Strat?

A Strat is a very good candidate.

A Les Paul Special or any good Les Paul with a brace of P-90 "soap-bars" is a real sleeper when it comes to extreme versatility. Between the controls and ones "touch", you can play damn near any style or sound with one, impersonating Strats, Teles, Gretsches, Rics, 335's and, yeah, Les Pauls.

Bolt-on necks will deal with string tensions that would fold an SG in half, but I think you'd want to switch out the pup's for different sounds, like a HB, and maybe even a P-90, as well as the distinctive Strat sound. Having a guitar you can dismantle with a screwdriver makes customizing pretty easy, as well. Maybe not the most versatile guitar ever made, but a good candidate, and I say that as a long-time Gibson player.

I own a mexican strat and I pretty much like its sounds. I tried other guitars and found myself trying to get a strat sound out of everything, except for my hollow body Ibanez Joe Pass.
I was thinking I would like an SG or a Les Paul, but some listening at the local shop convinced me to stay with the strat.
At an exhibition I tried an aluminium guitar with two P90s (this one) and I was blown away with its sound palette: could go from Telecaster blang to hollow body jazz and everything in between.
This convinced me that if I am going to look for a different instrument, it will have two P90s.

As Fred would say: "It's not the wand, it's the magician"...They are all good, you just have to pick the one that works best for you and whatever it is that you are currently up to. I love my Strats, but have been using my Taylors for the last couple of years or so...

+1

I replaced the 490/492 combo in my Studio with P94s many years ago and have not looked back. Granted, it's got too much "whiskey n cigarettes" in the tone to cop a strat sound, but I can still get fairly "chimey". However, I will concede that some tweaking of the amp is required...no getting around that.

I consider every piece of gear, whether guitar, amp, effect, whatever, to be an instrument. You simply must get to know them and their abilities/limitations. I really think way too many players, even experienced ones, just dime the volume and tone on the guitar and call it a day. There's lots of tonal versatility there to be had, if you're willing to put some time in.

the most versatile guitar is a piano.

seriously, for me personally it is a "Strat" with hss setup and a wang bar.

Ibanez RG guitar series is my pick, I have had strats, tele's, Les Pauls, SG's, and a variety of Ibanez & other make axes and the most versatile guitar I have ever owned is the RG321 that I bought a half dozen years ago and fell instantly in love with it.

A good tele can cover a lot of ground.

Similar to dbm, I've got me an Ibanez that is super versatile. It's an SA something or other, 2 HB with coil taps, non locking term that respects sensible use, mahogany body, set neck on a 25 1/2 inch scale.

I love the thickness of a set neck for single note stuff, but need the snap of the Strat scale. Got it for $200 sh with a good gig bag and use it for heaps of different stuff.

It's one of these

http://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/images.asp?image=110/px-NE15JE1622f.jpg&SKU=px-NE15JE1622

I'm thinking a high-end Parker Fly, a Moog Paul Vo, or a Crimson Robert Fripp sig.

If I had to put up with only one guitar in my life it'd be a 335 fitted with Humbucker-shaped P90s - or an original Epiphone Casino, although that's a wee bit of a different animal.....

G.

MOST versatile? How about a Godin XTSA? H/S/H pickup configuration, plus piezo/acoustic sounds, plus synth. What CAN'T it do?

There was a guitar maker I saw in a 12 year old issue of GUITAR WORLD magazine that boasted MIDI inputs rather than phoning jacks to make it able to plug into various synth devices. I can't remember anything else except they looked very nice and the name started with a "B".

Any idea of what I'm talkin' about?
Whitefang

Variaxe and VG88 comes to mind!

Guitar > P/U > Stomps > Pre > Effects > Amp > Speaker > Mic > Studio Effects

Not that I like to play them...

Strat, 335, Lp, and Tele....in that order...IMHO.

Teye for me.

Gotta go with the Variax. There isn't anything more versatile, especially with one of their gadgets that allows you to switch guitar and amp with one kick of a switch.

Welcome aboard BB Kink!

I have been thinking about this thread for a few days..and really can't come up with an answer. When I was playing in bands a lot I never kept a guitar long enough to be versatile.

The oldest one I still have I bought nearly new and it's a 67 SG.

of course the Variax wins... or a VG Strat... but discounting those for cheating...

I have to say a Strat... I'd gotten tired of them, but for cover gigs you can cover everything without switching guitars if you wanted... I have one with the noiseless pickups, the 7 way switching, an onboard 2 stage mid-boost, and with a few pedals like the THD Quintet and Giggity I can make it sound close enough to a Les Paul when I need... even get into ES 335 territory. Les Pauls with the coil-splitting stuff can get close enough to strat... I have one that can get kind of quacky, but the Strat gets closer to the Gibson sound that the LP gets to the Strat sound.

ES 335s are pretty great, too... guys who have mastered the volume knob on those can get a variety of great sounds without anything else, and some of the low volume "woody" sounds they can do are awesome.

The Gibsons that were designed to get into Fender sound territory like SGs and Firebirds... it's weird that most people never use them for anything like that, with the exception of Elliot Easton and Ric Ocasek and their SGs. And I guess Clapton with the SG was working his way to a Fender tone.

Not too sure about the Strat as a choice. I find, while good for clean and mid-gain tones, I just find it lacking in the higher gain department. (I know, ask Yngvie about that!) With a humbucker in the bridge position it comes a little closer.

Variax wins hands down for versatility (I have a James Tyler '59), but I do agree that's kind of cheating.

If you can get a guitar with humbuckers that split coils,they're wildly flexible. I have a Bill Nash modded 60s Les Paul Standard with splittable Lollar pickups and I can get great LP, Tele and Strat tones along with hybrid tones with different combinations of full and split pickups.