What is the most versatile guitar?

kelvinburn · January 2014

PRS Swamp ash special (older m/n ones ) are brilliantly versatile guitars. The Yamaha SA503TVL will cover most ground. For about £300 I'd go for HSS Mex Strat, HSS Sterling (Musicman) Silouette or one of the Vintage 3 stacked humbucker guitars (they do a strat type and an offset 335 alike)

TPReggie · January 2014

@ Original Poster, you mentioned your budget of around £300 didn't you? One of the things to consider that I don't think I have seen in this thread is a Chapman ML1 - see here:

http://www.andertons.co.uk/Products/Products.asp?keyword=ml1&type=search&attributeXML0=||||#1389349997217page-1

They are designed as close to a "cover all sounds" as possible, and won Music Radar (am I allowed to say that name here?) budget guitar of the year award last year. It also fits the HSS Strat type suggestion most people have mentioned with the addition of coil split as well as the HSS layout.

*EDIT* Just figured I would add the link to the Chapman Guitars site to save you googling.

http://www.chapmanguitars.co.uk/guitars/ml-1/

And no - I am not a Chapman fanboy, or Rob Chapman himself - just know I am looking at one of these at the moment and am so far impressed

>-

bertie · January 2014

meltedbuzzbox said:
And who uses all 5 positions on a strat?

most people who have one ?

Its all part of being versatile.

ICBM · January 2014

bertie said:

meltedbuzzbox said:
And who uses all 5 positions on a strat?

most people who have one ?

Its all part of being versatile.

I only use four. There's one sound I detest more than any other sound on a standard electric guitar model.

I wish it was possible to turn this one into the 'Tele middle position' sound easily without using a fancy expensive switch which won't fit in my old Aria Strat-ish thing, but it isn't.

And no, it's not the middle pickup on its own, that's my favourite sound on a Strat!

Bridge/middle... I know, the one you all love.

ThePrettyDamned · January 2014

ICBM said:

bertie said:

meltedbuzzbox said:
And who uses all 5 positions on a strat?

most people who have one ?

Its all part of being versatile.

I only use four. There's one sound I detest more than any other sound on a standard electric guitar model.

I wish it was possible to turn this one into the 'Tele middle position' sound easily without using a fancy expensive switch which won't fit in my old Aria Strat-ish thing, but it isn't.

And no, it's not the middle pickup on its own, that's my favourite sound on a Strat!

Bridge/middle... I know, the one you all love.

Nope, can't stand it either. I like the neck/middle, and love the neck on its own, and the middle on it's own is really cool, bright without any harshness, but bridge/middle seems to bring the worst out of both!

Skipped · January 2014

Most versatile guitar?
For Baby Boomers: Es-335.
For Baby Boomers that say "Does this 335 look big on me?" (they are wrong BTW): Telecaster
For Everybody Else: How would I know?

monquixote · January 2014

digitalscream said:
I'd say this is pretty close - really, it's the combination of the player and the guitar which is versatile to me.

For example, there are some guitars with a fuckton of options which will let you tap and split all the pickups, use any combination of pickups etc...I wouldn't be able to use any of that in a live context.

I'd rather have a guitar where I know how to get every sound I want out of it - that's versatility. I also want one which does (almost) nothing more than that, on the basis that I don't need extra shit cluttering up the place getting in the way of the bits I want to use.

Therefore...two humbuckers, coil split, volume and tone. Anything else is superfluous.

Muchos wisdom here.

I think it depends if it's a live guitar or a studio one, but something like a variax or one of the crazy Gibson firewood things fills me with horror for live use. So many switches and knobs is just more things to trip you up and make you go wrong.

My guitar has S1, but the only time I tried to use it live I left it on and ended up in some crazy sound for the next song and of course I was frantically trying to work out what's wrong without ballsing up what I'm playing.

An interesting question is most versatile guitar where you can really use all of the features.

When I had my Tele wired with a 4 way I used all of the settings a lot and all of them were distinctive and useful in a live set.

Most guitars with splits I've found the split sounded a bit weak and woolley compared to the real deal so you don't end up using them that much.

The best combination of versatile guitar and player must be GG he seems to be able to get completely convincing jazz, blues, rock, funk, country and metal tones out of his Charvel all from a single channel of his amp.

streethawk · January 2014

monquixote said:

digitalscream said:
I'd say this is pretty close - really, it's the combination of the player and the guitar which is versatile to me.

For example, there are some guitars with a fuckton of options which will let you tap and split all the pickups, use any combination of pickups etc...I wouldn't be able to use any of that in a live context.

