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What's interesting to me (as a guitarist) isn't who was "first", because there was obviously a zeitgeist technical need for solid body guitars. Rather, it's wha

by beat 8y ago

What's interesting to me (as a guitarist) isn't who was "first", because there was obviously a zeitgeist technical need for solid body guitars. Rather, it's what designs and innovations have stood the test of time, and why. The real winner here, I think, is the Telecaster. They're still made in droves, still immensely popular, and have been the backbone of millions of recorded tracks. And it's easy to see why. They're dead simple, making them both inexpensive to manufacture and straightforward to play. And the biting, aggressive bridge pickup tone cuts through walls of other loud instruments in a way that is much harder for the round, warm tone of a Les Paul. Bigsby guitars are a historical curiosity. Rickenbackers are still made, but are a rare exotic most guitarists will never play. Les Pauls are a pricey luxury item. But Telecasters! Telecasters are the sound of rock'n'roll flipping a middle finger to everything that's supposed to be "good". I love them.

tjr225 8y ago
I love Telecasters, as well. Tone and feel aside - they also kind of look so simple that one might call them ugly. I don't know why, but it is a quality that I really like.
- beat 8y ago
  Yeah, the utilitarian look is a real selling point for me, too. Weirdly, I also like the "uncomfortable" chunky body, more than the smooth ergonomic curves of a Strat. With that hard edge digging into my torso and forearm, I know exactly where my arm is relative to the strings. I have to attend to other, more distracting cues to understand my position on a Strat.
ben7799 8y ago
Me too, dedicated Telecaster player. Incredibly flexible despite having so few apparent options.
coldtea 8y ago
>Bigsby guitars are a historical curiosity. Rickenbackers are still made, but are a rare exotic most guitarists will never play. Les Pauls are a pricey luxury item. And yet tons of guitarists use one or more of those 3 brands. E.g: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Rickenbacker_players https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Rickenbacker_players https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Gibson_players https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Gibson_players Bigsby less mainstream, but they're hot in rockabilly circles, jazzers use them, etc.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  Can confirm. I was a broke musician and was happily able to borrow a Rickenbacker 330 from the studio to record on, and rented a Les Paul for a week for $50 to also record on.
- beat 8y ago
  You're missing my point. How many people have ever even seen a Bigsby guitar in person? (Not the tremolo, an actual guitar.) How many mature guitarists have never played a Rickenbacker? Only Les Pauls have real distribution at all, but there are probably ten Teles for every Les Paul out there.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Well, does "a rare exotic most guitarists will never play" refer to actual guitarists (pros) or the millions that happen to have a guitar lying around and learned to strum some chords? In the pro circuit Rickenbackers are another tool to use, and there's also a thing as G.A.S. Is a PRS any more "rare exotic" that a Bigsby? And yet those are perfectly common guitars...
    - beat 8y ago
      The millions. And a lot of "learned to strum some chords" players are playing at professional levels. Being a famous musician doesn't have a great deal to do with ability, much of the time. But even there, Teles probably outnumber Rickenbackers 100:1 in professional hands. And PRS is pretty common, especially when you throw in the import models. Actual Bigsby guitars (I'm not talking the trem installed on another brand of guitar) haven't been made in decades and are extremely rare.
      - bsder 8y ago
        > But even there, Teles probably outnumber Rickenbackers 100:1 in professional hands. Only recently. Rickenbackers were quite popular among the country performers at the start of the guitar era. A Rickenbacker into a Vox is the sound of the British Invasion. Guitars are fad driven. Strats were "garbage" until Hendrix and Clapton. Les Pauls were "garbage" until Slash. And so it goes ...
Tade0 8y ago
> The real winner here, I think, is the Telecaster. I don't know about this. Most "telecasters" I see in the wild are actually telecaster-shaped guitars with pretty much everything else altered.
- randomsofr 8y ago
  thats because teles are too easy to mod
- jdietrich 8y ago
  I'm honestly not sure what you're talking about. There are a lot of tweaked and lightly modernised Teles on the market, but Fender will happily sell you a period-correct Tele, design flaws and all. When does a Tele cease to be a Tele? If it has a compensated three-saddle bridge? If it has a six-saddle bridge? If it has a truss rod that actually works? If it has a humbucker in the neck? I dunno. Given how hugely inconsistent the early Teles were, it's hard to definitively say what a "real" Tele ought to be like. The Blackguard necks were all shaped by hand, with the only commonality being a thickness at the 12th fret of about 1". There are a huge range of profiles, thicknesses and fingerboard radii on vintage Teles. They used whatever body woods were cheap - ash, alder, poplar and pine, often switching woods within the same year. The Tele has always been a crude, cheap working man's guitar, so I see no sense in being a purist about what is fundamentally a mongrel.
