I Prefer The Squier Bullet Mustang To My Other High End Guitars - Clips Added - Results!

NelsonP

Oh go on then. Here's my Squier which is at least as good as my other guitars. Mind you it does have quite a few mods ;-)

Fiftyshadesofjay

NelsonP said:

Oh go on then. Here's my Squier which is at least as good as my other guitars. Mind you it does have quite a few mods ;-)

Nice! 

WezV

ICBM said:

At the end of the day a solidbody electric guitar - especially one with a fixed bridge - is a very simple construction, and as long as the basic parts and materials are well enough made - which they are on a Squier - then there's no reason the result shouldn't be perfectly playable and good-sounding.

If anything, it's more ridiculous that people are prepared to pay upwards of £2000 for one than that you can get a decent one for under £200. Yes, they're better - but it's utterly diminishing returns before you even get to a fraction of that price.

WezV said:

That's fantastic. It wouldn't raise many eyebrows if you said it was a 60s Duo-Sonic with some changed parts. (OK, they never did the Duo with competition stripes either...)

Got be honest my main issue with the stock parts was the bridge.  I don't like many fender style top loaders, and particularly  dislike the design on these with a string hole directly below the  intonation screw.   

I did lose the pickups, but they were okay  for the price. I only got the guitar because I had some mojo pickups I had never used.. I expected to be changing all electrics, but the pots were actually fine... smooth with a reasonable taper 

I have some vintsge style white button tuners to go on at some point, but it will mean plugging and redrilling the headstock, and the standard ones are doing fine for now.

Fitting a set of 11's was the most important upgrade

TTBZ

I quite liked the look of the black/parchment HS  duo sonics they did a while back. Kind of like a scaled down superstrat. I like the feel of short scale too, I have small hands and sometimes 25.5" guitars feel like a bit of a stretch!

TeleMaster

ICBM said:

At the end of the day a solidbody electric guitar - especially one with a fixed bridge - is a very simple construction, and as long as the basic parts and materials are well enough made - which they are on a Squier - then there's no reason the result shouldn't be perfectly playable and good-sounding.

If anything, it's more ridiculous that people are prepared to pay upwards of £2000 for one than that you can get a decent one for under £200. Yes, they're better - but it's utterly diminishing returns before you even get to a fraction of that price.

No one says its not perfectly playable or perfectly good. I'm sure you can get by and do any gig with a Bullet. But it seems ridiculous to me to suggest that you shouldn't get a £2000 guitar with all the contours, the graphite nut, the hand wound custom pickups, locking tuners, the rolled fretboard, stainless frets, the rock solid bridge, the ebony board, hardcase, excellent Musicman quality etc etc because you can get a £200 guitar which doesn't have any of that stuff. 

Compare the two guitars objectively and it's clear to me where the price difference is. 

thegummy

Gerz6558 said:

TeleMaster said:

Gerz6558 said:

TeleMaster said:

The neck on the St Vincent is one of the nicest necks of any guitar I've ever played. I sold it because it had poor higher neck access and got the Albert Lee instead. The upper note access is much better but the neck isn't an ebony board and is slightly thinner, and I miss that neck, even though I prefer the AL overall.

Having had a Bullet when I was younger, I'm scratching my head as to how you can prefer it!!! But I guess, it's all personal isn't it. 

Not sure on previous iterations of bullets, but the current bullet mustangs and tele's have a very good rep. 

No matter how good they are for the price, and putting personal sentiment aside, there is no comparison to a £2300 Musicman.

But if the guy likes the Bullet more he likes it more, and that's absolutely fine. 

Playing devils advocate slightly, but if it feels comfortable, sounds good and stays in tune there is absolutely a comparison there.

My personal feeling is that modern day cheap guitars keep getting better and better, and that lofty premium to the higher end stuff gets more and more difficult to justify.

I find it quite funny to see it being made out that there's such a big difference between high end electric guitars and low end ones, as if they're nothing like each other.

