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Which Guitar Is The Most Versatile?


Mark L

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There are Strats that have both single-coil and humbuckers.  Typically the humbucker is in the bridge position, but there are other variations.  

 

With both types of pickups you can get a broad range of sounds.   

 

The midi-ready guitars open that whole world if you like that sort of thing.  

 

nat whilk ii

 

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My 2 cents worth - for traditional guitars, I would have to say the Strat is the most versatile. Not that I would want to play or listen to one all day, if you limit the scope to guitars with magnetic pickups, the Strat is pretty hard to beat for what are considered the most conventional sounds. Think Jeff Beck, Scott Henderson or Eric Johnson. Put a splitable humbucker in the bridge and you can get into Gibsonland.

 

Having said that, it would be a dull world with only Strats.

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For my purposes a "Fat Strat" with a humbucker at the bridge.  There probably isn't really a one-guitar solution, but if I had to choose only one, that would be it.  I've had one for many years and it can do most anything I would need from a Strat or a Les Paul.  I reach for it more often than anything else.

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I would say the PRS Custom 24 and the Yamaha SA2200 are both very versatile guitars in the right hands.

I really think it has more to do with the hands than the instrument itself. The strat wasn't even meant to do the things Hendrix did with it.

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For single-coil versatility I'm more than satisfied with the Peavy Omniac JD (Jerry Donahue) - although tele-shaped it covers the full spectrum of tele/strat souds wiith the unique Symour Duncan pickups/circuitry

For a wider range of sounds (humbucker and/or single coil) you will need to go a long way to out-perform the Ibanez MC 300, 400, 500 and 550 models from the late 1970's - look them up if you don't know them

If you like a clean range of sounds the unloved Les Paul Recording provides excellent value for money

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  • 7 months later...
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My music has no place for a Strat. I might have a place for a B-bender Tele though.

Versatile to me means the number of musical genres where a guitar would sound right in a mix.

Modeling guitars w/MIDI would be really versatile. I've never used one though.

 

The most versatile guitar I've used was a 1988 Ovation Elite. Sometimes, I made grocery money in law school

playing one man band gigs with that guitar. ( Also a Kawai K-1 synth, Alesis HR16, MMT8 and a fuzz box.)

 

Electric archtop Jazz? The Ovation could fake it. Surf, Chicago Blues? ditto. John Denver or Cream?

Finger-style Country or Folkie? The Ovation could fake 'em all. And it sounded surprisingly good through a fuzz tone.

 

I used that guitar in a studio session once w/ that fuzz box.* It is the only extended electric guitar solo I have ever 

recorded in my life. People have asked me what kind of guitar that was. I told them to guess. Usually, they'd say a 'Strat'.

But it was only an Ovation played through a fuzz box. Ovations are not quite acoustics. They're not quite electrics. I have always thought they had more of an archtop sound acoustically. But they're damned versatile. I've been in a lot of hotels where the house band was one guy or gal with an Adamas or Ovation.

Wish they'd install a magnetic pick-up and MIDI on one. I think they missed the boat by not co-opting MIDI into their guitars. Kaman lost its technological edge. 

 

(*Castle of the Pyrenees)

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I have a Godin XTSA that does more than any straight guitar I've tried. Add to that the 9 pin jack for running Roland gear and your options are fairly  unlimited. Alone and straight into an amp it is a true tone monster. It plays well too. The only negative I've noticed is it doesn't sit well on your leg without a strap because of a narrow lower horn. Other than that it's an innovative step in guitar development.

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MarkydeSad wrote:

I've heard that it might be the Tele, but what do
you
think??

Are you sure you didn't hear it was the Strat? Some folks like to put at least one 'bucker on them and then, with the (typical modern) switching and tone controls you have a moderately broad range of sounds/tones.

That said, I've mistaken a single coil Tele for a humbucker semi on at least one occasion (by sound, obviously... and boy was I embarrassed, as there were a bunch of heavy blues dudes in the social media thread. Oh well, I'm a poet, not a guitar tech.  grin 

 

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philbo wrote:

It isn't what you have, it's how you play it.

I love the expression, "His tone is in his fingers." 

Of course, that only applies to a small percentage of players, I'm afraid. And technique can only go so far.

But it's a great place to start.  wink.gif 

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philbo wrote:

Wow! My first successful post from a droid!

I haven't had to many problems with the actual posting from my Android phone or tablet.  

That said, I usually run the tablet in 'desktop browser' mode, though, as so many mobile versions of sites are so limited or just plain broken. This site has gotten better, but it's clearly someplace between those latter two descriptives... there are a LOT of critical missing features in the mobile version, making it almost unusable.

(I mean, have they added an EDIT option in the mobile version yet? I doubt it. These Lithium people just don't seem to have much understanding of how people actually use forums and I doubt they're going to learn at this point.)

Anyhow, posting, not so much problem.

But creating and editing content in the phone or tablet without hooking up at least a keyboard or keyboard and mouse is an utter ordeal unless you have one of those announcer voices that the voice reco seems to depend on. And it seems like there's ALWAYS a wrong-word error or two (or ten) buried deep in any long sentence of (ha ha) paragraph and you have to jump through hoops backwards just to get to it and fix it since big blobby fingertips are so very bad at getting that tiny cursor to do what you want. EVEN on my 7" Google Nexus tablet. (At least the custom keyboard app I have in it has special cursor keys that allow you to move the cursor up, down and sideways a line/space a time -- a HUGE 'convenience'  facepalm.gif that  should have been addressed by the geniacs on the Android team.)

 

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