Reply #38: Go with the Fender

[no name no slogan]

Get a Strat with the five-way pickup selector switch. You can really get some decent tone out of those single-coils, believe it or not.

I used to play a Mexi Strat in a "shoegazer" band in the early 90s. I ran this guitar through a couple of effects processors, an Alesis reverb (for some heavy-duty delay) and then ran a stereo signal into two amps. It was very cool for that My Bloody Valentine/Slowdive "floating" guitar sound. The Strat's flexibility was a big part of this, too IMHO.

And if you do go for a Fender, get a REAL Fender, NOT a Squier. The price difference isn't that great between a Mexi Fender and a Squier, but the "feel" is worlds apart.

Squiers remind me too much of my first "bargain" guitar-- a Hondo, if there's anybody who remembers those. It was a Strat knockoff and had a neck like a baseball bat. The action was almost 1/4" off the neck, and the pickups were so crappy you could actually talk into them.

These days I'm learning flamenco guitar, so I mostly play nylon-string flamenco acoustic guitars (which are like classical guitars, but have a smaller and shallower body and solid spruce soundboards so they "project" more). However I'm still a Strat man at heart and still like to plug in once in a while, for old-times sake.

:)