But in the reality of the world - outside the biased mind of us guitar players - they're pretty much exactly the same things, just made sometimes with materials of varying rarity and sometimes made using more labour and/or in a country with higher labour costs.

I don't mean that as a diss against TeleMaster; I know what he's saying. Music Man are very high quality guitars so compared to a low end Squier is probably as big a difference as there can be between guitars.

I just mean in perspective, Joe Bloggs would think they're the same thing and a guitar player could play something on either that the crowd of Bloggs wouldn't be able to tell apart.

Gerz6558

Watching this video of Ron Thorn trying Squiers, he seems pretty happy with what he sees at 8:50:

ICBM

TeleMaster said:

No one says its not perfectly playable or perfectly good. I'm sure you can get by and do any gig with a Bullet. But it seems ridiculous to me to suggest that you shouldn't get a £2000 guitar with all the contours, the graphite nut, the hand wound custom pickups, locking tuners, the rolled fretboard, stainless frets, the rock solid bridge, the ebony board, hardcase, excellent Musicman quality etc etc because you can get a £200 guitar which doesn't have any of that stuff. 

Compare the two guitars objectively and it's clear to me where the price difference is.

I agree, but in terms of the results it’s still enormously diminishing returns. All those upgrades - and they are, in objective terms - make virtually no difference to the quality of the sound.

If anything, they could be counterproductive - I know this is a very stereotypical thing to say but I’ve honestly never liked any MusicMan guitar I’ve ever played, because to me they have no character. Technical perfection doesn’t produce an interesting-sounding guitar.

It’s not reverse snobbery - I own a PRS and have owned several others... and I understand why they’re often said to be sterile or characterless too, but to me they’re a much less over-perfected guitar - and I still prefer my old Japanese Aria, really. (And I wouldn’t pay what a US PRS costs new now either.)

rossi

i know what you mean .Its really down to that guitar suiting you in size weight ,neck etc .I have  a similar love for an old battered vintage Zip I fool around with but its the combination of size ,neck etc.The standard pickup is weird but I installed a gold foil which improves it no end.It doesnt lend its self to mods easily except installing a proper slanting humbucker  .What I really want is a  more up market  version in the same weight ,size neck specs.Too old to bother though .

TeleMaster

Well, if you ask me. This...


And this.


Has much more character than a 2019 Black or Fiesta Red Strat, recycled for the 100th time. These examples with their quirky, offset shape and funky colour schemes look anything but sterile to me.

ICBM

TeleMaster said:

Well, if you ask me. This...

And this.

Has much more character than a 2019 Black or Fiesta Red Strat, recycled for the 100th time. 

To look at, yes. Soundwise, every MusicMan I've ever played has seemed like playing a signal generator - very pure, but with no distinctive tone at all even though they do 'humbucker' and 'single coil' sounds. I don't really like the feel of them either, they just seem very bland.

Like I said, I like PRS, but even then many of them do have some of the same problem.

I once took a pair of MusicMan custom DiMarzios out of an Axis - in which they had sounded bland and flat - and put them in a PRS Custom 22 for no other reason than because the owner wanted zebra coils, and they came with the correct opposite magnetic polarities to work with the rotary switch... and they sounded great. But the replacement Bareknuckles in the Axis also sounded lifeless, and I know they don't normally. So clearly it isn't the pickups.

I totally agree with you that MusicMan build quality is second to none - I'm just not convinced that's a good thing from a player's point of view. It may just be the wrong criteria to judge a guitar by.

thecolourbox

I think the point is not to piss on anybody's chips for their opinion - if you value the finer details and you notice a difference and can afford that difference then all power to you, there's nothing wrong with that. But equally valid is the person who enjoys playing a Bullet Mustang if that enables them to express themselves and enjoy it.

I'm in the cheaper instrument category, not least because I like my VM Mustang but also because I don't feel like my playing would really require something as supposedly nuanced as an expensive instrument. I don't have that level of nuance in my playing to start with, and considering I play in my spare room and record through various ADA converters it almost certainly wouldn't matter if I played my barre chords on a St Vincent or a Bullet Mustang.