I'd rather have a guitar where I know how to get every sound I want out of it - that's versatility. I also want one which does (almost) nothing more than that, on the basis that I don't need extra shit cluttering up the place getting in the way of the bits I want to use.

Therefore...two humbuckers, coil split, volume and tone. Anything else is superfluous.

Muchos wisdom here.

I think it depends if it's a live guitar or a studio one, but something like a variax or one of the crazy Gibson firewood things fills me with horror for live use. So many switches and knobs is just more things to trip you up and make you go wrong.

My guitar has S1, but the only time I tried to use it live I left it on and ended up in some crazy sound for the next song and of course I was frantically trying to work out what's wrong without ballsing up what I'm playing.

An interesting question is most versatile guitar where you can really use all of the features.
When I had my Tele wired with a 4 way I used all of the settings a lot and all of them were distinctive and useful in a live set.
Most guitars with splits I've found the split sounded a bit weak and woolley compared to the real deal so you don't end up using them that much.

The best combination of versatile guitar and player must be GG he seems to be able to get completely convincing jazz, blues, rock, funk, country and metal tones out of his Charvel all from a single channel of his amp.

Not mad on the top but like what he's done with the trem and nut.

luscombe · January 2014

anything in Jimi's hands. other than that it has to be a Stratocaster.

ChrisMusic · January 2014

I was going to mention the Music Man Game Changer, but as ICBM said there is a bit of "dubious" stuff about how it has come to pass, and anyway Dindude beat me to it.

For a bit more info and opinions I posted this thread about that a while back if you want to take a look I have put the link for reference,

http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/4462/ultimate-pickup-switching

As well as the Variax, and the old ones without a normal pickup go very cheap (so a tester, or project maybe?), there is Roland's V guitar system.

http://www.roland.com/V-Guitar/

There is a COSM modelling based Fender built Strat, Mex & I think a new US built one too, with similar functionality to the Variax.

Then there are the GR units and GK pickups which you can attach to any guitar, and a Fender Mex Strat from Roland if you want to buy it ready to rock.

ThePrettyDamned · January 2014

Like what Guthrie has done with the jack socket. Tidy.

But ugly.

I might need to get a tremel-no for my 6 point, let me go from d standard to drop C.

tbm · January 2014

I can't forsee a scenario where this guitar wouldn't work:

Seriously though, for me a regular tele will cover most things.

kelvinburn · January 2014

tbm said:

I can't forsee a scenario where this guitar wouldn't work:

Seriously though, for me a regular tele will cover most things.

ITS A TRAP!!!!!!

57Deluxe · January 2014

'Air Guitar' - you can take it anywhere and play it just as shit!

guitargeek62 · January 2014

Either a HSS Strat; or a PRS doublecut w//trem, and something other than Dragon IIs or HFS/VB pickups in.

FX_Munkee · January 2014

If any of this thread were true I would have a lot of explaining to do to the wife.
As far as she understands it white ones sound different to "woody" ones which sound different to black ones and are completely and utterly non-interchangeable.
<lalalanotlisteninglalala/>

Other than that, for £300 you shouldn't go too far wrong with a HSS mex strat.

geepers0677 · January 2014

My Variax - JTV 59P with P90s. Easily the most versatile, the mag pickups themselves are great, the variax parts are a bonus. Maybe not the best guitar I've ever had for a single job, but definitely the most versatile.

Fusionista · January 2014

I'd like to try one of those Fret-King Country Squires...

NPP · January 2014

ICBM said:

bertie said:

meltedbuzzbox said:
And who uses all 5 positions on a strat?

most people who have one ?

Its all part of being versatile.

I only use four. There's one sound I detest more than any other sound on a standard electric guitar model.

I wish it was possible to turn this one into the 'Tele middle position' sound easily without using a fancy expensive switch which won't fit in my old Aria Strat-ish thing, but it isn't.

And no, it's not the middle pickup on its own, that's my favourite sound on a Strat!

Bridge/middle... I know, the one you all love.

just (physically) swap the neck and middle pickups. This should give you m - m+n - n - n+b - b on the 5-way switch.

ICBM · January 2014

NPP said:
just (physically) swap the neck and middle pickups. This should give you m - m+n - n - n+b - b on the 5-way switch.

I know - and I have had to resist doing that. It would make the switching illogical and would upset my neatly ordered world view

.

I doubt there's enough wire length on the middle pickup either - I trim them to the 'neat' length. Can't undo it at the pickup end because they're resin-potted with the wires going right in, and can't just swap the connections on the switch because then N+B wouldn't be hum cancelling! And no, I don't want new pickups

.

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What is the most versatile guitar?

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