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  #1  
Old 09-25-2021, 11:34 PM
Ian111 Ian111 is offline
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Default One electric that can actually do it all or very close to it

Classic surf, rockabilly, blues, country, classic rock, funk, pop, 70’s punk, 80’s metal, and 90’s grunge. And not a Strat/Tele for example with a humbucker, P90, and a single coil. A guitar in its classic configuration like a Strat with 3 single coils. A bigsby or tremolo can be added to any of these guitars.

My nominee is a Les Paul or SG Special with P90’s and a Bigsby.
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Old 09-26-2021, 12:16 AM
Jack the Pearl Jack the Pearl is offline
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Consider the humble Mexi-Jag. I have one. It's a Classic Player HH. More switches than Carter has Little Liver Pills. But it is amazingly versatile. The only electric I own. It can imitate a Strat because the humbucker pickups are coil split so you can dial them back to single coil. It can do a 335. It has a short neck scale (24") so the string tension is not an issue.

And the welter of switches keeps the curious from asking if they can give it a test drive. So I don't offer.

For me, I only want one electric guitar. And this has to be the one because of its versatility. YMMV, of course.

Last edited by Jack the Pearl; 09-26-2021 at 12:45 AM.
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Old 09-26-2021, 12:22 AM
Mark L Mark L is offline
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I’d say a Gretsch 6120 would come mighty close. Choose your pickups, filtertrons, dynasonics, maybe a p90 in the bridge.
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Old 09-26-2021, 12:44 AM
Jack the Pearl Jack the Pearl is offline
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Default Please ignore this duplicate post

Consider the humble Mexi-Jag. I have one. It's a Classic Player HH. More switches than Carter has Little Liver Pills. But it is amazingly versatile. The only electric I own. It can imitate a Strat because the humbucker pickups are coil split so you can dial them back to single coil. It can do a 335. It has a short neck scale (24") so the string tension is not an issue.

And the welter of switches keeps the curious from asking if they can give it a text drive. So I don't offer.

For me, I only want one electric guitar. And this has to be the one because of its versatility. YMMV, of course.

Last edited by Jack the Pearl; 09-26-2021 at 12:49 AM. Reason: corrected some typos. Did it wrong. wound up with duplicate posts. made one go "Poof!"
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Old 09-26-2021, 12:53 AM
Jeff Scott Jeff Scott is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian111 View Post
One electric that can actually do it all or very close to it.
Probably the '13 PRS Custom 24 I had for a while.
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Old 09-26-2021, 01:57 AM
Steve DeRosa Steve DeRosa is offline
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Default One electric that can actually do it all or very close to it

MIK '16 G5622T-CB Electromatic (discontinued) - my road warrior for the last five years, most likely for the foreseeable future, and I'll probably score another as backup while I can still get one for under $1K (yeah, they really are that good):


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Last edited by Steve DeRosa; 09-26-2021 at 09:24 AM.
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Old 09-26-2021, 03:08 AM
Nama Ensou Nama Ensou is offline
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Any decent guitar with at least two pickups and a tremolo can do it and the most important part is the player.
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Old 09-26-2021, 03:56 AM
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SalFromChatham SalFromChatham is offline
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There are so many new guitars made today that give the feel of a classic guitar, but they also innovate, and they wouldn’t fit in your neat box of “classic configuration” with no pickup mixing…

Reverend Guitars make incredibly diverse guitars with classic shapes, special pickup configurations, innovate tone roll-off knobs, etc.

I have a Reverend Trickshot, which is very standard Tele, because that’s what I like, but they have Double Agents, Eastsiders, and a few dozen other models which you have to play to believe.

I’m actually real interested in how they are doing “that Gretsch tone….”. If I get a second guitar, that’s the tone I want. I used to have a Chet Atkins Tennessee Rose in the 1990s. Loved the tone. Hated keeping it tune…
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Old 09-26-2021, 05:30 AM
Dru Edwards Dru Edwards is offline
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I think an H-S-S Strat is very diverse. You can get your metal tones (Dave Murray of Iron Maiden has used Strats for 40+ years) and, naturally, the SRV tone. However, you mentioned not to include a Strat with humbuckers but I still think it's worth a mention because you can buy a stock H-S-S Strat albeit it isn't the vintage form.

