You and your guitars, have you changed what you used then to now?

Modern Saint

Modern Saint

Starve your Fear, Feed your Dream!
When I was first learning to play I always wanted a strat. Got a partscaster early on and never looked back.

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My next breakthrough was playing a Jackson Soloist. You could almost say this was the superstrat transition period.

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The 90's had me shifting gears towards a Tele's and the single coil sound. I also went away from the use of Floyd's.

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In the early 2000's added to the arsenal the single strat and the stripped down super strat.

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Late 2000's I began playing LP's

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Today I still use all of the above but now include the Gretsch. Boy talk about a change of instruments over a span of 30+ years.

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In my teens and 20s I'd just buy, sell, and trade whatever I could afford (which wasn't much). In 1998 I bought a Taylor and that was my first "quality" (read: non-import) guitar.

Since then I've mostly just acquired guitars. I like them all for different reasons and I make a conscious effort to make sure they all get played regularly, but more often than not I'll reach for my green '62 Hot Rod Strat.
 
Most of my playing life my main guitars have been some sort of strat-like thing. for a period in the early 2000's I played Les Pauls pretty exclusively but then have gone back to the stratty things.
 
I went from thinking basically superstrats to mainly acoustic guitars. I thought 24-frets for all of the range, floyds or variations on the theme to ensure you could do all of the cool things from subtle shimmier to Vai-ian antics, and splittable/tappable HBs (sometimes Rail styles) to cover all of the sonic bases. But these were just preferences. Super Strats gave way to PRSs, regular Strats and Teles/ASATs. No more locking trems. But those have basically given way to acoustic instruments.

I do wish I still had every guitar I ever owned, but most of the ones that have left were used to acquire the ones that I still have. Most of them have been mine for more than 20 years and only two are younger than 10 years old. I still haven't warmed up to playing Gibson electrics. I've coveted many, think they sound awesome, and play fine, but they're just not for me. Haven't played a Gibson-type guitar in more than a decade, so it's time to see if I've grown.:thu:
 
For the first decade that I played, it was nothing but Strats and Teles, but mostly Strats (and always Fender).

For years now, it's mostly been PRS (and now Kauer).
 
As a kid: Gibson Les Paul copy
then I got an Explorer Copy
Then I played some super strats.... and eventually a BC Rich Mockingbird.

I played the Mockingbird right up to the point where I stopped playing guitar for many years. When I came back to playing, I messed around with alternate tunings on the Mockingbird, then played a 7 string for a year... and then got back into Charvels and eventually PRS guitars.

Once I got my Taylor T5 it all changed.... I play cleaner, more rhythmically now... and I'm getting into other guitars like strats (with actual single coils) , teles, and other guitars that are brighter, chimier, and funkier.
 
Hondo Strat copy

Two-humbucker Fender Contemporary Strat

Charvel Fusion with medium-hot humbucker, Floyd Rose, and 24 frets (still a great guitar)

Warmoth short scale -- Still rocking 24 frets but went to a two-point trem and cleaner humbuckers

Warmoth Tele w/neck humbucker

Rebuilt Warmoth short scale -- 24 frets, Callaham trem, and TV Jones pickups

Godin Fifth Avenue Kingpin -- Archtop with neck P90

Gibson ES139 -- humbuckered semihollow

...pretty much an evolution from teenager music to old man music.
 
Amp wise..... I started out playing a little Marshall combo... and eventually a Marshall halfstack. No pedals.

Then I experimented with rack mount stuff, and then modelers... and eventually Mesa Boogie.

I played the Mesa for a looong time... and then I've owned 3 different Orange Rockerverbs, a couple low wattage combos....and now I have an Orange and a Mesa.

My pedalboard(s) have steadily grown over the past 3 years. :mad:
 
My first 'good' guitar was an '81 Ibanez artist. After that I kept trying to play a strat. I think I owned 10 or so strats or strat like guitars until I finally had to admit they are just not for me.

Now I am all about filtertron or p90s. Teles will do as well.
 
I embraced Fender Strats early on... but moved on to LP's and then over to superstrats... now I'm somewhere in the middle. I gravitate mostly to dual humbucker guitars that sound like LP's with Strat type feel
 
when i was young and my heart was an open book......

in my earlier days, i was a complete Gibson snob (1968-1980). i had some nice ones and some very vintage ones.
then somewhere in the mid 80's some things began to change. there was SRV and Eric Johnson (and some others) and i began going down the strat road.
and now, a Fender Stratocaster is all i'll play, if i can. but it also has to do with the music style i like and play. blues and bluesy R&B, etc. and a Strat just works with that style.
i've always wanted to see what a 24.5" scale strat would play like and sound like (probably not much different) just because the shorter scale is easier to bend notes on.
 
I have always had a semi hollow 335 style guitar. Very versatile, and since a lot of my playing is unplugged, it's a good compromise between the playability of an electric with the warm tone of an acoustic. I have added a few others along the way, both Strat(ish) and acoustics. I just picked up an A/E Dobro, which is getting most of the playing time since then. I still reach for the dual HB semi hollow first when it's time to get loud. But my Charvel has the best neck of all of them, so it comes next. I recently had to part with my main cheepo acoustic after the cats got in a fight and knocked it off the stand and decapitated it.:( Thankfully the Dobro was safe and now covers most of my acoustic needs.
 
I'm almost embarrassed to admit how many guitars I have owned over the years. I'll try to keep it to guitars I gigged with.
My first guitar was a crappy LP copy. Then I saved up and bought one of those contemporary Strat, with the locking vibrato and single humbucker.
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When i had those guitars, I was playing bass in bands. When I made the switch to guitar, I went with an American Standard Strat.

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I went to a Les Paul for 1 gig. I don't think I made it through the whole gig with it.
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Then I went to a Ric 620.
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Followed by my last real gigging guitar, a Music Man Silhouette. I played a few Fender Leads here and there.

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And now, I mainly play my McFeely and a Fender Lead II.

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Started on an Austin Les Paul Copy, then went to a Gibson L6-s.

Then went to strat body guitars after that. Roland Guitar Synth (G-202), Charvel Model 4, Heartfield EX-2, Jackson Soloist, Ibanez Artist, Multiple actual Fender strats.
 
When I started playing guitar in my teens it was all about the Strat. Not that odd considering my guitar heroes at that point were David Gilmour and the guys in Iron Maiden (they still are fwiw).

As all young rockers eventually do, I then went through the obligatory phase of shred machines with the Floyd monstrosities, and then about a decade ago discovered the Telecaster. These days I can do pretty much all I want with a couple of Teles (one single coils and the other P90) and my current Chapman superstrat.
Interestingly enough, I've gone almost completely off the Floyd/whammy bar stuff, except on the Red Special that is mandatory for the Queen stuff.

Tried getting into the Les Paul thing a couple of years ago, but I'm just not an LP player. I dig the sound, but my playing doesn't suit those guitars for me.
And that guitar's inherent unreliability is seriously pissing me off. :embarrassed:
 
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