Surprising outcomes

[sparquelito]

I did a bit of an experiment yesterday evening.

I selected eight of my electric guitars, and tuned them all up nicely.
I set the Volume Knobs at 8, and the Tone Knobs to 6.

I plugged one guitar after another thru my Vox AC15 amp, and played the same series of riffs/songs, some thru the clean channel, and the others thru the distorted channel.
I left the amp settings exactly as they were throughout the experiment, with every single control set to 5.
Clean: Steve Miller Band's Fly Like An Eagle
Dirty: Free's All Right Now

The guitars:
Fender Sandblasted Stratocaster
Danny Matthews Zombie Tech custom-built Tele
Gibson Les Paul BFG
Gibson SG Naked
Gibson Firebird Zero
Ibanez AVS10A Artcore Vintage (jazz box)
Ibanez SA120
Devlin DVE 700-TS

All guitars have fairly fresh strings on them.
Most have Ernie Ball Super Slinky's (9's), the Devlin and the Ibanez SA120 have Ernie Ball Primo Slinky's on them (9.5's), and the jazz box has D'Addario flat-wound 10's on it.

I toggled thru all the pickup positions as I played each guitar.
It got a little loud, but I worked at it steadily, playing with the same consistent technique and attack.
And then I did some subjective, unscientific scoring for each guitar.

Bear in mind, all the guitars sounded great, and each sounded just a bit different from all the others.
I will gladly take each of them to a gig, and I will make all of them work just fine.

Here's how the guitars that rose to the top of each category did:

Sounds the most like the original record album:
(Steve Miller song)
Fender Stratocaster
Danny Matthews Tele
(Free song)
Ibanez jazz box
Ibanez SA120

Loudest (at the control settings described above):
Gibson Firebird Zero
Ibanez SA120

Most unique tones:
Ibanez jazz box
Devlin DVE 700

Most sustain:
Gibson Firebird Zero
Devlin DVE 700

Warmest, most pleasing clean tones:
Ibanez jazz box
Fender Stratocaster

Greatest, head-turning, sonic-ally gut-crunching distortion tones:
Gibson Firebird Zero
Ibanez SA120

Most comfortable to hold and play:
Ibanez jazz box
Tie: Ibanez SA120/Gibson SG

Is there anything to be learned from this experiment?
I don't know.

It's surprising how much a lesser-expensive guitar can grab you when compared to a pricier, name-brand guitar.

And the fact that the Firebird Zero, which has been panned by critics from Hong Kong to Holcomb, Kansas, did so well when stacked up to ostensibly better guitars?
And the Ibanez SA120, which cost me exactly $85 in a local pawn shop the other day?

That's a bit of a surprise to me.

Anyway, carry on.
Rock and roll.

🙂

[Navy Vet.]

Good stuff

[merciful-evans]

Good report. Sounds like you had fun too.

I only compare my working guitars to each other. They rise and fall in my estimation all the time. Usually its a guitar that has simply 'moved' that earns a demerit. Sometimes I do a set up & sometimes I just wait for it the move back.

Lately I've been playing my 2 cheapest models (Hagstrom & Squier) a lot more than anything else and enjoying the hell out of them. Yes both have had upgrades. They are every bit as fine as the pricey 'name' models. 

 

Tone wise they never vary of course. For solos I only ever use a mere hint of gain and a couple of hints of reverb.  Never any other FX. 

At home, I will occasionally ramp up the gain a little, and even more occasionally actually use a bridge pickup! 

 

[sparquelito]

Thanks, guys. 

I must confess that, in addition to this being a very subjective 'experiment', I proceeded with no hypothesis from the outcome, (Which is exceedingly bad science.)

Had I hypothesized that the more expensive guitars would have outperformed the cheaper guitars in every measurable manner, the data and opinion would not have supported such a hypothesis.

If I had hypothesized that the heavier-gauge strings would sound better than the lighter, the data would not have yielded a compelling statistical significance to support such a thing. The heavier strings had a slight edge, but it was hardly compelling.

If it was my intention to conduct a test that supported the hypothesis that Cheap Guitars can sometimes run with the pricier ones, then, YES, that would have been supported.

Anyway.
I'm gonna shut up now.
😞

Edited October 19, 2019 by sparquelito

[uncle fester]

I appreciate when you get a little free time!

[jdgm]

Which one would you be most likely to  play a blues (clean + mild overdrive) on?

[sparquelito]

1 hour ago, jdgm said:

Which one would you be most likely to  play a blues (clean + mild overdrive) on?

That's a tough one. 

My instinct would be to reach for the Strat, but I would have to do another A/B run between that and the Gibson SG Naked. 

😕

[kelly campbell]

Interesting stuff...thanks

[zigzag]

I performed a similar experiment with six of my favorite guitars on two different days about three months apart. The guitar which consistently came out at or near the top (to my taste) was my Carvin SH550 with stock S22 pickups in HB mode (didn't even consider the single coil option). You'd probably have a hard time finding two out of ten people who agree that the Carvin is a superior sounding guitar, esp. if they knew they were evaluating a Carvin, and unless you play around with settings and pedals, will not sound a lot like any recording. As my mother-in-law once said: It's good if you like it.

Edited October 22, 2019 by zigzag