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I know Squier has respect round these parts so lets here why.

My favorite is picking up a Squier Affinity Strat up new from the local cash converters for £40.
Originally i was going to rob its parts for other projects but upon plugging it in even with its rusty strings the obvious potential was there.
So, i set it up with some new strings and a small neck shim and the damn thing plays about as good as anything i own. I've even got the tremolo set to floating and it stays in tune, plus the pickups are nice.
I dont know if i'd gig it but dont see why not, gonna try it out a rehearsal soon.
The quality for the money is unbelievable, you could buy 10 of these, modify a few and still be in pocket, respect to CIC here too.

A squier affinity strat was my first guitar. It was red and I had grown to loathe the color. Eventually, I had dismantled it in order to get it painted a "tropical turquoise." I'm surprised I even remembered how to put it back together because it took the painter a couple months to get it done. It was the first thing I learned to solder on, first guitar I learned to put back together. It's been through some spring selections, tremolo bar has been broken off in the block and has been constant since. I don't think I could ever get rid of it, despite hating it so much when I first started playing.

It usually just lays around, but ever so often I pick it back up and wonder why I don't play it more regularly. I've been thinking about going the 3 p-90 route with it, but that neck pickup is so convincing.

Squier m-80 set neck. $140.

Possibly the nicest most playable guitar I've ever touched.

i sold all mine and bought a jaguar with the money i made from them.



BUT GODDAMMIT I LOVED THEM.

at one point i think i owned over 10 of them at once. the 51 neck on my Esquier (now norries) was 2nd favorite neck after my jagstang. i always played it whenever i needed a change of pace from all of the smaller necks that i got.

weezer strat is a squier
without squier there wouldn't be duocasters


without squier i never would have taught myself how to wire guitars. its like the foundation of a house. you got this slab, and you are free to make it what ever you want. its your house, where other more expensive guitars are all prefabricated and too nice to fuck up on purpose.

why is squier awesome?

because they take chances. They do new things that fender wouldn't dare try with their brand name. the 51, the master series, the super-sonic, the jagmaster, the venus, etc.

robroe wrote:without squier i never would have taught myself how to wire guitars. its like the foundation of a house. you got this slab, and you are free to make it what ever you want. its your house, where other more expensive guitars are all prefabricated and too nice to fuck up on purpose.

*wipes tears from eyes*

Let us not about the infamous En Fuego:

oh i've got lotsa squiers here (MIJ's) and love them all.

before going all offset, i was 100% strat-man. squiers. the older, the better. but the new stuff is impressive, i must stay.

i'd show up at gigs and people would go "no way you're playing a squier thru that old fender/sound city/marshall" and roll their eyes. and then they'd HEAR with their EARS, not their eyes or brain.
i never had to worry about guitars getting stolen HA!


here they are... the red one was/is an über-rare "made in usa" squier with a 3-digit serial number... it was stolen from my brother's house last month.

and i still have this one, from the standard series, 2005. top notch!


Pat.

The Classic Vibe telecasters are a perfect example of paying for EXACTLY what you get.
One of my most positive purchase experiences.

My first guitar was a Affnity Strat. After about a month or so of playing it i started taking things apart to see how it all works and if i could put it all back together. I put a black pickguard on it from GFS and put Lace Sensors in it. The neck feels like home to me. Its not perfect, hell its not even great but it brings me back.
My second guitar was Sadie, a Squier Telecaster Custom Deluxe or something like that. Sanded her down, painted it white, put p-rails in it and now its a crazy cool guitar. As i stated in the "signature guitar" thread, if i had to have one guitar with my name on it mass produced, it'd be that p-rails tele MADE BY AN SQUIER because awesome guitars like this one should be readily available to the people and new musicians starting out.
I also aquired a Classic Vibe Duo Sonic recently thanks to Mickie's $100 duo run. That whole classic vibe line is the best thing squier's ever done imo. I won't buy a new Fender for a LONG time as long as Squier keeps this up.
I also had/have an old '95 or so MIM Squier Tele thats just great. MIA neck and body assembled in mexico during a time when a squier factory burnt down or something. Has nocaster pickups in it and to me its everything a vintage telecaster should be and sound like. Seriously great guitar.

<3 Squier

nicely said dude!
yes if i had a signature guitar i'd LOVE for it to be a Squier, mass-produced and/but very affordable for the kids. i'd be proud, as i've been a truthful squier-man for most of my guitar-playing life.
too bad i've never had/played a jagmaster... yet!

Pat.

I bought the Musicmaster bass about 6 months ago and I was honestly considering selling it a week ago. Then I brought it to a gig that I didn't want to take my T-bird to, and it fucking rocks. Solid construction, really light, and a more than decent pickup. I don't think I'm gonna sell it anymore.
My dad now has the vista jagmaster, but the neck on this thing is second to none on any guitar I have ever owned or played (save for maybe MaMo's 60's mustang).
And of course, the classic vibe and vintage modified series. I'm not that much of a P and J bass fan, but the Classic Vibe 50's p bass and the Vintage Modified Jazz are such nice guitars. someday they will be mine.

