If you could only play 1 guitar for the rest of your life, what would it be?

[Kiichi]

Really interesting question as it makes you think about what you really want in a guitar to be your absolute go to.

I enjoy how some here a purists with basic needs and some go a bit more fancy...and then there is me. xD
One guitar forever makes me want a bunch of options to get the max of different sounds out of a guitar, still a lot of people here go for rather classic and simple stuff (at least relativly). Food for thought.

For example I would like a 7 string. Do I use the seventh string often? No, I am not one of those modern metal 7 string guys, I come more from the Petrucci and Trivium (Shogun era) school of thought. An extension. However I use it more often than drop tunings and I can play my usual chords and all, but have more if needed. So that is in for me. Right now I have only one 7 string and a few 6 strings. When I can only have one, I would go for all the options though.

That was my thinking at least, but a lot of people have gone more for the comfort factor.

If I were to do that I would go for my 7 string Dean Vendetta (with EM neck and HD bridge) cause it was my first guitar and is all things considered my currently most versatile. Plays awesomely though, even though it was cheap (one of the lucky shots).

[Alex]

ESP Eclipse, because its handling & playability is just so great. You could simply swap the pickups if your taste changes and it wouldn't disappoint in so many settings.

[blue]

It's a question that could be answered differently every day!  at the minute I have a Les Paul custom, a hardtail strat and a single pickup tele sitting in the house.  Every one of them, at some point, I've thought "this could be my number one for ever!"  In truth, if i was left with any one of them, i would manage just fine, although I'd certainly wish i had the others at some point. 

So I reckon the answer is, whatever guitar you're left with.  No guitar is perfect, but that's one of the best things about them, working around their limitations.  Which is maybe why Philly's Junior might be the best of the lot :)

[gwEm]

Superstrat of some description. If it's the only guitar I'm allowed I reckon I'd be speccing it up myself for fancy wiring options etc.

a very true point, if you are allowed non off-the-peg guitars and mods then i could have that gibson flying V with a parallel wound neck pickup and the serially would bridge pickup of my choice.

would be quite easy actually. i'd miss the strat feel sometimes though, also steinbergers are great for portability. but if it would be one guitar i guess i could be happy with a suitably modded V.

[MrBump]

I think that whatever you settled on you will always hanker after another.

My PRS NF3 is about the most versatile guitar I've ever played, but these days I'm playing my 20 year old £400 Charvel more than anything, because it has some serious mojo.  I'm sure I'll come back to the NF3 at some point.

Any my tele - my main gigging guitar for almost 3 years - is sitting gathering dust, and I can't remember the last time I played it!

So today it's Charvel.  Tomorrow, probably the £5 nylon string jobbie sitting in my eldest son's room.

[darkbluemurder]

It probably would be a strat with different pickguards so I could use different pickups with it.

Cheers Stephan

[dave_mc]

Superstrat of some description. If it's the only guitar I'm allowed I reckon I'd be speccing it up myself for fancy wiring options etc.

a very true point, if you are allowed non off-the-peg guitars and mods then i could have that gibson flying V with a parallel wound neck pickup and the serially would bridge pickup of my choice.

would be quite easy actually. i'd miss the strat feel sometimes though, also steinbergers are great for portability. but if it would be one guitar i guess i could be happy with a suitably modded V.

Yeah. In a real world situation modding the cr@p out of the thing (or just getting something custom-made) is absolutely possible, so I figure that's fair enough. Though for some people that might be skating a bit close to cheating (and I suppose you could also make the "real world" claim that you don't need to limit yourself to one guitar).

Stephan's suggestion of swappable scratchplates is a great idea, assuming that doesn't qualify as cheating

[MrBump]

... what about amps..?

[gwEm]

... what about amps..?

JCM800 master volume model surely

[Andrew W]

Stephan's suggestion of swappable scratchplates is a great idea, assuming that doesn't qualify as cheating

OK, if that's the game we're playing, my dream guitar would be one of these:



with a selection of swappable in bodies/necks/electronics/hardware. 

I kid.

As to the amp question, I think I'd be hard pressed to choose anything other than a Cornell Romany, but maybe I'd get the 20 watt version if it were for keeps. Then again some of that Dumble crystal lettuce is always tempting just because.

[Dave Sloven]

Probably my SG Standard.  It has everything I need.  Cold Sweat pickups, nice pots, caps, and harness, TonePros bridge and tailpiece ... I'm very happy with it.

[AndyR]

For me, it'd have to be a bog-standard early-60's-style strat.

I play around with all this other stuff and they're very nice and all (it would take a lot to part with my 335). But when it comes down to it, in my experience (how I play, etc) a strat can do a passable job of impersonating everything else to a greater or lesser degree... but I've always found that when you ain't got no strat, you really can't get that strat vibe going, you really miss it,  and it's really depressing...

(Btw -I played a Variax for a couple of years, with the express idea of only having one guitar... I had no issues with the physical aspect of the thing - I actually loved the feel of it, but I could not get the strat model tweaked close enough to "strat" to satisfy my cravings. So my wife bought me a strat, I bought ITs, joined this forum, and ended up with LOADS of guitars! )

If I'd started out differently many years ago, and didn't bond with "strat" early on (looks, sound, how it feels, etc) - then I'd probably be a PRS dude, like the one posted by Andrew W up the top...

But because of my inbuilt "strat-man" thing (and I haven't played one for over 6 months - it's all Gibbos and teles at the moment), I'd be a fool not to choose a strat.

[dave_mc]

Stephan's suggestion of swappable scratchplates is a great idea, assuming that doesn't qualify as cheating

OK, if that's the game we're playing, my dream guitar would be one of these:



with a selection of swappable in bodies/necks/electronics/hardware. 

I kid.

LOL

I dunno about amps... there are a few amps I suspect I'd really like (CAE OD100, Soldano SLO, Splawn Quick Rod) which I've never tried which I suspect I'd really like, and I wouldn't want to narrow myself down to one before trying them...

[Stevepage]

or

[Ian Price]

Probably my SG Standard.  It has everything I need.  Cold Sweat pickups, nice pots, caps, and harness, TonePros bridge and tailpiece ... I'm very happy with it.

I've been umming and ahhing about a potential second guitar for some time now. Hopefully next year I'll be able to consider getting one - not a really short list at the moment but an SG is definitely on it;

SG
Les Paul Junior
Les Paul (or, if I had the money a Lion)
Strat
Tele (yes, another tele)
PRS Mira

From that list you might have guessed that I'm pretty much a traditionalist.