Strat, Tele, or Les Paul?

I consider guitars as tools to get a particular musical job done. I've been trying to get my head around the context in which a strat, tele or Les Paul would best be used.

Playing on a disco or funk track? Any of the three could probably do the job if dialed in right, but must folks would grab the strat.

Down tuned metal? Again all three could be pressed into service, but most folks would grab the Les Paul.


Those are two examples. I'm trying to get a better understanding of what the signature tone for each instrument is best used for and I'm hoping the collective wisdom on this forum might shed some light on the matter.

Everywhere I go on youtube I merely find all three guitars compared playing the same riff through the same amp/effects. This is like comparing a saw, a screw driver and a hammer to see which one drives in a nail best.

For me, the defining element is the pickup output. The (relatively) lower output of single coils lends itself to musical styles that have a cleaner guitar sound - Jazz, Pop, Country, Funk, etc. and higher output humbuckers lend themselves to more overdrive and the musical styles that use it - rock, metal, punk, etc. - but even then, the difference is relatively minor, so there's a lot of crossover in the middle.

Trouble is, perception is everything and when you hear C&W, you think Telecaster.... you hear the term hard rock, you think LP.... you hear pop, you think Strat but the reality is that most of us in here have covered all styles with whatever guitar we were gigging at the time; in my case, a Vantage VA900, which was equipped with 2 humbuckers, coil split and phase reversed with on board boost and effective tone controls so I could do a pretty fair imitation of most sounds I was after... and I'll bet all the gigging musos in here will say the same!

I will say that I think a Stratocaster is just the coolest looking guitar, and a pretty good tool for a muso to boot!

The best guitar, however, is the one that you like at that time and that you feel most at home with!

I guess its the stereotypes I'm fishing for, just as a starting point to understanding guitar sound a little better.

Yeah, comes down to personal preference.

If I had to be on a desert island without ALL of my PBG builds I'd cry for days.

Buuuut, the ultimate to me would be a tele with a tweed deluxe. A tele can do almost anything. The Jazz of Julian Lage or Bill Frissel, the rock sound of of Jimmy Page, etc etc and the list goes on.

however, again to me, nothing but a Strat can sound like certain Knopfler fingerings on that famous in-between setting.

Even though a telebridge pup can get awesome rock tones, a single coil can't match the effortless girth and output of a humbucker without some sort of pedal assistance, even then it doesn't "feel" the same.

Then you can put a humbucker into any style, tele, strat, LP, SG or an ES and, to me, they sound totally different. You can her a single coil tele and a tele with humbuckers on Kirk Fletchers new album. He recorded the whole album with both types.

You can get close to a Freddy King sound with an LP but then again its missing the throaty neck and raspy bridge positions of an ES.

Sorry, rant over. I just love em all.

I've been thinking the same things for a while. my current build, the Tele with a bridge humbucker ( splitable) is probably the closest I've got to "the all purpose guitar"...for me.

A Strat, Tele, or Les Paul is capable of handling pretty much any genre of guitar-based music, especially the Tele, when the first Teles were manufactured by Fender in the late 40's and early 50's, it was mostly played by country & western guitarists, so it came to be regarded as mostly a country & western guitar, then lots of the early Blues guitarists started playing them, Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones plays them, next time you're on youtube try doing a search for the song "Whatever You Want" by Status Quo, the two guitarists are playing Teles, that's a good example of Teles being played in a Rock context, Teles can also do Surf Rock, as can Strats, try doing a youtube search of "Wipeout" by The Ventures, and check out the guitar Nookie Edwards is playing.

A lot of it is really down to attitude and personal playing style really.


Oh yes, Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd's original guitarist and frontman, played a white Tele too.

The Telecaster has a solid workhorse-like vibe about it that's similar to a Les Paul, but with more of a Fender tone to it, the so called Tele "Twang", I think Leo Fender got the design spot-on right the first time, he was basically designing a guitar that was as simple and inexpensive to manufacture as possible, but the funny thing is, those early 50's Teles are highly sought-after and can command high prices, originally, it was known as the Broadcaster but Leo Fender had to change the name to Telecaster (it was named that after regular TV telecasting started in the early 50's) in order to avoid being sued by the Gretsch company since they were manufacturing a drum kit called the Broadkaster (note the spelling).

