Common guitar stuff that's commonly disparaged but you happen to love.

[IMadeYouReadThis]

Another +1 for strat middle pickups. My favorite strat pickup positions are as follows: 1. neck, 2. middle, 3. anything else. Something about that lone middle pickup is really pleasant to my ear, and maybe it's just the novelty of never hearing others use it.

I think you can tell why I don't own a strat...

 

[Peegoo]

Flying Vs. Love ‘em!

Many players don’t like ‘em: “they’re impossible to play sitting down.”

Well guess what? Most cars are impossible to drive standing up

I know people scoff at gloss necks

I *scuff* at gloss necks

 

[IMadeYouReadThis]

What's up with this @sendhelparrowhou guy?

 

[Wobbles]

I prefer 7.25 radius necks. That's what I grew up with. Too late to change now.

I will not put a shim in the neck joint. I can hear the difference.

 

[Nahtabot]

I don't know, I've just seen a lot of people comment on how they seriously dislike the tele neck. Some guy even wrote an article on it, claiming that "Few players really love the Tele neck pickup":

https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/20834-mod-garage-the-infamous-telecaster-neck-pickup

I thought it might be a trope. : P

I like the comments! Thanks for posting the link.

 

[CJM3309]

I love my silverface twin....with master volume.....and that push/pull volume knob

 

[fattybrisket]

Cheap T-Styles - I love my 52RI but my Douglas gets to have most of the fun and gets to be involved in all of the weekend projects.

Small Practice Amps - I love the sound of tubes too but my tube amp is currently a glorified side table. I would sooner spring for a modeling pedal than upgrade to a nicer tube amp. What good is the sweetest sounding tube amp if we only get to have fun together once every couple of months?

 

[Nahtabot]

8" drivers have more punch and better response.

 

[USian Pie]

My Tele is on the heavy side. I don't care.

 

[MilwMark]

I love 1m pots all around. All my guitars have them. And treble bleeds.

 

[Bedder18]

Heavier bodies. Never really understood the obsession with the lightest body. In my experience, it’s not a very good practice to judge the quality of a guitar by its body weight alone. I tend to prefer most medium to heavy weight guitars, oddly enough.

3 bolt neck. They’re not THAT bad if you set them up properly, and personally I think the old 3 bolt neck plates look awesome.

Poly finishes. Not everyone wants their guitar to have a check aged nitro finish. Modern poly finishes can be great if they are high quality and sprayed with skill. I’m not at all put off by a poly finish, and I appreciate the durability.

uncompensated saddles. The old ones still work and a skilled luthier can intonate the old ones just as good.

UltraLight gauge strings. Underrated thing, really.

Partscasters. I rather enjoy seeing what people come up with- the customization (and odd combinations) of guitar parts is SO much more fascinating than the “factory offerings”.

 

[Ironwolf]

Heavier bodies. Never really understood the obsession with the lightest body. In my experience, it’s not a very good practice to judge the quality of a guitar by its body weight alone. I tend to prefer most medium to heavy weight guitars, oddly enough.

3 bolt neck. They’re not THAT bad if you set them up properly, and personally I think the old 3 bolt neck plates look awesome.

Poly finishes. Not everyone wants their guitar to have a check aged nitro finish. Modern poly finishes can be great if they are high quality and sprayed with skill. I’m not at all put off by a poly finish, and I appreciate the durability.

uncompensated saddles. The old ones still work and a skilled luthier can intonate the old ones just as good.

UltraLight gauge strings. Underrated thing, really.

Partscasters. I rather enjoy seeing what people come up with- the customization (and odd combinations) of guitar parts is SO much more fascinating than the “factory offerings”.

I too like and use ultra-light strings. They sound fantastic and feel even better.

 

[chezdeluxe]

I love the strat style bent steel bridge saddles on my 2008 American Standard Telecasters

 

[Steerforth]

I don’t think much of my stuff is commonly disparaged. I guess most people would enjoy playing my gear. It’s not bad at all.

About the only place that maybe I don’t really splurge would be my strings and picks.

I use GHS Boomers on my electrics most of the time, and D’Addarios on my acoustics all the time. Not the fancy ones, just the regular old strings.

