Fender Vs. Gibson
- Thread starter gregjohnson1229
- Start date
Ember
Senior Member
Thanks Garrett 
Dairenn
Recording Artist
This has been my experience...
Gibson Les Paul
Pros:
- Mahogany body gives you long sustain and heavy tone that is great for metal and enough mid range for AC/DC'ish hard rock.
- Easy to work with for loud or heavy music (punk, metal, hard rock), etc.
- Hard tail gives you stable tuning and more resonance from the body.
- Dual humbuckers gives near-noiseless output, even in high-gain situations
- Highly reliable, particularly in live situations where it counts. Even if it is setup wrong, it usually still sounds amazing.
Cons:
- Strikes me as lazy engineering that the volume tone knobs of the pickup that is not enabled don't do anything; on a Strat, the tone knobs always controls the pickups you've selected, and the volume knob controls everything.
- Pickup selector is too far from the "picking zone" - you can't do SRV/Malmsteen-esque pickup chances mid-solo without interrupting your runs, which--to me--is a dealbreaker. Makes the LP a great rhythm guitar, not as great of a lead instrument
- Single-coil tone isn't achievable and in order to come close, you have to be very good at finding the "sweet spot" blend. For me, I set the tone selector in the middle to turn on both pickups, and then back off the bridge pickup, dial up the neck pickup and then try to get a mix from both tone knobs until I get that nice, bluesy tone that just comes naturally out of the neck pickup of a Tele.
- If you need a trem bar, you'll need a specialty model.
Fender Stratocaster
Pros
- Highly versatile tone, especially on genuine American models that use Noiseless single-coil pickups and they Seymour-Duncan humbuckers at the bridge. 5-way pickup selector and the two tone knobs are intuitive in the way of dialing in a country, blues, rock, Tex-Mex or pop sound.
- Lightweight and with a maple neck, offers bright yet thick tone, especially on your "clean" channel
- If your work involves use of a trem bar, it comes stock, but...
Cons:
- Ibanez has made its living making imitation Strats with stock locking trems for the purpose of dealing with the legendary issue of Fenders going out of tune due to use--particularly the aggressive use--of the trem bar. Dive bombs? You better be in the recording studio overdubbing those, because if you do that mess live and that's not the last song of the set, your night is over. If you don't use your trem at all, just block it. Otherwise I leave mine generally untouched.
- A Strat has to be setup right, otherwise, your action will be too high or too low, and your intonation will be nasty.
- Buzz on single coil models; especially with "MexiStrats" and those ghastly Squier guitars.
My verdict? I record with Stratocasters (almost exclusively), I perform with Ibanez Japanese hard-tail, Alder wood, C-bodied guitars but have used Les Pauls when I wanted heavy rhythms or knew I would play solos with notes that needed crazy, long sustain. I'm not the only one. Legendary guitarist John Sykes (Whitesnake, Blue Murder, Thin Lizzy) will record with a Strat anytime he needs clean tone; his Les Paul is only for when all he's looking for is raw power. I'm more of a finesse player and I feel like my Strat gives me More definition. You can play dirty like Hendrix or SRV and still get Crystal Clear articulation from every note you play. It doesn't just wash out. But if all you're playing is power chords in punk--you can't go wrong with a Gibson SG, or a Les Paul.
At least, that's how I feel about it.
Gibson Les Paul
Pros:
- Mahogany body gives you long sustain and heavy tone that is great for metal and enough mid range for AC/DC'ish hard rock.
- Easy to work with for loud or heavy music (punk, metal, hard rock), etc.
- Hard tail gives you stable tuning and more resonance from the body.
- Dual humbuckers gives near-noiseless output, even in high-gain situations
- Highly reliable, particularly in live situations where it counts. Even if it is setup wrong, it usually still sounds amazing.
Cons:
- Strikes me as lazy engineering that the volume tone knobs of the pickup that is not enabled don't do anything; on a Strat, the tone knobs always controls the pickups you've selected, and the volume knob controls everything.
- Pickup selector is too far from the "picking zone" - you can't do SRV/Malmsteen-esque pickup chances mid-solo without interrupting your runs, which--to me--is a dealbreaker. Makes the LP a great rhythm guitar, not as great of a lead instrument
- Single-coil tone isn't achievable and in order to come close, you have to be very good at finding the "sweet spot" blend. For me, I set the tone selector in the middle to turn on both pickups, and then back off the bridge pickup, dial up the neck pickup and then try to get a mix from both tone knobs until I get that nice, bluesy tone that just comes naturally out of the neck pickup of a Tele.
- If you need a trem bar, you'll need a specialty model.
Fender Stratocaster
Pros
- Highly versatile tone, especially on genuine American models that use Noiseless single-coil pickups and they Seymour-Duncan humbuckers at the bridge. 5-way pickup selector and the two tone knobs are intuitive in the way of dialing in a country, blues, rock, Tex-Mex or pop sound.
- Lightweight and with a maple neck, offers bright yet thick tone, especially on your "clean" channel
- If your work involves use of a trem bar, it comes stock, but...