Last year, I was trolling the local Craigslist and an ad that caught my eye, "electric Fender guitar - $25". No pic, not much of a description either. I figured how bad could it be? I emailed and said I wanted to see it and set up a meet that night. I get there and there is a Squier Guitar Pack box sitting there. I'm told take a look. I pull out a 2004 Squier Strat Affinity, not a mark on it. Looking in a little deeper, there is an amp (Fender Frontman 15G) tuner, and cable. I'm told, it was bought for their son 5 years ago for as a gift. He wasn't interested and stuffed it into his closet where it sat to that day. (These kids today!) Needless to say, I handed over the $25, said thank you very much, and left.

Its actually a nice little player.

my thing with squier has always been just maintaining the understanding that they're basically like a working mans fender. remember when fender was the working mans guitar? now they've gotten so stale, and redundant that one needs to play these new bang-for-your-buck squiers in order to feel any break in the monotony.

i love my MIM strat, but it doesn't play any better than some of the CIC affinity's i've played. granted, there are hit and miss with squier, but the margin is no larger than with fender themselves (except japan, i'm yet to play a bad one). i saw a brand new roadworn (MIM) strat that had some kind of clear on the rosewood fretboard, but not on the last fret. sure, i'll never play anything down there, but wtf?

my next guitar that i may buy new (never have), will most likely be a CV bound sunburst tele. and my main guitar is my vista jagmaster, which is basically a jap jag with buckers. granted, they're not made anymore...

but i feel the new squier stuff is only getting better, where as fender is only getting more inconsistent.

I tried out a bunch of teles & strats late last year and early this year. The only non-Squier that played better than a Squier was the '72 reissue tele. I ended up buying an Affinity series strat with the intention of hotrodding the fuck out of it with P-90s, locking tuners, and a few other bells and whistles. But I stupidly didn't check all the specs on it first. When I got it, I realized the 40mm nut was just too narrow for my tastes, though I really liked the 3/4 thickness body. So I returned it, then decided to go a different route and just upgrade the pickups on my Gretsch. Definitely has re-opened my eyes to Squiers. No way I'm gonna pay $1000 for a Fender Strat when I could buy a Squier Strat, do some mods and save $300-$400 for the same guitar.

laterallateral wrote:The Classic Vibe telecasters are a perfect example of paying for EXACTLY what you get.
One of my most positive purchase experiences.

I think for a sub £300 guitar the CVC is amazing. I haven't managed to play any MIM tele that matched it. The DuoSonic is on my "want" list and I even started thinking about the CV 50s strat.

hotrodperlmutter wrote:my thing with squier has always been just maintaining the understanding that they're basically like a working mans fender. remember when fender was the working mans guitar?

This is a good point, and like a few have mentioned, you dont have to worry too much about them being stolen, generally speaking.
Well i took the Affinity to rehearsal tonight, i figured it being a Covers Band the diversity of a Strat will be useful. It held up great, even the tremolol, there was the odd moment of microphonic feedback during the higher gain songs but nothing out of the norm for a Strat.
I've always liked the MIK models (and Fender) but this new/cheaper CIC stuff is quite a shock to me.

I remember i had my first electric guitar and one day i went to a mates and played his guitar.... FUCK. It felt amazing... the action was super low, so easy to play. What is this expensive guitar?... SQUIER STRAT. Olympic White.

A year or so later I got one. A tom delonge custom strat. Surf green, one shitty duncan designed humbucker, one volume control. I loved it. Still have it and have dreams of routing it/fitting it with better pickups. It's setup perfectly. Could do with decent tuners but has a nice big 70's style headstock which looks AWSUM.

love it.

Squiers are cool for playing dress up and experimenting with different pickguards and color combos to come up with cool looking guitars. I will give them credit for giving the beginner or frugal guitarist the same headstock and interchangeable parts as its top of the line fender guitars

However at the end of the day no matter how nice they felt in my hands, they never quite resonated or sounded how I expected a good fender to sound out of the box. Even nice 80's MIJ models that were as good if not better than their fender counterparts structurally had crap pickups and cheap pots/wiring.

The exceptions of course are the Master series and Classic Vibe series. If I was going to buy a tele right now you can bet it would be the 60's custom CV

I have owned 5 squiers btw

Squier Bullet (80's MIK, red)
Squier Bullet (80's MIJ, Sunburst)
Squier Telecaster Standard (Dark Green)
Squier Stratocaster (YUNCASTER, dark red metallic)
Squier Jagmaster (CAR)

My first Squier was 2007 Jagmaster I really enjoyed it and even tried to upgrade to a Vista Neck (which I found out later you can't do) I put some Fender dragsters in it but eventually sold it and bought my CAR Jagmaster (that needs repair) My first project guitar. I learned so much from that project that I am about to start build guitars from scratch. But it really opened my eyes that some Squiers were good despite what I had heard previously. Later, I ended up buying a used Squier CV Duo-Sonic online. I totally love the guitar. I originally hoped it would be my poor man's Mustang, but it really stands alone in its own right. I also love the CV 50's tele. I would love to have that neck on my new tele I am building. I am such a fan of the Super-sonic that I am going to build one. I hope to one day get a Venus XII. I love squiers and hope they keep making awesome cheap guitars.