And for picks, it’s Ultex, Tortex, or Fender celluloid. Nothing fancy.

But when something is inexpensive and works for me, I’m okay with that.

 

[EsquireOK]

Yup. Not a fan of matte necks. They look like crud, play like crud, and seem cheap compared to gloss. At the very least, paint the front of the peghead gloss.

I would say that my biggest entry in this category is old style imbalanced pickups. Guitars just plain sound better when their bridge pickups are bright and their neck pickups are warm. Why people would want to move them closer together in tone doesn't make sense to me. Modern balanced sets make the bridge pickups too warm, and/or the neck pickups too anemic, and they make it harder (if not impossible) to get a truly clean and/or bright tone.

Standard old style Tele bridges with thin metal, a lip, and straight saddles – fine.

Bridge covers – fine.

Standard Strat bridges – fine.

Stock components on Jazzmaster and Jaguar – fine.

Pickup covers on Fender basses – not just fine, but preferable.

7 1/4" radius and skinny, low frets – not just fine, but 10X better than mediums or jumbos on 9 1/2" or 12" boards. I would happily play on even tighter radius necks, if they were out there.

Standard strap buttons – fine.

Standard string trees – fine.

Standard nut materials (including "cheap plastic") – fine.

Old style Klusons – as good as anything for simply working and keeping tune, IME. Plus they look the classiest and weigh very little.

Fretless wonder frets – 0.072" wide by approx. 0.025" tall, and flat across the top – best frets ever installed on an electric guitar. I would not buy an old Gibson that had had them yanked for modern frets.

Middle position on a Strat – my home base. 75 percent of my Strat playing happens here.

Three-way switch on Strat – better than a five-way.

No tone control on Strat bridge pickup – better than modern Strat wiring.

"Vintage" Tele wiring – better than modern.

Flatwound strings – put these on your old style Fender (guitar or bass), and realize what the instruments were designed to sound like...and watch several technical setup problems go away (poor intonation, poor volume balance string to string, weak string pressure on saddles, excessive brightness, etc.).

Wound G – hear proper string-to-string volume balance on a Fender with vintage style pickups.

Crappy sandpaper or fiberboard neck shims – the guitars lauded as having the best tone of all time almost all had 'em right outta the factory.

Brand spanking new finishes – Get those implements of "fake" finish destruction away from my instruments. I'll break them in myself; thank you very much.

Noisy pickups – I've never heard it as even a minor problem, let alone as big a deal as some people make it.

Wide vintage P Bass nut width, as opposed to skinny J Bass width – Way more comfortable...and I don't even have large hands.

 

[notroHnhoJ]

I like heavy weight / no weight relief Les Pauls.

I like the placement of the Strat volume control.

Yeah with you on the strat volume, I can manage that as well. Heavy Lesters’ is where ya’ lose me, but I get it.

 

[jamesepowell]

Unloved tele neck pickup? I really like it. If that's the kind of thing you're going for.

Two of my teles have single coil neck pickups. Love both of them, especially the '77.

 

[notroHnhoJ]

Yup. Not a fan of matte necks. They look like crud, and play like crud compared to gloss.

I would say that my biggest entry in this category is old style imbalanced pickups. Guitars just plain sound better when their bridge pickups are bright and their neck pickups are warm. Why people would want to move them closer together in tone doesn't make sense to me. Modern balanced set make the bridge pickups too warm and/or the neck pickups to anemic.

Standard old style Tele bridges with thin metal, a lip, and straight saddles – fine.

Bridge covers – fine.

7 1/4" radius and skinny, low frets – not just fine, but 10X better than mediums or jumbos on 9 1/2" or 12" boards.

Man, I’ve “grown up” a little and have learned the sonic value of those vintage small Fender frets. The trick (at least in my opinion) are as light gauge a string as one can manage.

 

[jamesepowell]

I love my Boss DS-1

 

[Chiogtr4x]

I'm not using one now, as my amps are different, but when I owned a DR and a Pro Reverb ( 1st), I used a Tube Screamer at high Drive setting, say 2:00-3:00 clock into a clean Fender.

I thought this was how you used one, for its Distortion- I thought it sounded good!