posh strats/teles/LPs etc

p90fool

robgilmo said:

For me a posh guitar would be something very old. A lovely vintage Tele for instance.

A US Standard in other words, from an era before we started paying a "Custom Shop" (which is one of the biggest guitar factories in the world btw) to replicate it by bolting a $70 piece of alder to a $90 piece of maple.

Don't get me wrong, they're beautifully made, but there's a limit to how much care and attention you can give a few hundred dollars' worth of parts to make them retail for many thousands.

In the spring I put together a pretty much exact replica of my '63 Strat for £550, and that was at retail prices.

I decided I wasn't going to scrimp on anything and I didn't, I honestly don't know where I could've thrown more money at it.

If I wanted a brand new Gibson Super 400 I'd expect to pay the price of a nice used car for it, but Custom Shop Telecasters are The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle IMO.

TTBZ

I loved the affinity tele I played, I'll have one eventually I suspect! I don't really "get" expensive fender style guitars, they mostly feel the same to me. In my mind they've always been simple cheap tools to play music on.

Strangefan

I owned a custom shop dealer select stray, and whilst it was a brilliant guitar which sounded great I really struggled to see the difference to one of my older USA standards, it has josiphina pickups which sounded just like a strat pickup.
i traded it for a prs which felt like it was worth the price .... horses for courses .

DrBob

I don't have any particular angle on it, if i
had the cash I probably would own some CS guitars but that said, the thing that strikes me is that conceptually the Fender Custom Shop is a weird idea. I know that Fenders were never a budget item but instead serious tools for musicians but at the very core of the design the modular construction methods are there to make it a production line instrument so to then hand make one & charge 8k for it feels a bit counter intuitive in the same way that paying £350 for a pair of jeans or £60 for a Cheeseburger.

IvisonGuitars

While i like the look and sound of the CS guitars, I've owned a few and they've been great, what I can't get my head around is the Team Built/Masterbuilt thing. I realise it's to service a market but I recently saw a 'Masterbuilt' Relic Strat, a one off built by Jason Smith or one other of the CS 'names' and it was more money than the actual vintage equivalent Strat. 

Now that is just crazy to me.

Whitecat

Other than wood choices etc (if you're into the exotic), IME it's far easier to make a second-rate Fender into something useful than it is a Gibson... and yes, it does seem like the CS models come with a certain je ne sais quoi that might simply be the factory setup, since often US and other imports need work on that front. Taking about standard US vs CS the basic parts are often the same otherwise.

Even for the basic woods, the CS pile does seem to have the pick of the lightweight timbers. Very rare to see a CS Strat over 8lbs for example, unless it's been specced that way intentionally (The Edge claims to like heavy Strats, for example).

crunchman

Generally CS Strats seem to have vintage style hardware.  For me the 6 screw bridge massively improves the tone of a Strat.  How many people hear this and put it down to the guitar being "better" because it's Custom Shop rather than the bridge I don't know.  Going back to the OP saying he likes US Standards, it does depend on the individual guitar, but if I had to buy without playing first, I'd get a Mexican made Classic 50s or Classic 60s ahead of a US Standard because they have the vintage bridge.  I've played one or 2 CS guitars with the 2 point bridge and they were distinctly underwhelming.

As others have stated, the nitro finish looks nicer - especially after you have had it a few years.

The US made AVRIs can be very good.  They have the vintage bridge and the nitro finish.

There is also something to the argument that the CS guitars get the better wood - especially with Gibson.  The regular factory made LPs are all weight relieved (or very heavy) as the mahogany is too heavy.  The CS guitars get the nice lightweight mahogany that means that they can make them the proper way.

The purists will also argue that the traditional long tenon that the CS Gibsons have is also important.

Teetonetal

I own:
Jap Custom shop strat
USA MB (Denis Galuszka) Tele
Indonesian Tele (SD pickups)
MIM Tele (Fender custom shop pickups)
Jap Tele.

In terms of feel, I think they rate themselves in price order - just
In terms of sound they are all great.

The one I use the most is the Indonesian one.

My conclusion is the difference is mostly marketing, 

jeztone2

Fender have been quite sneaky in creating demand by only offering Modern C on the majority of their contemporary guitars.

i spent an afternoon 10 years ago with a CS Clapton Strat, an Eric Johnson sig & finally a FSR American Deluxe 62 Strat which was a  American Deluxe/62 reissue hybrid. It was essentially a 22 Fret 62 reissue with bigger frets, a flatter radius & noiseless pickups. The Clapton & Johnson were lovely. But the FSR was the best guitar by a mile.

In the end I decided to buy a Kotzen Signature as it has the modern radius & big frets on a chunky big C neck. Construction wise it's as good as anything I've played. CS or otherwise. 

But it if Fender made a contemporary Strat with a 60's neck profile, modern radius & big frets, I'd be in like Flynn. I suspect a lot of other players would be too. Because for my big shovel hands I get fatigue & ache's with modern C. 

Also so Fender should do a run of Clapton sig's with big frets. Face it I'm nearly 50 & grew up on an Ibanez Superstrat. Surely the days of vintage frets are over?

crunchman

jeztone2 said:

Surely the days of vintage frets are over?

I prefer vintage to frets to jumbos.

I also quite like vintage radius.  I'm quite happy with 9.5" on a Fender as well but I don't like really flat.

I was playing for something in the summer where we had a few 4 or 5 hour practices.  For the first one I used my SG which has bigger frets, shorter scale and a really easy playing neck and my wrist got sore.  After that I used my 62 reissue Strat with 7.25" radius and vintage style frets and I was absolutely fine.

dindude

p90fool said:

robgilmo said:

For me a posh guitar would be something very old. A lovely vintage Tele for instance.

