As someone who does a lot of recording I’ve come to appreciate the ability to stay perfectly in tune as the #1 quality of a guitar that I’m recording with. I won’t say it’s the only thing that matters but it’s by far the thing that slows me down more than anything else when I have to stop recording to check the tuning of the guitar. Or even worse, throw away an otherwise perfect take because it was slightly out of tune. Even lack of confidence about the tuning can slow things down a lot. This is especially noticeable to someone like me who plays all the instruments, not just guitar. I never have to tune my keyboard. I’ll tune the drum heads once at the beginning of the session, same with the bass. Finding a guitar that has no need to keep checking the tuning is pure gold. It makes it easy to tolerate any other quality.
As a someone trying to be a professional guitar tech, its the opposite for me. I prefer a bargain guitar that I can fix. But maybe if I could afford more expensive guitars and had less free time it would be the opposite.
For the hardware I agree but I also think it really depends on the guitar. If that makes sense.. like the bridge is way more important on a strat then a Les Paul. I am a tele guy so hardware barely makes 5% lol as long as it has brass saddles 😆 Would love to hear what you guys think about Glenn Frickers at spectre and his claims that pickups make no difference lol , it's all in the speakers. I understand what he's getting at , especially with metal and lots of distortion, but I disagree as soon as you have clean or transparent overdrive. I think then pickups change the dynamics quite a bit.
For sure, each part does make some difference in feel, resonance etc. As far as the Frickers stuff, we certainly strongly disagree. There's good quality ingredients, put together well and designed for a purpose that can help get you to the results you want. Likewise there's some materials we don't use because we can make a good sounding pickup with them. Indecently some of those materials show up in the squires, epiphone and MIM pickups, so that does tell you something. Even a small number of ingredients matter when put together right (take Pizza for Example)
Pickup differences don't really matter as much as people think. I own 3 telecaster guitars, one with typical tele pickups, one with P90's and one with TV jones Filtertrons. Yes they sound different but not to the extent that I can't use all or any of them with my band, when they are going through my amp (a 50w Marshall), on my settings (crunchy mid-gain) through my celestion loaded cab they all sound pretty similar to be honest similar enough that I don't worry about it, they all sound good.
I think price doesn’t matter to me much. If it’s cheap but just feels good. Then it is good. Unless it has some wack electronics in it. But personally with so much great digital stuff now a days. An EQ pedal and effects can do a lot to give you a great tone. Especially when playing out live. I’m also a mechanic so tinkering with cheap stuff and upgrading it is sorta my jam anyways. But to get into specifics. How the neck and frets feel is most important to me. Most other stuff I can change and improve. But a new neck can be pricey.
