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Best Allaround Electric Guitar For Recording Session Work?


Threshold

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Guitarist's,

 

If you had to take a vote for one electric guitar you would reach for to do recording session work with, which one would it be? When considering please take thought in the fact that this includes doing Rock, (Funk/R&B/Hip-Hop), Country, & Jazz sessions.

 

Threshold.

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Sorry, but ya gotta have two. A Strat or Tele (or equivalent), and a Les Paul (or equivalent). Those two types of guitars will cover 90% of all recorded guitar sounds. They are so different that you really can't make one type sound like the other. One in each hand isn't too much to deal with.

 

One guitar can't do it. That's why I have 8 guitars. Or, at least that's how I justify having 8 guitars, anyway.

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I think that the Fender Telecaster is the most recorded guitar on the planet. It can go from a Jazz tone to Jimmy Page's solo on "Stairway To Heaven" with almost every country song ever done in between. Every guitarist needs at least one good Tele. I guess you can tell it's my all around favorite. My first solidbody was a Tele and I still have a Tele that rocks. I now use a Tele Custom style which was given to me by ESP Guitars.

Mac Bowne

G-Clef Acoustics Ltd.

Osaka, Japan

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You guys really know what your talking about :) . I own an American Fat Tele and absolutly adore it. I can mimic a LP and Strat with it b/c of the 5 way switch. If you look almost everyone has a tele. Even guys like Satriani or Vai with their wacked out custom ibanez still find room for that Tele Twang and Bassy Rhythm. The reason they are so great is that they were the first real solid body guitar to take on the Archtops of the day back in '51. So everyone is their dog has used the tele.

 

However I think the world's greatest rhythm guitar is the Fender Jazzmaster which I dont own. If only I could have separate guitars for my rhythm and lead :( .

"Only Country Players play Teles"

"No what about Jimmy Page?"

"Oh never mind"

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Tele's got it. I read a story about Mike Bloomfield arriving at Dylan's Highway 61 session during a New York snow storm. He walked in with the caseless white snow covered tele and banged it against the wall to shake off the snow then went to work. A working man's guitar for sure.

Tommy Tedesco used one for most of the television work he did.

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Try a Tele with a four way switch for series/parallel connection of both pickups in pos.4. It makes the most versitile Tele EVER!!! One pickup must be reversed wound/reversed polarity for this to work and it makes the 4th pos spot into a giant Humbucker, can you say F.A.T.!!!!
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mzeger...Don't forget Eric Johnson! A trade I did last year was for a splendid ES-335 style axe, a Hohner HS-35. I always thought that particular design was way more versatile than a Les Paul, for all the reasons you cited. It can sound like many different instruments, like the Tele can. LP's and Strats, while wonderful, are still pretty darn recognizable as being LP's and Strats when recorded, unless they're processed or distorted to death.

 

One guitar? Heaven forbid...but I'd still take my Tele, if I could only have one.

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I won't disagree with either Tele or 335's--either instrument can handle just about any musical style (with the exception of metal).

 

I would add that the pre-Gibson era Steinberger L and M series guitars make great studio axes. Intonation and tuning stability on these instruments are excellent, plus the EMG's give you a clear, noise-free signal.

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Tommy Tedesco used one for most of the television work he did.

 

I thought he used a Jaguar as along with the other 70's-80's new wavers like Elvis Costello when they tried in vain to resurect the "Surf Guitar" Jaguar and Jazzmaster.

 

Most Teles that have the 4 way switch are from the Custom Shop (Merle Haggard, Will Ray, Wayland Jennings) and a tad out of my price range and well.

 

Anyone ever seen Page's Tele from their first 3 records. Its a beautiful white blonde with a Dragon painted on it. Diffently cool.

"Only Country Players play Teles"

"No what about Jimmy Page?"

"Oh never mind"

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Are we Strat lovers just gonna roll over and take all this ? (cereal)

 

I say no. I like teles, i like G-345s... but me personally, i'd take my beat up old strat into the studio. This guitar can run the gamut of flavours in all the styles i could sit in on.

It'll surf, it'll twang the tear out of your beer, it'll 'scuze you while you kiss the sky, it'll conjure up a Texas Flood, it'll take you to Coolsville with a slightly clearer tone than a jazz box. No it's not a les paul, no it's not a Jackson or Ibanez metal guitar, and yes it still has singlecoils, and yes i did block the trem, but i could probably surprise you guys with the roaring metal tone this guitar will push.

 

70% of the tone is in your fingers anyways.

;)

Dr. Seuss: The Original White Rapper

.

WWND?

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I did not know that a Tele was the 'most recorded guitar'. I would have put my money on a Strat being number 1. Hey, what do I know.

For me, if I was to be put on a desert island with a studio and only one guitar to choose from, I'd pick a PRS.

The PRS can do a 'half-way' version of all the 'pop' guitars, and a couple more.

In two days, it won't matter.
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I'd have to go with an HSH equipped Ibanez RG with an Edge tremolo. These guitars can twang with custom pickups. They really are a swiss army knife of a guitar. What are you going to do with a strat or a tele if the peice calls for some serious whammy action? I dunno, I just think these gits get the metal label and people dismiss them too quickly.

 

[ 12-15-2001: Message edited by: chameleon ]

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KHAN (Ghengis?, Kubla?) ;)

I'd have to agree, the more guitars the better. I love guitars, from a cheap-o Wards-airline/Sears-silvertone to a Gibson L-5, they all have their uses. I'm happy I don't have to 'really' pick one guitar, that would be like asking, 'which one of your kids do you like the best?'.-ya know? - One thing for sure is, if I really had to pick 1 guit., it wouldn't be a Hamer, Kramer or Ibanez, it would at least have to be an American guitar.

 

Matt

In two days, it won't matter.
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Originally posted by BobSanders:

Tommy Tedesco used one for most of the television work he did.

 

Really?!? From reading over a decade of bylines by Tommy, I'd say he played every instrument he could lay his hands on, many times grabbing other stringed instruments to add new flavors to the arrangements. (As there were often 2 or 3 guitarists on a gig.) From what do you base your comment? I'd love to know if Tommy was fundamentally a Tele man.

It's easiest to find me on Facebook. Neil Bergman

 

Soundclick

fntstcsnd

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I know this will probably cause some controversy but this is an opinion i've formed doing quite a few sessions from behind the mixing desk...

 

The Peavey EVH Wolfgang

 

This is a guitar that can get you a strat sound, tele sound, les paul sound from quite easily. To put it a better way it does all those sort of sounds great (but not excellent) but cause it has such a different amount of sounds that you can dial in it's a very handy guitar to have lying around in a studio and has a high output too...

 

Just my 2 cents...

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