aen wrote:
Basswood is like the lightest softest wood they make guitars out of.
Aen beat me too it. Basswood is light.
Basswood can vary.. It can be heavy and it also can be light .. If they cure it it'll be light . I doubt they will though.. Some people dog basswood .. They think it's cheap. Might be inexpensive but it's not cheap. IMO the finish can make of break the tone on a guitar sometimes . A thick urethane finish I think fucks them up.. A stain and a lacquer ? Try it . Play a guitar say a strat . Both alder . Play one with a Urethane and one with a nitrocellulose . I wish I can say basswood but finding a basswood made guitar that's common with a thin lacquer finish is hard .
Depending on the tone basswood you're looking for basswood with awesome..... Ok.. Play a poplar , an alder and a basswood Mustang .. Differences . Just depends what sound you're looking for ..
Only reason a lot of cheaper guitars are basswood is that it's easier to work with and harder to fuck up. Less waste , more product , more profit .
Even if they're basswood or not if they're priced right and decent quality I will buy and mod the fuck out of them . Nuff said ..
Call a company like Warmoth and tell them basswood is cheap shit .. They'll laugh at you.
It's a tone thing , not a price thing in my opinion.
Rox wrote:Basswood can vary.. It can be heavy and it also can be light .. If they cure it it'll be light . I doubt they will though..
What do you think they'll do instead? These will be coming from a major guitar making factory. I'm not sure from which country, but it hardly matters because the current Squier range is of remarkably consistent quality (far more consistent than that of Gibson). There is zero doubt that the wood will be treated properly before it is used for guitar making. That statement strikes me as coming from reading too much hype about high-end guitars and an assumption that 'you get what you pay for' is a universal truth.
Rox wrote:Only reason a lot of cheaper guitars are basswood is that it's easier to work with and harder to fuck up. Less waste , more product , more profit .
I've no doubt that different woods to do sound somewhat different, but I also think that for electric instruments it's nowhere near as big of a deal as people often make out. Why do you think Alder is so common as a guitar wood now? The answer isn't magical tone, it's because it was the wood used for most old Fenders. And why do you think it was the wood used for old Fenders? I don't know the decision process that went into it but I will guarantee that price and availability were two of the top three requirements.
Basswood is readily available in the countries Squiers are now made, it's also used on a lot of Fender Japan guitars for the same reason.
I read somewhere China has a lot of beautiful hardwood resources that they have only recently started to use in guitar manufacturing, relatively speaking to US companies of course. It could simply be the western world being critical of it because it is being used on low end instruments. On the other hand i've heard other people say the woods they are using are as good if not better than what has been used traditionally.
Either way, the true issue was quality control, but looking at the last few ranges of CIC Squier you really cannot pick fault.
The tonewood argument has always baffled me a bit. I dunno, been playing guitar for 20+ years and owned dozens of them and i couldn't tell you what they are made of by ear. The mass of wood has more effect i think, dense bodies seem to sustain better. Like James said, on an electric it matters less when you consider hardware and electronics.
Another thing i find pointless is companies/players going on about a guitar being made of select Honduran mahogany yet it has been finished in multiple layers of paint and lacquer. If the wood is so superb i want to see the damn thing.
Well I actually think that's a good idea. The Warmoth Modified Mustang bridge was largely a good idea, the gappiness was annoying but they recently fixed that, so having that on a new Mustang makes sense. I won't get one, but I'm glad they exist.
honeyiscool wrote:...the whammy's even in the vintage placement for the Jazzmasters, huh. I bet people are jizzing themselves all over.
er yeah, where have you been dude, it's been creme de la jeans in here for months now.
what I want to know now though, does this seem out of the ordinary to anyone?
Pickup Switching: Neck pickup only (rhythm circuit); neck only, neck and bridge, bridge only (lead circuit)
Special Electronics: Specially voiced rhythm and lead circuit controls
"specially voiced"? I would be very interested to see if they tweaked the switching/rhythm circuit a little bit.
Mages wrote:what I want to know now though, does this seem out of the ordinary to anyone?
You mean, does it seem too good to be true? Like there must be something wrong, like we find out that there's a hidden Strat Jack inside the pickguard?
Can't believe I'd missed this thread. Very exciting news.
Surprised they've gone for a 1.65" nut on the Mustang over the RI 1.625" though. I would have hope they'd have kept the sleeker neck. Good news for fatty hands I suppose.
basswood 
