Picking one guitar for gigs

MartinB

I have two electric guitars, neither of them particularly fancy.  My band have just recorded the tracks for a new album where I used them about 50/50 on different songs, but I'm now pondering how I can get one or the other to do most of what I want live.  Switching guitars at gigs seems like too much faff for the kind of venues we play.  The band is quite an eclectic mix of styles, but I'm mostly playing clean to slightly hairy rhythm parts, the odd clean-toned melodic part, lots of echo noises and just a few more rockish riffs (pretty much no solos, the band just seems to work that way). 

The sort-of-Jazzmaster mutt is the one I've played for longest; It's a partscaster with a guitarbuild UK body and a cheap chinese neck.  It's got a neck pickup I wound myself to approximately vintagey Jazzmaster specs and the bridge pickup is an Artec GVT-1 tele pickup hidden under a JM cover.  I have a 5-way strat switch on there - the extra positions are the neck pickup with a fixed tone roll-off, and both pickups in series.  But the series position is a little too wooly and indistinct to be useful, even if I like the idea of a louder, thicker option in theory. 
The 335 is an 80s Hondo Revival - I picked it up last year and the different sound and feel helped get us out of a songwriting rut.  It's got Vanson pickups which are cheap alnico humbuckers (going for something like a PAF level of output), which I added nickel silver covers to.  I have them wired with a bass-cut tone control and a no-load master tone, so I'm definitely chasing the brighter, cleaner end of humbucker tone with this one.  I keep the bass-cut control at about 7-8 most of the time, then turn it up on the sections where I want to be a little louder and dirtier. 
Both have their good points live - the Jazzmaster has some pleasing brightness and sparkle, plenty of twang on the bridge pickup, but has that subtle fast-decay plinkiness on the top strings that seems to go with this style of guitar, which isn't always what I'm after.  It can be thin when I want to play more riff-y stuff too. 
The 335 has that extra thickness that can help fill out a one-guitar band, does a nice sort of jazzy Ernest Ranglin impersonation on the neck pickup, the middle position is good for clean rhythm parts, but it's almost a bit too polite sounding for some things. 
It strikes me that to get just one guitar working for me at gigs, I could look at playing around with the JM, perhaps trying a different pickup in the bridge or experimenting some more with the series wiring, adding a tone control, and maybe a buzz-stop to dial back the plinkiness a bit (and I think the novelty of that pickguard might have worn off too).  Or I could look at pickups with a little extra bite for the 335.   Or perhaps a solidbody with low output humbuckers might be up my street.  I'm just rambling, really, while I consider the options...

Alegree

I think you need to have a look at my current build. 

https://www.alegree.co.uk/blogs/news/building-a-chameleon-a-pickup-build-saga-part-1-the-concept
part 2 https://www.alegree.co.uk/blogs/news/building-a-chameleon-a-pickup-design-saga-part-2-the-build-initial-impressions-and-remedies

The aim is of which is to solve the issue you're facing here

slacker

Buy a double gigbag and a double stand. Sorted. 

DulcetJones

My choice would be the solid body, based on the durability factor.  Crap happens at gigs, a semi-hollow guitar would be more likely to sustain serious damage in most cases.  Plus I think solid body guitars look more the part(just my opinion).  I'm in a similar situation almost, I have a Les Paul and a Squier Tele.  After a couple of gigs where people were asking me if they could play my Les Paul and all the attention it was getting from some shady looking types I decided to just gig the Tele.  What surprised me the most though was the positive response.  I didn't suddenly become a way better player but more people compliment my playing/sound than when I gigged the Les Paul.  Puzzling, but there you go. 

crunchman

If you have the budget then something like the PRS Vela might tick a lot of boxes for you.  Just over £1000 new so you might be able to find one for £600ish second hand.

Lozboy

Those guitars look great I am all for just getting your OWN personal sound.

english_bob

Changing guitars needn't be complicated. Mute, cable out, put one down, pick one up, cable in, unmute, rock out.

Takes only slightly longer to do than to read. If both your guitars hold their tune well (they should...) then that's all there is to it.

You may well be able to work out your setlists so that you can keep the same guitar for several songs in a row, and time your changes to coincide with songs where you aren't playing during an intro or an outro. Practice it a few times at a band rehearsal and you'll have it down in no time. 

It gets more difficult if you're the singer as well as the guitarist (you don't mention it, so I'm assuming you aren't), but between a well-setup guitar and a well rehearsed set you can get it pretty much seamless. Plus that way you get to avoid messing with guitars I'm assuming you like as they are, and spending money on stuff you're not actually that interested in.

AlexC

Those both look like very decent guitars to me. From your description I would favour the solid body. Partly for reasons already stated (durability, etc) but also because I think it's easier to replicate hollow body tones on a solid than vice versa. That's my experience, anyway.

ICBM

If you're ever likely to play somewhere where serious electrical buzz is a problem, take the Hondo. And you are sooner or later, probably… even with a hum-cancelling middle position, Jazzmasters can be a problem.

If the Hondo was a Gibson I would say take the Jazzmaster, since a broken headstock is a worse problem - but the Hondo should have a maple neck, I think… which makes it much more robust. There's not much risk with a semi-acoustic body, they're pretty strong.

