Do you have a guitar that just WORKS live?

mark_jwedge

Im doing a dep slot with a band I haven’t played with before and we had our first rehearsal yesterday. I have been playing my telecaster a lot at home recently and love it, sounds great, plays great and is solid in terms of build and tuning stability etc. 

I thought it it would be a great ‘cover all bases’ guitar for the rehearsal but as soon as the rest of the band joined in it just dissapeared in the mix. I quickly swapped it for my Les Paul Junior and all of a sudden, without touching a thing on the amp you could hear me clearly.

There just seems to be something about the sound of that Junior that you can just hear it live with a band without needing to keep turning up. 

Anyone one else have a certain guitar that just seems to work brilliantly with a band?

p90fool

That's why I became a P90 fool, I always preferred brighter Strat single coils for recording but needed more power and warmth live, but still with good low string definition.  

dazzajl

Don’t have it anymore sadly but a Gretsch Powerjet. That’s exactly what it does. They get a lot of criticism for being a little muddy but in the mix of a loud band, it’s just there. And effortlessly too. 

DrBob

I haven’t gigged for years but I have jammed & rehearsed a bit and when I do I always bring along a few guitars to try out but without exception end up playing my Heritage 535

mark_jwedge

p90fool said:

That's why I became a P90 fool, I always preferred brighter Strat single coils for recording but needed more power and warmth live, but still with good low string definition.  

I agree, a strat was my first guitar so have always loved them but never been able to make it work for me live. For a long time I used single cut dual humbucker guitars live which worked well but found I was using channel switching amps and loads of pedals to change sounds. Feel as I have gotten older and played live a lot more and in a lot of different styles I now get everything I need from a plexi style amp, junior or Les Paul, single drive pedal and a delay. I can then pick lighter for clean or to drop back so another instrument can be heard and then dig in a bit on louder sections or to make certain licks or phrases pop out. Use a subtle eq boost for solos.

The P90 in the junior just seems to suit this approach down to the ground. As a consequence my pedal board has gotten smaller and smaller and the bass and gain controls turned down further and further. All with the benefit of clarity and definition.

I remember when I was younger reading about needing much less gain and bass when you play live, and the benefits of changing picking attack/guitar controls. I wish I had listened years ago but I found the safety blanket of bass and gain and compression hard to let go of and took me a long time of playing live to have the confidence to manipulate the guitar to change sounds. 

As as much as I look back at recordings of old gigs and cringe a bit and wish I did it then like I do now, I guess it was just something I had to go through and learn to arrive at a style and rig that worked for me.

I suppose as I became more comfortable playing live I started to focus less on the part I was playing and listen more to the sound the band was making

Teyeplayer

Depends on the gig a lot of the time. However, I don’t keep a guitar if I can’t just pick it up and go do the show -anything that doesn’t work in rehearsal gets flipped pretty quickly. I find for the sort of country-rock/Americana I play that it is the tele that usually covers all bases with greatest ease.

mark_jwedge

Teyeplayer said:

Depends on the gig a lot of the time. However, I don’t keep a guitar if I can’t just pick it up and go do the show -anything that doesn’t work in rehearsal gets flipped pretty quickly. I find for the sort of country-rock/Americana I play that it is the tele that usually covers all bases with greatest ease.

Suppose it’s probably very amp, speaker, pedals etc dependant too. My friend borrowed my Tele for a gig and through his Lazy J20 it sounded awesome. Think the natural sound of my rig needs the midrange push of the junior, it just seems to work all together 

koneguitarist

Telecaster any other answer i could agree with but then we would all be wrong. 

vasselmeyer

A PRS DGT covers all bases for me. I use it for every song in our set apart from slide.

That said, I went direct for the first time a couple of weeks ago and I ended up using my Telecaster with P90s as it sounded awesome and I love playing it.

Stevepage

My Jackson Soloist.

I had been using my custom shop Washburn as my main guitar but changed over to the Jackson for one rehearsal. The other guitarist in my band even noticed how great it sounded so I just kept using it for everything until I changed to a 7 string.

DulcetJones

Whatever works for you, in my case I discovered that my Squier Tele worked better than my Gibson Les Paul.  (go figure).

merlin

So many factors involved here, mix and balance, taste etc. I find a Strat works brilliantly and sonically it occupies a great space as does a Tele and anything with P90s can really push into the "audio space". 

guitarfishbay

My MH1000 ET.

EMG 81 and an evertune bridge. As long as I’ve tuned it that week and changed the battery in the last year it just does what it needs to.

TTBZ

Yeah when I was playing live I always found myself going back to my Les Pauls. I made it about 2 songs into a set with my strat which had no punch and everything just felt too much like hard work. Wasn't enjoyable to play, felt like I had to think too much about everything. Going back to the LP, all was well with the world again. I always find switching to the neck pickup (more so humbuckers) resulted in dropping out of the mix as well. 

monkey42

Interesting thread..

i play in a covers band, but if I could, I’d always use my Les Paul, however a lot of modern and funk songs (Nile’s Rodgers) needs either that out of phase or strat type sound...but I’m not a strat player lol

ironically, last night I had a loaner of an Eric Clapton with mid boost and this was a close to a do it all Guitar I’ve ever used

robinbowes

mark_jwedge said:

I have been playing my telecaster a lot at home recently and love it, sounds great, plays great and is solid in terms of build and tuning stability etc. 

I thought it it would be a great ‘cover all bases’ guitar for the rehearsal but as soon as the rest of the band joined in it just dissapeared in the mix. I quickly swapped it for my Les Paul Junior and all of a sudden, without touching a thing on the amp you could hear me clearly.

Sounds like the amp is not set up right for the Tele, to me.

mburekenge

White falcon. So versatile and the tv Jones filtertrons sit in the perfect range

TTBZ

monkey42 said:

Interesting thread..

i play in a covers band, but if I could, I’d always use my Les Paul, however a lot of modern and funk songs (Nile’s Rodgers) needs either that out of phase or strat type sound...but I’m not a strat player lol

I think youll be fine with your Les Paul - dont think anyone in the audience will know so might as well use what you prefer. I always used mine for every song on a typical cover set.

Lestratcaster

Predominately played in heavier style bands (metalcore/pop punk) and my Les Paul's work nicely, installed with BKP's they cut through and palm mutes are phat!

hoops

Krautster ii and Lazy J20. What's not to like

midlifecrisis

after years of gigging a les paul studio i now find this epiphone 339 more versatile, the coil tapped humbuckers give me the clean "tele-ish" sounds and the full coil humbuckers give me the les paul growl, plus its lighter.