Fender also manufactured a similar guitar called the Esquire, it looked the same like a regular standard Telecaster except that it only had a single bridge pickup.

https://youtu.be/gRQlEYQYoLI

Bill covers a lot of sonic territory on a Tele right here

https://youtu.be/VMcMmrvyEII

Metal (or something like it) with a great twangy single coil sound:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a52CJNru0OY

Two guitar parts - a Strat and the middle coil of an Ibanez with a HSH configuration.

John 5 from Marylin Manson played a Telecaster, Bruce Springsteen plays one too, the thing I like most about the Telecaster is that you can really dig into the string with your picking because of the fixed bridge system, I also like the simplicity too, very easy to navigate your way through the three pickup combinations, I think my 2014 Fender Mexican Telecaster is wired-up same as what a 1966 Telecaster is, that is, Master Volume and Tone, and Neck, Neck + Bridge, and Bridge pickup selections, it works for me anyway.

More reasons to love Teles:

- Pete Townshend loved them back in the days of wanton stage destruction. You could subject them to a world of abuse, and they were bulletproof. At worst, you'd bolt a new neck on and away you go.
- Chris Cornell loved them because you could set your intonation regardless of whatever oddball tuning any particular song required.

some heavy Tele
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h9CSWbeRiY

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dedman

some heavy Tele

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Very cool - and very reminiscent of Blood Ceremony

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dedman

some heavy Tele
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h9CSWbeRiY

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These guys and Unleash the Archers are in high rotation in the car at the moment.

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Originally Posted by DrNomis_44

When the first Teles were manufactured by Fender in the late 40's and early 50's, it was mostly played by country & western guitarist

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Initially Western Swing guitarists, and then Country guitarists. Country and Western Swing really are two different types of music - or at least they were at the time. Hence the famous blues Brothers quote:

"What kind of music do you usually have here?"
"We got both kinds, we got country and western"

However. it was quickly taken up by many blues guitarists as well.

Here's a decent example of Western Swing with local boy Stuie French on guitar and his beautiful wife Camille on vocals, sitting in with Vince Gill's jam band the Time Jumpers.

WS has heavy jazz influences

https://youtu.be/5DoBRa6S8do

I couldn't resist another example of Western Swing with Stuie & Camille, this time with their band the Feral Swing Katz.

Damn the man can play a bit :D

https://youtu.be/CUxQFlhOfJU

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

Initially Western Swing guitarists, and then Country guitarists. Country and Western Swing really are two different types of music - or at least they were at the time. Hence the famous blues Brothers quote:

"What kind of music do you usually have here?"
"We got both kinds, we got country and western"

However. it was quickly taken up by many blues guitarists as well.

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You're quite right there, personally I think the Telecaster is one of the ideal guitars for playing Blues, the fixed bridge system helps a lot when doing string bends, of course the Les Paul has a fixed bridge system too, but then again the Stratocaster was also adopted by many Blues guitarists as well, such as Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan.

But the Telecaster does exude a lot of cool-ness, Australia's Tommy Emmanuel plays Telecasters, I saw a cool video of him jamming onstage with Joe Satriani on youtube, I'll have to see if I can find it and post a link to it.

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Originally Posted by dave.king1

I couldn't resist another example of Western Swing with Stuie & Camille, this time with their band the Feral Swing Katz.

Damn the man can play a bit :D

https://youtu.be/CUxQFlhOfJU

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Michel Rose is a wizard on the pedal steel too.

Did a few gigs with them when Shane Flew was on drums.

i think most guys here own or built all three me im a strat or super strat guy but love a night on my teles, all 3 have their good points and bad points just get what you like, i have a ibanez iron series with 26.5 scale length and drop tune metal is my weapon of choice. if you're buying a guitar and not building go to a shop and try them all, as for the comment a tele can chicken pick and CW they can do rock just as easy