MartinB

I suppose I could take to lugging both around, but we often end up with quite cramped stages and short setup times, and I like to run the amp controls in slightly different places with both guitars.  So the simplicity of a single guitar is useful. 
The durability aspect of the 335 copy is not something I'm worried about.  These guitars go very cheaply, it's 30 years old and came pre beaten up, and it has a maple neck with a chunky volute.  I do wonder if it could be livened up just enough with a better set of pickups, particularly as I find myself picking up this guitar more often than the JM at the moment.  The Vansons are as good as could possibly be expected for £30 a pair, but they may be more at the mellow end of things.  I suspect that just a little more clarity and bite from this guitar (particularly on the bridge pickup) might get me to where I'd like to be.  I guess I could look at other pickup styles in a humbucker size (P90, Filterton etc) or even just a livelier PAF style. 

ICBM

MartinB said:

The durability aspect of the 335 copy is not something I'm worried about.  These guitars go very cheaply, it's 30 years old and came pre beaten up, and it has a maple neck with a chunky volute.  I do wonder if it could be livened up just enough with a better set of pickups, particularly as I find myself picking up this guitar more often than the JM at the moment.  The Vansons are as good as could possibly be expected for £30 a pair, but they may be more at the mellow end of things.  I suspect that just a little more clarity and bite from this guitar (particularly on the bridge pickup) might get me to where I'd like to be.  I guess I could look at other pickup styles in a humbucker size (P90, Filterton etc) or even just a livelier PAF style. 

Don't go for a P90 type, for the same reason as the Jazzmaster pickups - too noise-prone in some places.

Also, if you're going to do any work on it, replace the jack with a proper US-made Switchcraft (deep bushing type) with a grip washer on the inside, and superglue the nut on. If you don't, you'll remember me saying this when you're wondering what to do about a jack that has fallen inside the guitar at a gig and can't be reached…

Roland

First off I'd question the premise of only taking one guitar. Shit happens, be it broken strings or broken neck. Except for small pub gigs, I always take a spare. 

ICBM said:

If you're ever likely to play somewhere where serious electrical buzz is a problem, take the Hondo. 

Earlier this year I got caught out. It was a small pub which we play two or three times a year, and I just took one Telecaster. When setting up I got enormous mains hum. The only solution was to go home for a humbucker guitar. It turns out that someone had smashed to one mains socket, and  a customer had wired a new one in without connecting the earth correctly. We've since bought a mains tester.

rico

I would invest in a cheap/project tele with a humbucker in the neck. They are extremely simple, very versatile and really robust - you can always use it in self defence if shit hits the fan! 

timhulio

The Jazzmaster looks cool. Play that. Use some sort of boost/OD pedal for thickening the sound where needed.

bbill335

Play songs not guitars

AlexC

bbill335 said:

Play songs not guitars

Get your point with this, but you want a guitar that's up to the job, right? Otherwise we'd all be playing a £50 Stagg which sounds like a beehive in heat and stays in tune for ten minutes.

bbill335

AlexC said:

bbill335 said:

Play songs not guitars

Get your point with this, but you want a guitar that's up to the job, right? Otherwise we'd all be playing a £50 Stagg which sounds like a beehive in heat and stays in tune for ten minutes.

Not really. I don't think there's any song or style that one of the OPs does better than the other, especially when the amp and effects are the same for both. 

Adamski

It seems that the answer to a 'one guitar to do it all' is usually a HSS Strat type or a PRS and I'd agree with that for versatility. 

For me though, a Tele does everything and is the most fun in the process 

MartinB

timhulio said:

The Jazzmaster looks cool. Play that. Use some sort of boost/OD pedal for thickening the sound where needed.

The JM is definitely more distinctive and fun looking. I've just spent half an hour playing it in my living room this morning, and enjoying what it does.  Also for whatever reason the tuning stability on this one is excellent even with the trem, where the 335 needs the occasional tweak.  The neck pickup on it sounds great and I wouldn't want to change that, but I do wonder if the right humbucker in the bridge of the JM might get me a good range of sounds without losing too much of what I like about it.  I could experiment with a partial split too, to thin out the mid postion a little for funky rhythm parts.  The cheap neck is on my list of things to look at changing some time (it has odd wide but low frets that aren't my cup of tea), but that's the joy of a bolt-on.  I think that might be one of the reasons I pick up this guitar less.  Hmm, that's another approach to look at...

MartinB

Further reflections after gigging the 335 on Friday and doing some tinkering with the JM; I think the JM has to be the gig workhorse.  I have to adjust tuning between songs a little too often with the 335 (while the JM is rock solid), and I miss the middle position spank.  The main thing I miss with the JM is a bridge humbucker tone for the slightly more rocky sections. 
So as a bit of an experiment, I'm trying a humbucker in the JM bridge position.  I didn't want to spend too much just to try out the idea, so I've stuck an Entwistle HV58 in there under the existing cover for the moment.  First impressions are that it works pretty well, the middle position still has some sparkle and the bridge is middy and focussed without being over the top.  I'll be rehearsing with it tomorrow and gigging again on Friday, so I'll see how I get on.  I keep thinking about losing the crazy pickguard too, but my wife likes it! 

ESBlonde

I gig 3 Guitars most of the time. Just have them a) on a sturdy stand beside you.
b) plugged in ready to go. c) each with it's own strap/cable etc.

Finish one song, mute the first guitar swing it off onto a stand, swing the second guitar over your head and unmute. Wait for the applause to receed and Go!

Just watch out if you play anywhere with a silly low ceiling. ;-)