A US Standard in other words, from an era before we started paying a "Custom Shop" (which is one of the biggest guitar factories in the world btw) to replicate it by bolting a $70 piece of alder to a $90 piece of maple.

Don't get me wrong, they're beautifully made, but there's a limit to how much care and attention you can give a few hundred dollars' worth of parts to make them retail for many thousands.

In the spring I put together a pretty much exact replica of my '63 Strat for £550, and that was at retail prices.

I decided I wasn't going to scrimp on anything and I didn't, I honestly don't know where I could've thrown more money at it.

I take it you must have finished (I.e painted) it yourself? And done a fret job, nut cut etc yourself for that price?

ESBlonde

The number of hit records made without the benefit of custom shop guitars or actual vintage instruments astounds me!





Mostly musicians buy these expensive acoutriments with the proceeds earned on a £400 guitar.

Whitecat

ESBlonde said:

The number of hit records made without the benefit of custom shop guitars or actual vintage instruments astounds me!





Mostly musicians buy these expensive acoutriments with the proceeds earned on a £400 guitar.

#difficultsecondalbum

IvisonGuitars

ESBlonde said:

The number of hit records made without the benefit of custom shop guitars or actual vintage instruments astounds me!





Mostly musicians buy these expensive acoutriments with the proceeds earned on a £400 guitar.

Well, I agree, they used to.

But nowadays, now the working class musician has given over to the middle class 'daddy paid for me to make my little album on my gap year' indie shmindy hipsters....Custom Shop and Vintage Fender Mustangs abound.... ;-)

ESBlonde

miserneil said:

ESBlonde said:

The number of hit records made without the benefit of custom shop guitars or actual vintage instruments astounds me!





Mostly musicians buy these expensive acoutriments with the proceeds earned on a £400 guitar.

Well, I agree, they used to.

But nowadays, now the working class musician has given over to the middle class 'daddy paid for me to make my little album on my gap year' indie shmindy hipsters....Custom Shop and Vintage Fender Mustangs abound.... ;-)

Yes but hit records don't!
;-)

p90fool

dindude said:

p90fool said:

robgilmo said:

For me a posh guitar would be something very old. A lovely vintage Tele for instance.

A US Standard in other words, from an era before we started paying a "Custom Shop" (which is one of the biggest guitar factories in the world btw) to replicate it by bolting a $70 piece of alder to a $90 piece of maple.

Don't get me wrong, they're beautifully made, but there's a limit to how much care and attention you can give a few hundred dollars' worth of parts to make them retail for many thousands.

In the spring I put together a pretty much exact replica of my '63 Strat for £550, and that was at retail prices.

I decided I wasn't going to scrimp on anything and I didn't, I honestly don't know where I could've thrown more money at it.

I take it you must have finished (I.e painted) it yourself? And done a fret job, nut cut etc yourself for that price?

I bought a 2 month old Fender neck with tuners on here, and two cans of Olympic white nitro, some undercoat and sprayed the body myself. 

The £145 used neck obviously made a fair difference to my final outlay but everything else was brand new. 
Tbh even if the neck had been new I'd have struggled to spend 3 grand without encrusting it with diamonds. 

The rest was all brand new AVRI, a fabulous Wudtone bridge and a 2 piece American alder body with correct 1963 contours. 

It sounded spot on before I even plugged it in, I knew I'd nailed it first time. 

We can argue about infinitesimal differences all day, but it all leads to the inevitable conclusion that the likes of John Cruz are charging around a thousand dollars per neck bolt. 
 

siraxeman

this week, I has been mostly hearin' that Fender and Gibson Custom shops has some special magic mojo they mix into the paints and grain filler that is not includeded therein on them there sub Standard ranges....

midlifecrisis

miserneil said:

ESBlonde said:

The number of hit records made without the benefit of custom shop guitars or actual vintage instruments astounds me!





Mostly musicians buy these expensive acoutriments with the proceeds earned on a £400 guitar.

Well, I agree, they used to.

But nowadays, now the working class musician has given over to the middle class 'daddy paid for me to make my little album on my gap year' indie shmindy hipsters....Custom Shop and Vintage Fender Mustangs abound.... ;-)

id imagine, that a player may start off on a cheap squier or equivalent and as soon as they start making it big, fender/gibson are only to keen to give them high end stuff. as they want stars to be using the "best" not showing that the cheap gear is good enough and you dont need to spend big bucks

IvisonGuitars

midlifecrisis said:

miserneil said:

ESBlonde said:

The number of hit records made without the benefit of custom shop guitars or actual vintage instruments astounds me!





Mostly musicians buy these expensive acoutriments with the proceeds earned on a £400 guitar.

Well, I agree, they used to.

But nowadays, now the working class musician has given over to the middle class 'daddy paid for me to make my little album on my gap year' indie shmindy hipsters....Custom Shop and Vintage Fender Mustangs abound.... ;-)

id imagine, that a player may start off on a cheap squier or equivalent and as soon as they start making it big, fender/gibson are only to keen to give them high end stuff. as they want stars to be using the "best" not showing that the cheap gear is good enough and you dont need to spend big bucks

Well, that certainly used to happen but the big brands are so stretched, like everyone else in retail, that endorsements are much harder to come by these days. The bands need to have a proven track record. 20 years ago, you could walk into *insert large Guitar brand here*, choose a couple of nice guitars 'on loan' and you were set for good. Not nearly so easy these days.

Whitecat

^^ - yep. There is usually endorser pricing... you can BUY a guitar for much less than us plebs have to pay, but getting one absolutely for free is almost unheard of nowadays.

Loaner instruments for free are pretty common though for short-term stuff. If you were going to play Jools Holland or Glastonbury and wanted to borrow a high-end guitar you would almost certainly be helped out if you had a relationship with the company.