Why are most of us so firmly stuck in the past

axisus

That's like saying Why do we still think Marilyn Monroe is attractive? Why haven't we moved on to chubby girls with shaved heads.

roberty

I think what comes down to is, you still have to play the thing, there's only so much a guitar can do to help the player. Any great design departure would necessitate changing a discipline which has evolved over many decades

TTBZ

I'm all for modernising and improving stuff but sometimes it feels like something is lost when you remove all the quirks and make it "better" - I'd love if there was something that gets all that sustain and tone of a Les Paul but in a more comfortable and ergonomic package, but I don't think it really exists. PRS comes close but in all the comparisons they're missing something tonally. To be fair it could just be the PRS pickups, all the Gibson pickups I've tried have a bit of a gritty/dirty sound to them.

Jez6345789

I think a lot of the discussion revolved around some of the more out their designs I have been looking at on Instagram recently like the ridiculous 70k Sauvage, Alquier and other small designer builders and me saying realistically that style of thing is simply like 1 in10k guitarist would actually buy one. 

Also how some of PRS biggest sellers of late have been 594 (a Modern take on a Les Paul) and the Silver Sky (built mostly from a 64 Strat they did a teardown on and some fanciful notions from JM) 

I think PRS is on record of saying if that's what people want we know we can build a better SC than the other company and same with Silver Sky. Early on he was very much if you cant beat them.

I suppose the opposite could be said about guitarist and Kemper and Axe FX Helix. At this point, most valve amp manufactures are starting to feel the pinch from the sampling modelling crew so there must be a fair uptake. And as much as we would all like a nice old Marshall or Fender we are happy to play our 1950's designed guitar and play through a digital rig. 

Hmm strange things us humans

WezV

Even with something that seems super modern like a Strandberg... The design is still mostly a strat at its core, just with updated features and new ideas on ergonomics.   A supersuperstrat if you will.

ICBM

The fundamental design elements of the electric guitar haven't changed since the 1950s because they're perfect already.

Different materials have been tried, but the ones that feel and sound best to most of us are still types of wood. Different types of electronics have been tried, but passive magnetic pickups still sound best to most of us - and most importantly, are extremely reliable, and easily replaceable if you want a different sound. Some improvements to hardware have been made - especially machineheads (better-engineered and locking types) - and vibratos, but the remarkably effective, simple and reliable Bigbsy and Fender Strat and Jazzmaster types are still the basis for most of them.

Shapes are where most of the useful experimentation can still be done, but it's actually quite hard to be much more radical than Fender and Gibson were in the 1950s without producing something impractical - the Ovation/Klein-type 'axe head' shapes being the main exception - or just plain ugly.

What I do find a bit frustrating is that innovation often now consists of mashing together various historical design elements rather than designing new improved versions of them... for example the fashion for sticking tune-o-matic bridges and P90s on everything. And trying to make things look forty years old even when they're new designs.

RaymondLin

It is strange a lot of people start guitar with something pointy, something more experimental, different but the more you get into this hobby, the more you lean towards older instruments.  I wonder if you would do the same if you are never on forums and the internet. 

My guitar history

Taylor T5
Taylor GS Mini
PRS Custom 24
PRS Custom 22 Special
PRS SC58
PRS 305
Gibson Les Paul
Palir Titan Telecaster
Fender Stratocaster

Funny how the last 3 are the classics and how it started out the most different

Barnezy

Because that's the sound when electric guitar established itself. It doesn't matter what comes after as its neither better or worse, just different. 

Voxman

JerkMoans said:

Kilgore said:

If it ain't broke don't fix it. 

Quite.  Isn't it (a) that they basically got the designs more or less right by the 50's/60's: these are not really hi-tech bits of kit, and (b) all the ace cool rock n roll heroes/heroines we so desire to emulate were slinging Strats, Teles and Les Pauls.  

This. 

GuyR

dazzajl said:

Let's not underestimate the contribution of the 80s. 

Quite right, the introduction of the first relatively authentic reissues in the AVRI and JV Squier ranges was significant.

Musicwolf

Barnezy said:

Because that's the sound when electric guitar established itself. It doesn't matter what comes after as its neither better or worse, just different. 

Which of course why my Kemper and Helix are full of profiles / emulations of old amplifiers and why, when I owned a Variax, it was trying to emulate vintage instruments.

There's been plenty of innovation and development in the manufacturing processes, CNC cutting for example, but we are still trying to emulate the sounds from the early days of Rock and/or Roll.

Freebird

SteveRobinson said:

Players of orchestral instruments are even worse I hear

Some people still cook with heat.

RaymondLin

May be because the sound of an electric guitar is quite narrow and we have found them all already, and then it didn't take long to get the best out of it therefore that's that.

It's like do people try to find a new piano sound or trying to invent a new piano shape?

ICBM

Musicwolf said:

There's been plenty of innovation and development in the manufacturing processes, CNC cutting for example, but we are still trying to emulate the sounds from the early days of Rock and/or Roll.

Actually most of us are trying to emulate sounds from the golden age of mainstream rock, which isn't the same thing at all.

Rock'n'roll contains very few of the sounds any of us use now, and early rock sounds were often really extreme by modern standards, and would not be considered 'good' nowadays. You just don't hear people doing things like DI'ing a guitar and deliberately overloading the mixing desk, or pushing a Fender Twin to the absolute limit with a fuzz pedal, or using cranked high-powered solid-state amps for overdrive... all of which were done in the late 60s. Most modern sounds are conservative and sanitised by comparison.

skullfunkerry

WezV said:

Even with something that seems super modern like a Strandberg... The design is still mostly a strat at its core, just with updated features and new ideas on ergonomics.   A supersuperstrat if you will.

I was just coming here to post something similar: although I don't really like Strats my guitars of choice these days are superstrats; I'm pretty sure that if you put them alongside a genuine '50s Strat and asked a non-guitarist about the differences, they wouldn't really get much past "colour" and "the corners are sharper"

Habanero

I think a major cause is influences. Many people start playing to emulate their musical heroes. It’s the reason brands have signature models and limited editions cost thousands.

scrumhalf

Why should newer versions of things be better than versions that have come before?

Some things are more or less spot-on from the beginning, and the passage of time doesn't change that. There will probably be small incidents of evolution rather than massive revolution.

I hate the "expiry date" concept for things that function well. That's what the fashion industry aims for. They tell you that what you have is crap and needs replacing, then a year later they tell you that the replacement you shelled out a not inconsiderable sum for is crap and it, too, needs replacing for, would you believe it, a not inconsiderable sum.

Repeat until the penny drops. 

midlifecrisis

after many years without one i had a hankering for a telecaster. i went through a few variants from squire affinity , mex standard and baja and finally came to rest with the chinese made fender modern player. This, to me isnt what i had in mind when i wanted a tele, this has 3 pickup including a coil tapable humbucker, and a carved "belly cut" ijn the back. but it gives a tele-ish snap and is a joy to play so im happy with it, although i do love the look and simplicity of a traditional chunky tele.

Hattigol

axisus said:

Why haven't we moved on to chubby girls with shaved heads.

Speak for yourself. 

Caffeine_Vampire

Owned loads and played more but nothing convinced me that guitar design didn't peak in 1957.