Cons:
- Ibanez has made its living making imitation Strats with stock locking trems for the purpose of dealing with the legendary issue of Fenders going out of tune due to use--particularly the aggressive use--of the trem bar. Dive bombs? You better be in the recording studio overdubbing those, because if you do that mess live and that's not the last song of the set, your night is over. If you don't use your trem at all, just block it. Otherwise I leave mine generally untouched.
- A Strat has to be setup right, otherwise, your action will be too high or too low, and your intonation will be nasty.
- Buzz on single coil models; especially with "MexiStrats" and those ghastly Squier guitars.
My verdict? I record with Stratocasters (almost exclusively), I perform with Ibanez Japanese hard-tail, Alder wood, C-bodied guitars but have used Les Pauls when I wanted heavy rhythms or knew I would play solos with notes that needed crazy, long sustain. I'm not the only one. Legendary guitarist John Sykes (Whitesnake, Blue Murder, Thin Lizzy) will record with a Strat anytime he needs clean tone; his Les Paul is only for when all he's looking for is raw power. I'm more of a finesse player and I feel like my Strat gives me More definition. You can play dirty like Hendrix or SRV and still get Crystal Clear articulation from every note you play. It doesn't just wash out. But if all you're playing is power chords in punk--you can't go wrong with a Gibson SG, or a Les Paul.
At least, that's how I feel about it.
Lynch
Here for the cookies and the tunes
well written and thought-out post!!!! Love the details/explanations you gave. 
rollingstoned
Queens of the Stone Age
I'm a big Fender guy.
I play a left handed Fender Telecaster guitar. Before that I had a Strat. I'm not a Gibson fan besides the Gibson SG.
I play a left handed Fender Telecaster guitar. Before that I had a Strat. I'm not a Gibson fan besides the Gibson SG.
Dairenn
Recording Artist
Thank you very much, Lynch! After playing for (as of today), 25 years, I've gotten to be very particular about my guitar instruments. But I'm with rollingstoned... Fender, while they've made their fair share of stupid mistakes, gives me what I want on their "good" guitars (American Standards, American Deluxes; Teles and Strats--their Hot Rod line of Tube combo amps). You *literally* can play everything you've ever heard and without going beyond just setting up, tuning up and making sure your action is appropriate for your playing style. Throw on some D'Addario strings instead of the stock set and you'll be in business for forever.
Lynch
Here for the cookies and the tunes
my second guitar was a candy-apple red Strat. I loved that guitar and played it for probably 2-3 years. Then one day, I went into a music shop and was just going in to waste some time, and I wanted to check out a Rockman (this was back in the late 80's). I picked up a strat-style BC Rich (STIII if I remember correctly) to plug in. On that day, I fell in love with the BC Rich. I always liked their warlock body styles, but hadn't ever seen the Fender body style. That was the first guitar that I could fire off pitch/pinch harmonics without any effort at all. I couldn't believe how it sounded. At first I thought it was just the Rockman, but no, it was me and the guitar.
I had no itention of buying a guitar that day but after ripping it up for a bit, I went up to the sales guy and asked if they took trade-ins (even though I knew they did). He said maybe, depends on what I had. I told him about my Strat and he said "hell yes, bring it in". Drove home, cleaned it up spotless and brought it back, traded in for that American made BC Rich, which I still own to this day.
I do wish I had the money to buy the BC outright and could have kept the Strat though. I still eye them from time to time when I'm at a music store, but so often, all you can find are the Asian models, which aren't bad for beginner guitars and the price is right, but as you pointed out, the pickups sound terrible and they don't stay in tune worth a crap.
I had no itention of buying a guitar that day but after ripping it up for a bit, I went up to the sales guy and asked if they took trade-ins (even though I knew they did). He said maybe, depends on what I had. I told him about my Strat and he said "hell yes, bring it in". Drove home, cleaned it up spotless and brought it back, traded in for that American made BC Rich, which I still own to this day.
I do wish I had the money to buy the BC outright and could have kept the Strat though. I still eye them from time to time when I'm at a music store, but so often, all you can find are the Asian models, which aren't bad for beginner guitars and the price is right, but as you pointed out, the pickups sound terrible and they don't stay in tune worth a crap.
cornishmusic
Member
MUSICMAN!!!!!
So I guess this has the Leo Fender connection
So I guess this has the Leo Fender connection
Slip'nn2Darkness
Sub Sonic Soul Shaker
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my second guitar was a candy-apple red Strat. I loved that guitar and played it for probably 2-3 years. Then one day, I went into a music shop and was just going in to waste some time, and I wanted to check out a Rockman (this was back in the late 80's). I picked up a strat-style BC Rich (STIII if I remember correctly) to plug in. On that day, I fell in love with the BC Rich. I always liked their warlock body styles, but hadn't ever seen the Fender body style. That was the first guitar that I could fire off pitch/pinch harmonics without any effort at all. I couldn't believe how it sounded. At first I thought it was just the Rockman, but no, it was me and the guitar.
I'm betting it was the the EMG-81 pick up that gave that different sound compared to the Fender's mellow single-coil pickups.
