What is the most versatile guitar?

roundthebend

In an ideal world I'd have a ton of guitars to pick and choose from as I jam at home or indeed when I play live. Even better, they're all hanging on the wall or leaning proud on a stand ready to be picked up and used on a whim. Or my guitar tech will hand one to me with a moment's notice.

Reality is that I've got a small space in the spare room to keep my kit, so having a single guitar is the sensible option. Similarly, I don't often play live just now and even if I did I couldn't afford the guitars let alone the guitar tech.

But I like to play a few different styles of music, or the music I play tends to have differing guitar sound requirements. I like to play Pink Floyd and Dire Straits, but I also like heavier stuff like Alice In Chains, Tool, Soundgarden, etc.

Add to the criteria that I don't want a meaty beast of a guitar - my back used to get very uncomfortable when using my Epiphone Les Paul Standard for a gig.

So, to summarise, I think I want a medium-lightweight guitar, which has an assortment of pickup options - humbucker, single-coil, P90s, EMGs maybe?

What's your thoughts?

JookyChap

I guess the usual answer is a Tele, probably with a HB at the neck - or a Variax will give you a bit of everything, though I've never tried one, so not sure how close the models are.

bertie

PRS 513 takes some beating, but in normal peoples world - an H-S-S strat or strat a like

ICBM

A HSS Strat or a PRS-type thing with a trem and splittable humbuckers (and preferably a middle pickup) will get you close to all those sounds - definitely not exact, but in a room where you can't crank up a big amp it's a moot point anyway.

impmann

Telecaster. 

ThePrettyDamned

A 2 humbucker guitar with decent tappable pickups would be king of versatility in my opinion.  Epiphone also do a LP model with a piezo output and blend - so you can have pseudo acoustic sounds blended in stereo with your electric signal, or one of them at a time.  Very cool stuff.  

Other than that, a Tele is, in my opinion, more versatile than a strat - it might only have 2 pickups but I've normally found the neck pickup is warmer and the bridge pickup is hotter and brighter than the respective strat versions.  That and a 4 way switch is a recipe for plenty of happiness

frankus

I'd say a Strat with an HLK and a tremel-no gets pretty close ... if you want to get a bit closer get a GK3 pickup on it and a GR55 - it's like a Variax then

vasselmeyer

I would like to nominate my second proper guitar, a Westone Spectrum LX. It had an HSH config and the humbuckers could be split and the middle single coil switched in and out. It could therefore do all single coil with in-between sounds and all humbucking sounds. It also had a phase-reverse switch so the HH combination could do the Peter Green sound. I swapped it for a Strat and I'm a little sorry as it was the most versatile electric I ever had.

thumpingrug

I have a variax JTV69 and its pretty good. The last software update increased the accuracy of the Strat and the Semi Hollow models but I think the Tele suffered a bit. I can’t get the crispness from the tele models that I would expect from a genuine tele.

I actualy like the stock bridge pickup, but use teh Jazz and 12 string Ricky models quite a bit.  Also the sitar and dobro are OK.

usedtobe

If I could only have one electric, and I really needed all those different options, I'd definitely be checking out the Variax thing - or a Variax transplant, maybe. However, I've never played one, so I can't really recommend them.

On the other hand, there's this:

jonnyburgo

Tastefully done )

McToot

Yamaha SG (mine's a 1000).

The coil split is wonderful, especially on the neck pickup.  You can get some really nice Tele type sounds and obviously the LP-type tones are there in buckets. 

Here's a really old pic of mine.  It's 34 years old this year:

RocknRollDave

A guitar with coil split humbuckers would be my choice for "most versatile", but then again I'm no fan of the single coil "middle" position on a Strat, so I wouldn't miss it


Better still, learn to experiment with your volume and tone knobs, and also use your amp's EQ and vol/ gain settings - you'll be surprised how many bases you can cover with the same guitar just by getting stuck into your amp's controls.

xSkarloey

I was in a similar situation to the OP a few years ago and decided on a strat with a (splitable) bridge HB. I decided on a Strat because I like having a vibrato.

That said, I do think a Tele tops the lot for sheer ventriloquist-like ability to cover so many tones and musical ground. Unbelievablygood!!!

Bucket

A Strat with a flat-mounted Floyd (super-stable tuning and divebombability but still with the possibility of tuning down, especially with a D-Tuna), and a coil-tapped humbucker at the bridge. That's about as versatile as it gets, I reckon.

In fact, make the humbucker something like a JB Jr, for looks' sake. Well, the looks will still be compromised by the Floyd, but you know.

Also, as others have said, check out the Variax JTV-69.

octatonic

HSS strat is the most versatile in my book.

usedtobe

The Gordon-Smith tapped bucker sound is my personal favourite, of the tapped buckers I've heard. I'm not normally a fan of the tapped bucker, though, tbh..

OilCityPickups

My own Tele Deluxe fitted with twin 'Oil City BrassKnuckles' ... and a variable coil tap replacing the tone for each pickup is pretty damn versatile. If it had a trem on it ... I'd marry it

As it's pickups are strictly 'pared single coils' that occupy a humbucker space ... you can do 'Strat neck' through to huge overdriven bridge lead. You can have a single coil ...or anything between one and a full bucker in any position. I suppose it's not a PAF sort of neck bucker tone ... so minus a point there ... but for most things it's my 'Swiss Army knife'.

Keep thinking of putting a hardtail Strat Stetsbar on it ...

randomhandclaps

1949 Broadcaster - got yourself one of them and you can trade it for any guitar you need.

ThePrettyDamned

TheGuitarWeasel said:

My own Tele Deluxe fitted with twin 'Oil City BrassKnuckles' ... and a variable coil tap replacing the tone for each pickup is pretty damn versatile. If it had a trem on it ... I'd marry it

As it's pickups are strictly 'pared single coils' that occupy a humbucker space ... you can do 'Strat neck' through to huge overdriven bridge lead. You can have a single coil ...or anything between one and a full bucker in any position. I suppose it's not a PAF sort of neck bucker tone ... so minus a point there ... but for most things it's my 'Swiss Army knife'.

Keep thinking of putting a hardtail Strat Stetsbar on it ...

Wow.  That sounds really impressive.  

Do they have the thicker wire on them?  From your previous posts, humbuckers use much thinner wire which gives them a higher resistance and is part of the reason they don't sound like a strat pickup when split.

Apologies if I'm being an absolute tool

OilCityPickups

If I had a 49 Broadcaster it wouldn't be going anywhere ... stuff versatility