Squier vs MiM

[Chordite]

I was kind of all set to go with a Squier standard but I made the mistake of checking vids

Even to my to my old ears the difference is day and night the MiM just eats the Squier on tone and clarity.

Now here is the conundrum, the reviewer puts the difference down mostly to the pups.

Has anyone upgraded a Squier to MiM pups and, importantly is that the key difference this guy thinks it is

 

[video=youtube_share;z_vSbT4F6UQ]

 

[mrbrown49]

I have a parts-caster made out of an old squire. It was abandoned in the basement of an apartment building I used to live in. I refinished it, leveled and dressed the frets, replaced the nut with a tusq one, put in all new electronics, tuners, bridge. Really just used the body and the neck. Everything else was stripped and replaced.

 

It has a p90 in the bridge and neck and a generic SC in the middle. It sounds and plays fantastic.

[Mikeo]

I have 4 American made Fender Strats, never replaced anything.

 

I still do the balancing act on the older ones with the 3 position pick up switch.

 

 

[alfsboy]

Squiers are perfectly decent guitars .I love buying cheapo SE's and make them playable after a lifetime of broken string neglect .I then take them to bits and sell as parts .Huge fun and even the pickups sound good after lowering .If I had been given one of theses in the early 60's when I played in a school boy band I would have been in heaven so they are perfectly playable AFTER a decent set up .MIMs are a step up blah blah ,My theory is if you cant get a good sounding song out a Squier you wont on anything else but if you are playing the O2 tomorrow night best get a USA model.

[alfsboy]

Squiers are perfectly decent guitars .I love buying cheapo SE's and make them playable after a lifetime of broken string neglect .I then take them to bits and sell as parts .Huge fun and even the pickups sound good after lowering .If I had been given one of theses in the early 60's when I played in a school boy band I would have been in heaven so they are perfectly playable AFTER a decent set up .MIMs are a step up blah blah ,My theory is if you cant get a good sounding song out a Squier you wont on anything else but if you are playing the O2 tomorrow night best get a USA model otherwise they wont let you backstage .

[Chordite]

Thanks, however most of my guitars, including my favourite, which is a lowly Encore, are rescued from skips and recycling centers. I can get 'a good sounding song' out of them fine.

My question was is the the huge tone difference in the video down to the MiM pups?

[WRGKMC]

I wouldn't pay allot of attention to videos when it comes to making any tone comparisons. Anyone whose worked in a studio knows they are quite useless for that purpose.

 

A comparison is flawed before it ever begins. First off is the mic used. Its typically an electret mic built into a camcorder or cell phone that's designed for speech, not music. Second both cameras and cell phones typically use AGC which is a very slow response compressor which steamrolls all dynamic content and boosts all noise to extreme levels.

 

I wouldn't trust a video with a ten foot pool because of that and that's not even the end of it.

 

You have no idea if the video was fairly made. Example. Was the amp dialed up to make the fender sound good and the cored merely swapped to the Squire? Was the squire dialed up for best tone and the cord swapped to the Fender without changes? Were the guitars dialed up independently?

 

It may just be his amp sucks for one guitar and not for the other. There's nothing to say the impedance of the two sets of pickups are remotely similar. Squire pickups often use a ceramic bar magnet at the bottom and many fender pickups use magnetic pole pieces without a bar magnet. Ceramic pickups typically cost less. It doesn't mean they are necessarily worse simply different in tone.

 

I have a set of cheap Ceramics in one Strat and TX Specials in another. The tones are very different. The TX Specials produce a very talkative vintage fender tone especially with the forward/reverse phase switches that Fender Strat has. The Ceramics can get a convincing clean when dialed back or be gained up for rock tones the TX specials cant get.

 

Other differences in videos can be caused by doctoring the audio after the video is recorded. Its a very simple task of pulling the video into an editor program and tweaking the audio like any other digital recording.

 

Its unlikely you'll hear the instruments full potential - its acoustic and electric tone like you do when you play it live. All you her is the tone that makes it through the pickups to the camera mic. The wood used with many Fender guitars are typically a higher grade then many Squire's. Most of the Squire's I've seen are typically built from fast growth maple which are softer, greener woods. Bodies on many of them are plywood instead of solid woods too.

 

For an experienced player, playing a guitar live the tone differences become obvious because a guitarist doesn't just hear the results he feels the vibrations of the instrument and the snap of the strings. This in turn influences how the player bonds with the instrument to produce tones no camera can capture. Because of these things there is actually very little you can trust by simply watching a video. Even the person playing is likely to be biased towards one instrument over the other which can influence the recording results.

[1001gear]

My question was is the the huge tone difference in the video down to the MiM pups?

 

 

pots and caps would matter. Then the neck, then the body. Does sound like the Fender Fender has hotter pikups though.

[Grant Harding]

The Squiers are designed to NOT be as good as Fenders on purpose. It doesn't matter where they're made. If their OEM manufacturers in the east start breaking that rule they'll lose the contract.

[Chordite]

A very good point.

[Verne Andru]

I was kind of all set to go with a Squier standard but I made the mistake of checking vids

Even to my to my old ears the difference is day and night the MiM just eats the Squier on tone and clarity.

Now here is the conundrum, the reviewer puts the difference down mostly to the pups.

Has anyone upgraded a Squier to MiM pups and, importantly is that the key difference this guy thinks it is

 

[video=youtube_share;z_vSbT4F6UQ]

 

Yes, it's all in the pups and electronics. On a Strat build the other parts are there to hold the strings over the pickups.

[Willyguitar]

If you are talking about telecasters, the Squier Classic Vibes are very good indeed - on a par really with most MiM standards. The one MiM telecaster I think is often superb is the Baja. I am not too sure about Strats - probably a totally different ball park.

[Blackface]

Squiers are fine but with the Fender you'll definitely be getting better hardware as well as pickups. And a little better fit and finish. Some people don't care about that. For whatever reason a lot of people act the only thing that matters with guitars is how it sounds, I don't think that's true.

 

You can find opinions to support any decision, especially nowadays. It's really up to you, I'd go play them both and decide keeping in mind that the hardware, switches and pots on the fender might will likely last longer vs the squier.