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Tele vs Strat

4K views 72 replies 43 participants last post by  Steadfastly 
#1 ·
Preferences and why you like one or the other.
 
#13 · (Edited)
Tele, without question.

I love the way they feel and sound. As much as I like my LP, my Tele is my #1. I love everything about that guitar (except the pickups that came in it but I am finally getting around to changing those this week). Teles just seem to fit me like a glove, moreso than pretty much any other guitar. And sound wise they are unbelievably versatile. I think Teles and ES guitars (335, 355, etc.) are the most versatile ones out there.
 
#17 ·
Some people really like the feel, sound and look of a strat. I really like the look, feel and sound of a tele.

However, I wouldn't be very upset to own an Ibanez JEM.
 
#19 ·
Strats are great to be sure; lottsa awesome music played on them and no way to say which is better.

But for me a telecaster is primordial like a war club - it’s like when that ape in 2001 picks up a femur bone and discovers how to use it to smash shit ... weaponized music ... lol
 
#20 ·
Tele hands down. Incredibly versatile, and tough as nails. I left mine the cold car for a week, played it for 2 hours in a warm house, and put it away again for a few days. Still haven't needed to tune. The bridge pickup tone is like nothing else in the guitar world. I play everything from 50s country, through 60s blues and 70s hard rock, all the way to 80s metal with my Esquire. And such a classic, classy appearance. When I throw my Esquire on, I feel like I'm wearing a tuxedo.
 
#22 ·
I have a Nashville Tele (3 pickup) with a Lollar Special T pickup in the bridge and a Twang King in the neck. It does all the Strat sounds, has the neck/bridge as my middle position, and the bridge does Strat or Tele with a bit of volume roll. I had a nice Strat for years, but they're not my thing.
 
#23 · (Edited)
I rejigged my Turser Tele clone to be a Nashville Tele, and wound the pickups myself. HOWEVER...the electronics are hotrodded.

The traditional 5-way switch on a Strat does not provide the classic N+B Tele sound. If one flips the leads from the middle and bridge pickups at the pickup selector, though, you get:
neck
neck+bridge
bridge
bridge+middle
middle

You sacrifice one of the "cluck" positions but regain the Tele N+B. So, best of both T and S worlds.
I also use a "bi-directional" tone control. Middle position is no cut. One direction provides the traditional muting cut, and the other direction provides a nice vocal "rounding" of the tone that also changes the resonance of the sound in a pleasing way. Because what is normally the full rotation of the tone pot is condensed into half its rotation, if you situate the tone pot conveniently, you can use it for "pinky wah", like Danny Gatton used to do. I just wish I could find a 1meg linear (or W - log/antilog) taper pot with a center detente so that I could feel when it was in the middle, rather than having to look.

I mentioned it on another thread here, but the Jerry Donahue Tele uses a neat trick that the late Bill Lawrence came up with. Normally, flipping the phase of one of the pickups in a pair gets you a reedy thin tone with a big volume drop. Lawrence's idea was what he called "half out-of-phase". Take the neck pickup on a Tele, flip the phase, but feed it to the selector through a cap that cuts out much of the bass. When combined with the bridge pickup, the result is strikingly like the neck+middle position on a Strat. Shockingly so. Forum member Amagras tried out a guitar of mine where I had done this, and he was very pleasantly surprised by the resemblance to a Strat.

All of that said, I just like the way a Tele feels. I like what a hardtail bridge does to the sound as well.
 
#28 ·
Ya gotta have both. Sure, there's some overlap, but there's also enough unique features (vibrator on a Strat, that bridge pup in the Tele) in each to make them different beasts. I think you also have to have a humbucker guitar or two. Or 10.

I can see how some people just want one or the other. For years I was not into Tele's, I thought they were too 'square' or genre-specific or whatever, but once I got a good one, I'm loving it. It's got it's own thing going on.
 
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#30 ·
Many years ago I decided that I should focus my time and money on just one twangy bright guitar and one dark woody guitar, mostly to protect me from GAS.

Not long after, I was walking out my door one morning, on the way to work. It was garbage day, and I noticed a Tokai strat sticking out of my neighbour's garbage can.

So my answer is Strat.

It's what the universe wanted.
 
#31 ·
Many years ago I decided that I should focus my time and money on just one twangy bright guitar and one dark woody guitar, mostly to protect me from GAS.

Not long after, I was walking out my door one morning, on the way to work. It was garbage day, and I noticed a Tokai strat sticking out of my neighbour's garbage can.

So my answer is Strat.

It's what the universe wanted.
I'm going to have to pay more attention to my neighbors garbage.
 
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