or sing
They said an old guitar is all he can afford
When he gets up under the lights to play his thing"
Dire Straits-Sultans Of Swing

I think Guitar George is probably a Dentist Monday to Friday!

 

[Drago]

"You check out guitar George, he knows all the chords
Mind, it's strictly rhythm, he doesn't want to make it cry or sing
They said an old guitar is all he can afford
When he gets up under the lights to play his thing"
Dire Straits-Sultans Of Swing

I think Guitar George is probably a Dentist Monday to Friday!

I was playing the bass line to that just this morning. Brilliant song.

 

[DRM]

I was playing the bass line to that just this morning. Brilliant song.

I had the 1st solo sorted on it, but I've let it slip, going to have to go back and revisit it I think