TeleMaster

thecolourbox said:

I think the point is not to piss on anybody's chips for their opinion - if you value the finer details and you notice a difference and can afford that difference then all power to you, there's nothing wrong with that. But equally valid is the person who enjoys playing a Bullet Mustang if that enables them to express themselves and enjoy it.

I'm in the cheaper instrument category, not least because I like my VM Mustang but also because I don't feel like my playing would really require something as supposedly nuanced as an expensive instrument. I don't have that level of nuance in my playing to start with, and considering I play in my spare room and record through various ADA converters it almost certainly wouldn't matter if I played my barre chords on a St Vincent or a Bullet Mustang.

No one is pissing on anyone's opinion. Where has that happened? If you look you'll see I've said multiple times that if someone loves their Bullet it's absolutely fine by me, and I've also said that I could happily have one and get by just fine. I just completely and utterly reject the notion that a £200 guitar is essentially the same as a £2500. I emphatically disagree. 

A Fiat Uno gets you from A-B but isn't the same as a Ferrari even if you love your Fiat Uno. 

A painting by your child isn't the same as a Van Gogh even if you love that kids scribbling. 

A can of Fosters isn't the same as a fresh from the Barrell Hoegaarden in Belgium even if you love downing 12 pints of the stuff a night. 

Does it make a difference to the individual? Maybe not. But that doesn't mean that they're the ultimately the same thing. 

But that's just like, my opinion, man.  

Philly_Q

ICBM said:

TeleMaster said:

Well, if you ask me. This...

And this.

Has much more character than a 2019 Black or Fiesta Red Strat, recycled for the 100th time. 

To look at, yes. Soundwise, every MusicMan I've ever played has seemed like playing a signal generator - very pure, but with no distinctive tone at all even though they do 'humbucker' and 'single coil' sounds. I don't really like the feel of them either, they just seem very bland.

Like I said, I like PRS, but even then many of them do have some of the same problem.

I once took a pair of MusicMan custom DiMarzios out of an Axis - in which they had sounded bland and flat - and put them in a PRS Custom 22 for no other reason than because the owner wanted zebra coils, and they came with the correct opposite magnetic polarities to work with the rotary switch... and they sounded great. But the replacement Bareknuckles in the Axis also sounded lifeless, and I know they don't normally. So clearly it isn't the pickups.

I totally agree with you that MusicMan build quality is second to none - I'm just not convinced that's a good thing from a player's point of view. It may just be the wrong criteria to judge a guitar by.

But surely there's no reason why a Music Man guitar should be inherently bland and characterless? 

To use an argument which I see nearly every day on this forum - and which generally drives me up the wall - it's "just two bits of wood bolted together".  And I don't see how crafting those two bits of wood exceptionally well, and fitting them together exceptionally neatly, can somehow rob all MM guitars of life and distinctiveness?

Just regarding the pickups, I had those DiMarzios in an Axis Sport (ash body, not the basswood of the Axis).  DiMarzio say the nearest equivalents in their regular range are the Air Norton and Tone Zone; I had a Tone Zone which I fitted in various guitars and hated every time, but I actually really liked the sound of the Axis Sport!  It's all subjective.

ICBM

Philly_Q said:

But surely there's no reason why a Music Man guitar should be inherently bland and characterless? 

To use an argument which I see nearly every day on this forum - and which generally drives me up the wall - it's "just two bits of wood bolted together".  And I don't see how crafting those two bits of wood exceptionally well, and fitting them together exceptionally neatly, can somehow rob all MM guitars of life and distinctiveness?

By eliminating all the 'bad' resonances, is my guess...

Imagine the most perfect guitar possible, made out of a completely uniform composite material. What would it sound like? Probably like an even more refined signal generator.

Philly_Q said:

It's all subjective.

It is, certainly. But I don't think it's wrong to try to understand why some people might like things that are one way and some might like ones which are the other. I just think that sometimes the wrong factors are taken into account.