I love the Les Paul and the SG. The Les Paul can cover a lot of ground once you use the volume and tone knobs but it's still not as diverse as an H-S-S Strat... but I love that Les Paul (or SG) tone more than any guitar that covers more ground.
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Old 09-26-2021, 06:39 AM
Aspiring Aspiring is offline
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I have a Tom Anderson hollow Cobra S with splittable humbuckers. It can cover a really wide range of tones and is awesome as well as being under six pounds.
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Old 09-26-2021, 06:52 AM
Ian111 Ian111 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nama Ensou View Post
Any decent guitar with at least two pickups and a tremolo can do it and the most important part is the player.
If I do an A/B test side side with my P90 Gibson SG junior and my Strat I definately prefer the strat for classic surf for example. But I play the SG exclusively for few days fiddle with the knobs on the guitar and amp and it sounds pretty good playing surf. I can’t make an SG with P90 sound like a Fender single coil. I need to make the SG sound good playing surf guitar. For example maybe play a song that sounds good clean on the Strat but with the SG it may sound better with some growl. Accept the instrument for what it is and not try to get it to sound like the sound in your head.

You can have a guitar with every single option. But back in the days. 1950’s. 60’s And the 70’s. Most people had one guitar and they made it work and discovered their instrument had far more depth than they realized. A piano has basically one tone but you can play a lot of different genres on it. Playing a single pickup guitar like Junior has given me some perspective.
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Last edited by Ian111; 09-26-2021 at 06:58 AM.
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  #12  
Old 09-26-2021, 07:00 AM
ceciltguitar ceciltguitar is offline
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A new contender from Emerald:

https://emeraldguitars.com/models/virtuo/

Emerald also has an arch top:

https://emeraldguitars.com/models/kestrel/
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  #13  
Old 09-26-2021, 07:14 AM
Paleolith54 Paleolith54 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Aspiring View Post
I have a Tom Anderson hollow Cobra S with splittable humbuckers. It can cover a really wide range of tones and is awesome as well as being under six pounds.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nama Ensou View Post
Any decent guitar with at least two pickups and a tremolo can do it and the most important part is the player.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian111 View Post
Classic surf, rockabilly, blues, country, classic rock, funk, pop, 70’s punk, 80’s metal, and 90’s grunge. And not a Strat/Tele for example with a humbucker, P90, and a single coil. A guitar in its classic configuration like a Strat with 3 single coils. A bigsby or tremolo can be added to any of these guitars.

My nominee is a Les Paul or SG Special with P90’s and a Bigsby.

I gig with an Anderson Cobra, and I use it for everything. But yeah, any decent guitar with pickups and knobs can do it all. It has as much to do with the amp and with your right hand as with anything else.
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  #14  
Old 09-26-2021, 09:46 AM
Ralph124C41 Ralph124C41 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nama Ensou View Post
Any decent guitar with at least two pickups and a tremolo can do it and the most important part is the player.
My thoughts exactly. A guitar itself can be versatile, but what about he or she who plays it? A guitar, for example, may be capable of playing surf guitar, but maybe its player isn't.
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Old 09-26-2021, 10:21 AM
FrankHudson FrankHudson is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nama Ensou View Post
Any decent guitar with at least two pickups and a tremolo can do it and the most important part is the player.
That summarizes the most significant point. Particularly if we are guitar geeks with knowledge of designs and their differences and what representative players played, we think the guitar dictates the style of music and also over-estimate what it brings to the sound/timbre. Recognize that I say this as a person who has owned a whole lot of electric guitars over the years, and obviously loves the variety of designs and subtle sound and feel differences!

And we shouldn't forget that because guitars are colorful things we hold and pluck and are right there in the pictures of our influences and heroes, that amps, effects, and on records recordists and their equipment impact the sound a great deal too.

Here are a few things from my experience that offer a bit more in terms of sound.

The OP wants us to skip suggesting guitars with replaced/"mismatched" pickups, but that's the easiest and most time honored path to more timbral versatility. I own not one, but two, three pickup Telecasters with humbuckers in the neck position. Versatility is what I aim for with them, and they supply that.

Some pickups offer more variety of timbres. P90s do this as well as any I've tried -- good P90s are uncanny in that regard. Smaller or brighter voiced, more focused humbuckers can offer a bit more. The traditional Tele bridge pickup has a lot of different tones too. Split-able traditional humbuckers are aimed at variety, but the single coils sound is often uninspiring, even if, as advertised, different.

I have a Line6 Variax. I does have different electric guitar sounds in it's modeling mode, but at least so far they are uninspiring to me compared to even my typically inexpensive versions of "the real thing." I do like the instant altered tunings features and the Variax banjo/sitar/acoustic guitar settings -- while not overly realistic -- are easy to select for a quick "I'll fake it" section and require less equipment than the more flexible but more finicky MIDI options that I also use.
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