Do you want all your guitars to feel the same?

I know you know this. Its a tension instrument. Fretboard length, fret intervals, bridge adjustability, radius, gauges of strings all factor into it. Now, take that mix it up w/ different manufacturer standards, and tolerances - you have a ball game. 2 fender guitars, I suspect, can be set up fairly closely - especially modern Fenders. A good tech can overcome most of this.

 

A strat will never feel like a LP, but you can make some things similar like string tension, height... I think if you can, you should. i would. You play long enough, you find what you like

 

I can truthfully say I dont want all my 22 guitars to be set up the same if that were the case I could sell them all and keep one , its the feel that keeps me wanting to choose what guitar to play to move my sound into a different genre .

 

I want them to all feel different and look different from one another. It's more fun that way.

 

He's probably talking generally about feel...and more specifically about setup...and most specifically about tension and action. Tell him he just needs to experiment with some different string gauges for that guitar.

My teles all have the same generally "feel" action-wise...even though I have C, U, and V-shaped necks, frets ranging from vintage to medium jumbo and radii ranging rom 7.25" to 9/5". Plus, one tele has 12's on it for jazz. The others all have 10s.

 

Ok..I get you. Yeah...not sure what he's expecting. A Lester is never going to feel like a Strat or a Tele. They're different animals...but I thought that was the point?

 

No. I want them all to feel different, to sound different, look different. They all fall into four general body types - Teles, Strats, SGs, and Les Paul Specials, but they're all different colors and configurations. Now that I think about it I'm pretty sure none of them have the same pickups.

 

I have eighteen guitars, and the point is for them to be different — in sound, feel, and looks. Every time I play one of my guitars, it’s a vacation from all the others.

 

I set up guitars for what I want to do with them. With a Telecaster, two Stratocasters, an Annie, an SG, and a S&P acoustic, no two are alike. I use 11’s on the Tele and 10’s on both Strats. I use 11’s on the Annie and 10’s on the SG. I keep action low and keep the strings away from the edge of the fretboard. All feel good to me but all feel different. That used to bother me but now I just play them. They’re set up to play easily and sound great. Six different guitars can never all be alike.

 

I've gotten all of mine to where the action is close to the same, but the neck shapes and radii are different and they do not feel the same, not to mention the different body shapes make the overall ergonomics different.

 

I can go with the flow with setting up a guitar so that it feels good and not necessarily force a particular string gauge or action on a guitar. I think the guitar ultimately ends up playing better. Responding better, maybe might be more accurate. I get wanting everything to feel
the same, though.

 

not exactly, but yes a good tech should be able to approximate feel across a variety of like instruments (meaning electrics), and overcome issues like its playing stiff around the nut, or up and down the board, etc...

 

Sounds like he's going for consistent string tension from one guitar to another. I kind of do that with my guitars right now: I have an SG with 10-52's, a strat type with 9-48's, and an Ibanez 8-string with a 27" scale length, on which I match the tension to the equivalent of a 10-46 across the strings.

The guitars all play differently, obviously, but having similar feeling tension from one to the next seems to make switching from one to another feel more consistent. Then again, it could be purely psychological.

 

I totally agree ! When I get out a guitar I haven't played in 4 or 5 months it's like I got a new guitar , feel-wise and tone-wise . I would never want them all to feel the same, no fun there !!

 

Nope.

Different feel makes for different playing technique which makes for different sounds for different songs.

 

I find heavier strings help right hand accuracy and articulation. The cost is less pronounced vibrato and less "character" in how I sound with them.

The ones with lighter strings work for difficult fingerings and wider bends. They also get played when I'm playing more and my left hand/arm/shoulder start to fatigue. The downside is some right-hand stuff doesn't sound as clean and there's less "punch" in the sound.

I pulled out a ruler one day and found all my "good feeling" guitars were very similar in action height and neck relief. It didn't matter what scale length they were or what string gauge was on them. Once I tweaked the "not as good feeling" guitars the same way, lo and behold they felt good, too.