Another classic which has been posted here a couple of times is the idea that 'eliminating air gaps' using a 'properly angled full-length shim' when shimming a neck is a the 'best' way to do it. My experience is that it either makes no difference at all or is possibly counterproductive.

thecolourbox

TeleMaster said:

thecolourbox said:

I think the point is not to piss on anybody's chips for their opinion - if you value the finer details and you notice a difference and can afford that difference then all power to you, there's nothing wrong with that. But equally valid is the person who enjoys playing a Bullet Mustang if that enables them to express themselves and enjoy it.

I'm in the cheaper instrument category, not least because I like my VM Mustang but also because I don't feel like my playing would really require something as supposedly nuanced as an expensive instrument. I don't have that level of nuance in my playing to start with, and considering I play in my spare room and record through various ADA converters it almost certainly wouldn't matter if I played my barre chords on a St Vincent or a Bullet Mustang.

No one is pissing on anyone's opinion. Where has that happened? If you look you'll see I've said multiple times that if someone loves their Bullet it's absolutely fine by me, and I've also said that I could happily have one and get by just fine. I just completely and utterly reject the notion that a £200 guitar is essentially the same as a £2500. I emphatically disagree. 

A Fiat Uno gets you from A-B but isn't the same as a Ferrari even if you love your Fiat Uno. 

A painting by your child isn't the same as a Van Gogh even if you love that kids scribbling. 

A can of Fosters isn't the same as a fresh from the Barrell Hoegaarden in Belgium even if you love downing 12 pints of the stuff a night. 

Does it make a difference to the individual? Maybe not. But that doesn't mean that they're the ultimately the same thing. 

But that's just like, my opinion, man.  

Sorry, I wasn't trying to have a go, apologies if it came across like that, I was trying to sound more general than that sentence reads in reality.

I don't think anybody was saying they were the same, but there's no harm in comparing them still on their merits, which is what I'd taken that bit to mean. Just that they both have their place and that the extra you pay for a Musicman is not necessarily going to get you the proportionate return if all you want is something to play music on quickly and easily, compared to somebody who places more value on the workmanship and detail of something like that kind of instrument which is also valid.

A Fiat Uno (or a Panda in my case) actually has many benefits over a Ferrari for my driving usage. I won't get car jacked for it nor will anybody smash my door in to steal its keys, I can drive over speed bumps, it's cheaper to run and takes up less space on my drive. It'll be free to drive in Birmingham city centre when the congestion charge comes in as well. Obviously those who like nice cars would value the £100k price differential differently than me, and that's good for them, but I couldn't even justify the cost difference between my Panda and what my company car Fiesta ST costs let alone that! Because it ultimately still does the same job

dazzajl

TeleMaster said:

thecolourbox said:

I think the point is not to piss on anybody's chips for their opinion - if you value the finer details and you notice a difference and can afford that difference then all power to you, there's nothing wrong with that. But equally valid is the person who enjoys playing a Bullet Mustang if that enables them to express themselves and enjoy it.

I'm in the cheaper instrument category, not least because I like my VM Mustang but also because I don't feel like my playing would really require something as supposedly nuanced as an expensive instrument. I don't have that level of nuance in my playing to start with, and considering I play in my spare room and record through various ADA converters it almost certainly wouldn't matter if I played my barre chords on a St Vincent or a Bullet Mustang.

No one is pissing on anyone's opinion. Where has that happened? If you look you'll see I've said multiple times that if someone loves their Bullet it's absolutely fine by me, and I've also said that I could happily have one and get by just fine. I just completely and utterly reject the notion that a £200 guitar is essentially the same as a £2500. I emphatically disagree. 

A Fiat Uno gets you from A-B but isn't the same as a Ferrari even if you love your Fiat Uno. 

A painting by your child isn't the same as a Van Gogh even if you love that kids scribbling. 

A can of Fosters isn't the same as a fresh from the Barrell Hoegaarden in Belgium even if you love downing 12 pints of the stuff a night. 