  - Tade0 8y ago
    > I'm honestly not sure what you're talking about. To illustrate my point: https://dk1xgl0d43mu1.cloudfront.net/user_files/esp/product_images/000/020/426/large.png?1453395150 https://dk1xgl0d43mu1.cloudfront.net/user_files/esp/product_... The majority of Teles I've seen are like this. Hard to say it "stood the test of time" if there's no agreed upon definition of it.
    - beat 8y ago
      I don't know where you're looking, if that's what the majority of Teles looks like to you. The borders are definitely fuzzy, but "Telecaster" to me means having enough Tele-like traits... the simple slab body, bolt-on neck, 6-on-side tuners, twangy single-coil bridge pickup, controls on a separate plate away from the bridge. It doesn't need to have all of these. Most Teles made by Fender/Squier and most of their copiers follow this template. They're not just metal-oriented guitars with a Tele shape.
fhood 8y ago
Also telecasters do not have stupid vibrato bridges that I didn't realize would make changing strings a living hell until far too late.
- nineteen999 8y ago
  You can always fit a Bigsby B5 to one and change all that! Worst I've seen is the non-string-thru Bigsbys on your average Gretsch. You have to thread the ball end of the string over a tiny peg which is on the _bottom_ of the bar, wrap the string around the bar, and then thread it through your tuning peg without it popping off at the bridge end. It's a nightmare - some people use a wedge of rubber or polystyrene to try and wedge the ball end onto the peg until the string is at decent tension.
bwanab 8y ago
I've gone through a lot of guitars including the brands mentioned and I still love my Rick and my Gibson, but I finally found the sound I was looking for a couple of years back when I got my Telecaster.
bena 8y ago
Really? I'd give the Les Paul the nod to rock. Either that or the Stratocaster. Off hand I can name some pretty iconic rock names attached to both the Les Paul and the Strat. Hell, Angus Young even uses an SG. But I can't think of anyone who I associate with a Telecaster. Not that they're bad guitars, just that I don't think of them when I think "rock'n'roll flipping a middle finger to everything".
- muerdeme 8y ago
  https://images.gibson.com/Lifestyle/English/aaFeaturesImages2009/Springsteen_born-to-run.jpg https://images.gibson.com/Lifestyle/English/aaFeaturesImages...
  - bena 8y ago
    Ok. Springsteen. Congratulations? I'd still put Telecasters behind Strats and Les Pauls in terms of popularity and fame.
    - bsder 8y ago
      Telecasters are extremely common among the country artists.
      - bena 8y ago
        Which isn't exactly "rock'n'roll".
- anth_anm 8y ago
  > But I can't think of anyone who I associate with a Telecaster Keith Richards.
- atombender 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Telecaster_players https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Telecaster_players
brandall10 8y ago
I have a 58 Historic Les Paul and a 58 reissue (AV) Tele, which is the brightest of the most accurate set of Tele reissues Fender ever made. Plugged into the same amp/settings, the Les Paul is a bit brighter/more cutting than the Tele (this is generally true of the better vintage bursts w/ PAFs, they occupy tele territory), but the Tele is a fantastic and versatile guitar. The 52s are typically the ones favored by rock guitarists (most famously Keith Richards) and they're punchy as hell, but they are anything but bright with a high output lap steel pickup in the bridge and brass saddles.
KozmoNau7 8y ago
A friend of my dad has a plain black body 50s Telecaster, which has obviously been well-used and loved, plenty of patina and signs of countless hours of being played, the frets are worn almost flat. It has a beautiful rich sound and he says it's an absolute joy to play. He takes good care of it, but he's promised that he'll never restore it or ruin any signs of its history and personality, which I think is absolutely the right choice. Said person also still owns his 70s Rickenbacker 4001, in immaculate condition. Needless to say, I am intensely envious ;-)
nineteen999 8y ago
Over the last 6 weeks I've assembled a telecaster from some pieces - a 1979 Tokai Breezysound body I found online for $60, a $200 Allparts TEO neck, Tonerider TRT pickups etc, graphite nut, Gotoh locking tuners etc, Gretsch knurled strap pins because hey I'm classy like that. It really has been an enjoyable and relatively stress free experience. They are almost impossible to mess up, and that's saying something, since my skills with both woodworking tools and a soldering iron are completely underwhelming.
- beat 8y ago
  Lucky you! My #1 electric is a 1980 Tokai Breezysound. It's just amazing. I've modded it with EMG T pickups + SPC tone control (don't worry, it still sounds very Tele, just without hum and with a mid boost when needed), and a Wilkinson half bridge. It stomps just about every other electric I've played.
  - nineteen999 8y ago
    Is yours extremely light? Mine is, I'm talking almost 2/3's of the weight of my American Special Strat. I'm not sure if that's because the body I got was really dried out though. I'm on my second set of pickups now, first ones I put in were the Texas specials used on the MIM 50' reissues. Wasn't super impressed with those. Next I tried the Tonerider TR2, they are sounding much nicer, but the hum is still bothering me. I was considering trying the Fender Gen4 noiseless next, then maybe the GK Gristle-Tone ones, but I might have to try a set of those EMG T's first if you are recommending them.

