ATTENTION! The TELEGRAM comments are all scams! Sorry, you didn't win anything. Don't give them any money. My channel is helping me answer that age old question: "How many guitars is too many guitars?"
i have a couple plywood guitars, both of them Squier. one is an '89 Korean, the other is an '05 Indian. The Korean, we bought new in '91. The Indian, i bought for $60 recently, mostly to use the neck elsewhere. these days they don't use plywood much with transparent or burst finishes. in the past, they would, but paint the comfort cuts black to hide the laminations on sunburst finishes.
I have actually used stainless strings quite a bit. In the 90s, I was using Dean Markley Blue Steels almost exclusively for a couple of years. They sounded great but were hell on the fretwire. It only took one refret to teach me a lesson. That said, I quite prefer stainless fret wire over nickel. I doubt I would consider buying another guitar without stainless frets.
I played with a stainless-steel pick for a while, was great to play but I was tearing through strings so much faster, especially the wound ones. But as Max noted, it def provides a particular type of attack that can be a whole lot of fun.
Tonally, I’m not sure there’s enough difference to make a difference (RIP Paul). I can tell you from experience - back in the late 80’s I discovered stainless picks, and found that the one thing they did do was actually cut my nickel strings where I commonly picked (above the middle pickup on my Ibanez EX360). I would have chalked it up to coincidence, but it happened several times to me and several friends. After that, I switched to Dunlop Beryllium Copper picks. Same attack, no more broken strings.
Nice guitar, SS or otherwise! My 2 cents - I also can't hear this supposed annoying characteristic of stainless steel frets over standard ones, and do think that a restring is much preferable to a refret. Just imagine being apart from your #1 axe for a lengthy operation as it is undergoing surgery at the hands of a luthier, without any guarantee of a successful outcome. Some of these well-known guitar companies even argue against SS frets as though it's better to continue using the softer (cheaper?) stuff.
The steel strings were a bit more chimey on the clean for sure. It was way too much with the steel pick and it seemed to create a sort of feedback occasionally right on the pickup. Did not like it.
I didn't hear a difference between the strings - maybe if you had A/B'd them it would have been easier to compare. But for sure I heard the "squeaking" on the strings that came from using the steel pick
My favourite neck finish is based on my vintage guitars: looks glossy, but feels satiny. I use an old scotchbite to cut down the gloss on my new/newer guitars so they look glossy but feels satiny.
I LOVE a resonant guitar (as long as it's not due to shoddy loose construction). They offer more resonance and harmonics to the electric guitar's output. Two of my favorite Strats are made of plywood that are very resonant guitars. Mind ye, in interest of transparency, both guitars are from the 80s so it's quite possible that both guitars have fully dried out and are sonically fully settled. Nevertheless both are favorites.
What....no stainless steel nut? Dude, you gotta re do this one. It wasn't the max(ha) amount of stainless steel. Also, what if you got Peter Steele to pla....wait. Too soon?
I would say the stainless steel strings added a tiny bit of brightness in a good way. I don't think the stainless pick didn't seem to change anything at high gain, but clean, I really didn't like the way it sounded. It was just too bright and thin sounding to my taste. I do have a couple guitars that I might try the stainless strings on though. That is to say they already have stainless frets I feel like stainless strings won't just eat the frets down to nubs.
The only way you can actually reap the sonic benefits of playing stainless steel strings on stainless steel frets with a stainless steel pick is if you get really good at pulling off the Blue Steel look, but beware, cuz Mugatu is always lurking nearby.
I have a few brass picks. They sound amazing... but chew up strings in no time flat! I have an old Tele with brass Tune-O-Matic bridges and brass nut. With a brass slide, it sounds like the Angels singing down from Heaven!
I think the stainless steel pick just won't have the flexibility I want in a pick, and it would likely chew through my strings quite quickly. As an at home player, no need for stainless steel frets or strings, really.
If you want a more percussive sound metal on metal is the way to go. It's almost like the clapper in a bell. There is no warm sound going this way. As far as wear, whichever is harder wins that battle. Most of the stainless steel used for guitar frets is made from a grade of stainless that is 300 on the Vickers scale or 30B on the Rockwell scale. Strings however are typically made from a grade of stainless steel that is roughly 2 1/2 times harder than the stainless-steel frets. This is done to maintain a relatively consistent tensile strength between stainless and ferrous steel strings. Also, stainless is not magnetic so that adds another factor into the sound as they are not affected by the magnets in the pick-ups.
The only difference between regular grade steel and stainless is that stainless has higher chromium content. As to the sound difference that Max is discussing, to me, in over 48 years of playing so many different guitars, so many different strings, stainless steel frets do indeed have that "tink tink" sound, and it's annoying to me. There is no balance of tone from bass to treble, for one thing. Most importantly, while stainless frets can take a beating and last longer, most guitarists are not going to put in years of gigging and recording to warrant changing over to them, even if they are pros who have been at the game for a long time. And when it comes right down to it, most guitarists are not pros, they play for personal enjoyment, and doing some "weekend warrior" every so often. Those are the people who support the musical instrument industry, not pros.