Does it make a difference to the individual? Maybe not. But that doesn't mean that they're the ultimately the same thing. 

But that's just like, my opinion, man.  

Well that was a just a stupid post!!

All I can think of now is sitting in the sun at a bar in Spa, enjoying a gorgeous Hoegy.

The Fiat/Ferrari analogy works pretty well. One is functional, one exquisite, both have their place. 

TeleMaster

For what it's worth, I have a fair few guitars. Custom Shop Fender, Gibson, vintage Fender, modern spec Gibson, Ibanez, a couple MusicMan, a Duesenberg.

The Albert Lee is my best sounding, feeling and playing guitar. Just the other day I was saying that if I could only keep one it would be that. 

So the bland, lifeless, sterile argument doesn't hold true for me. But of course, for others it does. I just don't see the PRS comparison. Funky colours and stylings, they're quirky and eccentric if anything. 

@thecolourbox Careful, someone could still jack your Uno!

Powderfinger

Fiftyshadesofjay said:

Seriously.

Just been messing about here at home and I can play that Mustang so much better than either my Musicman St Vincent or Gretsch Pro.

Probably because I’m such a short arse and have tiny sausage fingers but it’s genuinely effortless on the Mustang, it has a small neck, fairly big frets, flat radius, everything that works.

Dare I say it the pickups sound just as good as well.

Seriously tempted to sell the others and get a couple of these, maybe a nicer Mustang just because. They just work for me.

Anyone else have similar experiences? Am I mental. I know they’re great guitars for the money for sure.

Coming back to Fifty's original question...
Yes, I have had similar experiences and no your not mental.

As others have said it's about the right guitar for you and where and how you play it. (not necessarily the cost).

Accrued a few (and lovley) guitars over the years. Which ones do I pick up the most?

My Strat Bullet and an Adam Black Orion! I prefer both to my standard Strat and LP, totally personal.

No doubt the standards are fine guitars , the pups are superior - but not by so much!

But the feel and playability of the cheaper ones is better for me, and here's the clincher.. I get the most joy out of playing them.

Is that not what its about?

TeleMaster

dazzajl said:

TeleMaster said:

thecolourbox said:

I think the point is not to piss on anybody's chips for their opinion - if you value the finer details and you notice a difference and can afford that difference then all power to you, there's nothing wrong with that. But equally valid is the person who enjoys playing a Bullet Mustang if that enables them to express themselves and enjoy it.

I'm in the cheaper instrument category, not least because I like my VM Mustang but also because I don't feel like my playing would really require something as supposedly nuanced as an expensive instrument. I don't have that level of nuance in my playing to start with, and considering I play in my spare room and record through various ADA converters it almost certainly wouldn't matter if I played my barre chords on a St Vincent or a Bullet Mustang.

No one is pissing on anyone's opinion. Where has that happened? If you look you'll see I've said multiple times that if someone loves their Bullet it's absolutely fine by me, and I've also said that I could happily have one and get by just fine. I just completely and utterly reject the notion that a £200 guitar is essentially the same as a £2500. I emphatically disagree. 

A Fiat Uno gets you from A-B but isn't the same as a Ferrari even if you love your Fiat Uno. 

A painting by your child isn't the same as a Van Gogh even if you love that kids scribbling. 

A can of Fosters isn't the same as a fresh from the Barrell Hoegaarden in Belgium even if you love downing 12 pints of the stuff a night. 

Does it make a difference to the individual? Maybe not. But that doesn't mean that they're the ultimately the same thing. 

But that's just like, my opinion, man.  

Well that was a just a stupid post!!

All I can think of now is sitting in the sun at a bar in Spa, enjoying a gorgeous Hoegy.

The Fiat/Ferrari analogy works pretty well. One is functional, one exquisite, both have their place. 

One of my favourite memories is of me and my mate in Interlaken a few years ago. We drove all of the fast passes (Susstenpass etc) in Switzerland in my Focus ST and ended up at a German schnitzel house drinking steiners of Hoegaarden straight from the barrel. Good times.