by beat 8y ago

tjr225 8y ago

I love Telecasters, as well. Tone and feel aside - they also kind of look so simple that one might call them ugly. I don't know why, but it is a quality that I really like.

beat 8y ago
Yeah, the utilitarian look is a real selling point for me, too. Weirdly, I also like the "uncomfortable" chunky body, more than the smooth ergonomic curves of a Strat. With that hard edge digging into my torso and forearm, I know exactly where my arm is relative to the strings. I have to attend to other, more distracting cues to understand my position on a Strat.

ben7799 8y ago

Me too, dedicated Telecaster player. Incredibly flexible despite having so few apparent options.

coldtea 8y ago

>Bigsby guitars are a historical curiosity. Rickenbackers are still made, but are a rare exotic most guitarists will never play. Les Pauls are a pricey luxury item. And yet tons of guitarists use one or more of those 3 brands. E.g: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Rickenbacker_players https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Rickenbacker_players https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Gibson_players https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Gibson_players Bigsby less mainstream, but they're hot in rockabilly circles, jazzers use them, etc.

52-6F-62 8y ago
Can confirm. I was a broke musician and was happily able to borrow a Rickenbacker 330 from the studio to record on, and rented a Les Paul for a week for $50 to also record on.
beat 8y ago
You're missing my point. How many people have ever even seen a Bigsby guitar in person? (Not the tremolo, an actual guitar.) How many mature guitarists have never played a Rickenbacker? Only Les Pauls have real distribution at all, but there are probably ten Teles for every Les Paul out there.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Well, does "a rare exotic most guitarists will never play" refer to actual guitarists (pros) or the millions that happen to have a guitar lying around and learned to strum some chords? In the pro circuit Rickenbackers are another tool to use, and there's also a thing as G.A.S. Is a PRS any more "rare exotic" that a Bigsby? And yet those are perfectly common guitars...
  - beat 8y ago
    The millions. And a lot of "learned to strum some chords" players are playing at professional levels. Being a famous musician doesn't have a great deal to do with ability, much of the time. But even there, Teles probably outnumber Rickenbackers 100:1 in professional hands. And PRS is pretty common, especially when you throw in the import models. Actual Bigsby guitars (I'm not talking the trem installed on another brand of guitar) haven't been made in decades and are extremely rare.
    - bsder 8y ago
      > But even there, Teles probably outnumber Rickenbackers 100:1 in professional hands. Only recently. Rickenbackers were quite popular among the country performers at the start of the guitar era. A Rickenbacker into a Vox is the sound of the British Invasion. Guitars are fad driven. Strats were "garbage" until Hendrix and Clapton. Les Pauls were "garbage" until Slash. And so it goes ...

Tade0 8y ago

> The real winner here, I think, is the Telecaster. I don't know about this. Most "telecasters" I see in the wild are actually telecaster-shaped guitars with pretty much everything else altered.

randomsofr 8y ago
thats because teles are too easy to mod
jdietrich 8y ago
I'm honestly not sure what you're talking about. There are a lot of tweaked and lightly modernised Teles on the market, but Fender will happily sell you a period-correct Tele, design flaws and all. When does a Tele cease to be a Tele? If it has a compensated three-saddle bridge? If it has a six-saddle bridge? If it has a truss rod that actually works? If it has a humbucker in the neck? I dunno. Given how hugely inconsistent the early Teles were, it's hard to definitively say what a "real" Tele ought to be like. The Blackguard necks were all shaped by hand, with the only commonality being a thickness at the 12th fret of about 1". There are a huge range of profiles, thicknesses and fingerboard radii on vintage Teles. They used whatever body woods were cheap - ash, alder, poplar and pine, often switching woods within the same year. The Tele has always been a crude, cheap working man's guitar, so I see no sense in being a purist about what is fundamentally a mongrel.
- Tade0 8y ago
  > I'm honestly not sure what you're talking about. To illustrate my point: https://dk1xgl0d43mu1.cloudfront.net/user_files/esp/product_images/000/020/426/large.png?1453395150 https://dk1xgl0d43mu1.cloudfront.net/user_files/esp/product_... The majority of Teles I've seen are like this. Hard to say it "stood the test of time" if there's no agreed upon definition of it.
  - beat 8y ago
    I don't know where you're looking, if that's what the majority of Teles looks like to you. The borders are definitely fuzzy, but "Telecaster" to me means having enough Tele-like traits... the simple slab body, bolt-on neck, 6-on-side tuners, twangy single-coil bridge pickup, controls on a separate plate away from the bridge. It doesn't need to have all of these. Most Teles made by Fender/Squier and most of their copiers follow this template. They're not just metal-oriented guitars with a Tele shape.

fhood 8y ago

Also telecasters do not have stupid vibrato bridges that I didn't realize would make changing strings a living hell until far too late.

nineteen999 8y ago
You can always fit a Bigsby B5 to one and change all that! Worst I've seen is the non-string-thru Bigsbys on your average Gretsch. You have to thread the ball end of the string over a tiny peg which is on the _bottom_ of the bar, wrap the string around the bar, and then thread it through your tuning peg without it popping off at the bridge end. It's a nightmare - some people use a wedge of rubber or polystyrene to try and wedge the ball end onto the peg until the string is at decent tension.

bwanab 8y ago

I've gone through a lot of guitars including the brands mentioned and I still love my Rick and my Gibson, but I finally found the sound I was looking for a couple of years back when I got my Telecaster.

bena 8y ago

Really? I'd give the Les Paul the nod to rock. Either that or the Stratocaster. Off hand I can name some pretty iconic rock names attached to both the Les Paul and the Strat. Hell, Angus Young even uses an SG. But I can't think of anyone who I associate with a Telecaster. Not that they're bad guitars, just that I don't think of them when I think "rock'n'roll flipping a middle finger to everything".

muerdeme 8y ago
https://images.gibson.com/Lifestyle/English/aaFeaturesImages2009/Springsteen_born-to-run.jpg https://images.gibson.com/Lifestyle/English/aaFeaturesImages...
- bena 8y ago
  Ok. Springsteen. Congratulations? I'd still put Telecasters behind Strats and Les Pauls in terms of popularity and fame.
  - bsder 8y ago
    Telecasters are extremely common among the country artists.
    - bena 8y ago
      Which isn't exactly "rock'n'roll".
anth_anm 8y ago
> But I can't think of anyone who I associate with a Telecaster Keith Richards.
atombender 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Telecaster_players https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Telecaster_players

brandall10 8y ago

I have a 58 Historic Les Paul and a 58 reissue (AV) Tele, which is the brightest of the most accurate set of Tele reissues Fender ever made. Plugged into the same amp/settings, the Les Paul is a bit brighter/more cutting than the Tele (this is generally true of the better vintage bursts w/ PAFs, they occupy tele territory), but the Tele is a fantastic and versatile guitar. The 52s are typically the ones favored by rock guitarists (most famously Keith Richards) and they're punchy as hell, but they are anything but bright with a high output lap steel pickup in the bridge and brass saddles.

KozmoNau7 8y ago

A friend of my dad has a plain black body 50s Telecaster, which has obviously been well-used and loved, plenty of patina and signs of countless hours of being played, the frets are worn almost flat. It has a beautiful rich sound and he says it's an absolute joy to play. He takes good care of it, but he's promised that he'll never restore it or ruin any signs of its history and personality, which I think is absolutely the right choice. Said person also still owns his 70s Rickenbacker 4001, in immaculate condition. Needless to say, I am intensely envious ;-)

nineteen999 8y ago

Over the last 6 weeks I've assembled a telecaster from some pieces - a 1979 Tokai Breezysound body I found online for $60, a $200 Allparts TEO neck, Tonerider TRT pickups etc, graphite nut, Gotoh locking tuners etc, Gretsch knurled strap pins because hey I'm classy like that. It really has been an enjoyable and relatively stress free experience. They are almost impossible to mess up, and that's saying something, since my skills with both woodworking tools and a soldering iron are completely underwhelming.

beat 8y ago
Lucky you! My #1 electric is a 1980 Tokai Breezysound. It's just amazing. I've modded it with EMG T pickups + SPC tone control (don't worry, it still sounds very Tele, just without hum and with a mid boost when needed), and a Wilkinson half bridge. It stomps just about every other electric I've played.
- nineteen999 8y ago
  Is yours extremely light? Mine is, I'm talking almost 2/3's of the weight of my American Special Strat. I'm not sure if that's because the body I got was really dried out though. I'm on my second set of pickups now, first ones I put in were the Texas specials used on the MIM 50' reissues. Wasn't super impressed with those. Next I tried the Tonerider TR2, they are sounding much nicer, but the hum is still bothering me. I was considering trying the Fender Gen4 noiseless next, then maybe the GK Gristle-Tone ones, but I might have to try a set of those EMG T's first if you are recommending them.