Make Your SQUIER Sound Like a FENDER for $20!!

Short on cash? No Problem! Today I do the Broke vs Pro challenge and see if I can make my SQUIER sound like my FENDER for under $20!
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[bryanosaur]

Yeah I can't tell the difference. I own like 6 Strats and have gone through multiple sets of pickups on each and honestly, I've found that the easiest way to make my guitar sound better is to practice.

[TamerOfTheCats]

Not to flex but I can make a fender sound like a squier and a squier sound like a first act

[jameslanclos]

7:10 - In the third test, I most definitely liked the sound of the Squier with the pickup upgrades. It had more clarity and growl in it.

[pietro.rossetti]

Make your Squier sound like a Fender for under 20$: print a Fender sticker and put it over the "Squier" name on your guitar

[aaronhale]

Darrell as usual you are spot on. It's not the name on the headstock that matters it's the time spent on playability and how a guitar makes you feel and play.

[adamleger]

Mind blown!!! I actually liked the Squier better on all 3 blind tests. 🤯🎸

[arthurbrown]

What would have been interesting is to hear the differences between the old pickups and the new pickups on just the Squier.

[ianzapcic]

In every blind test I actually preferred the Squier.

[Ricks]

Hi Darrell, it would have been good to hear the Squire PRIOR to you changing the pickups, and then after.

[groovydjs]

I like to use a hotter middle pickup so that the 2 and 4 positions don't drop in volume.

[marclevesque]

Great video Darrell, would have liked to hear the difference between the guitars using the Squier with original pick-ups just to hear how much improvement there was to the sound.

[Xaltar_]

The reality is, more and more professionals are steering away from the big brand, big budget offerings. We have reached a point where a $500 guitar can play as well and sound as good as guitars that previously cost $1000 and over. Competition has exploded and the big names have fallen behind, both in terms of value and quality. The best strat will always be a fender and the best Les Paul will always be a Gibson but the problem is, neither would be a new instrument. Now we pay through the nose for dated tech, poor QC (Gibson, I don't have any experience with new Fenders). Don't get me wrong, I loved my Fender Strat, it was a '68 and beat to hell but damn she played nice. I sold it for $100 before "reliced" was a thing. I picked it up for $50 and spent about anther $50 on it for a used Trem block and 2 knobs that were missing. This was in the 90's and it was worth nothing then, now I could have gotten 10 times my investment back, or more. It isn't more valuable, people just got dumber.

Squires are great, cheap, playable and, with a few upgrades, every bit as good as a Fender. The same can be said of many ST and T type clones. Epiphone I am not a fan of, just personal preference though, not because they are flawed in some particular way. For Gibson style instruments I look at either the copyright era vintage clones or, for a cheap project base, something like a Harley Benton SC 450 or DC XXX.

The vast majority of pros I know (earn their living in the industry) use Ibanez, Jackson, ESP etc. In fact, the only pro I know that regularly actually plays Fender or Gibson is a blues guy who has a killer 90's Les Paul Studio and 70's Tele (also a gem). He is also the oldest of the guys I know in the industry and has had both his axes from new. My brother would play the heck out of a Gibson Les Paul or a Fender USA Strat if he had them but as an expense, he would never pay the money they are asking for something that isn't actually any better than many guitars coming in at as little as a quarter of the price and vintage demands and even higher premium.

I love how Darrell always advocates buying what feels good to you. Go to a store, pick up everything in your budget and have a good noodle then pick what made you smile the most. Don't let past stigma and nonsense snobbery decide for you.

[Supperconductor]

I think those no cover pickups are kind of steampunk - I like them.

[midorisumi]

I purchased a set of these pickups and installed them on a Strat I built last year. With CTS pots, a CRL switch, vintage waxed cloth wiring and .33 NOS Bumblebee caps, I preferred them to the set of early 2000’s Fender Noiseless, and the new set of Fender Tex Mex pickups, I compared them to. They were surprisingly really, really, good. Only issue was finding staggered covers for the odd 48/50/52 widths. You also must take into account that the pickguard will need modifying, as the holes for the pickups aren’t going to be staggered either. Not a huge deal, but it’s something to consider.

[Waapitii]

I think the squiier is a little brighter, the fender has a little more warmth almost a little richer tone but for $17pups its phenomenal similarity and I actually like the squier more when he added overdrive and gain

[robertlevasseur]

Been playing for 45 years and have collected lots of guitars. In this vid, I prefer the sound of the squier. Sounds fuller and more lively. Any tone difference I hear can just as easily be attributed to string brand, string height, pot differences, or microscopic changes on the tone pot. With that said, I would have liked to have heard each guitar played with a more Hendrix or Vaughan tone and with some different amps.

[DveJapn]

“I did the same test with a charvel so cal and a fender Stratocaster of similar model and my friends couldn’t tell the difference. So I though huh let’s try testing the so cal (£1400) and the strat (£999) and the squire (£159) and the difficulty my professional musician / producer friends had telling them apart made me realise we really have gone nuts in the gear snobbery department over the last 50 years.
Let’s be fair, the most expensive strats nowadays emulate the first strats ever made. Back in those days they were made with cheap parts due to being new / mostly still experimental in its infancy. So we’re paying premium for parts that sound like cheap parts.
Get the guitar you enjoy the feel of. Plug it in. Play it. “
- Andrej Tchaikovsky 2018

[lolgames]

I hate when people hate on squier guitars I had one for 3 years and I love it alot

[Scottocaster]

I love Squires, you can mod them, make them to your liking without feeling nervous by maybe ruining your thousand dollar or whatever priced expensive Fender. I've owned 6, have one now that I play more than my Wolfgang. I picked it up at a Yard sale for, ready... $5 bucks!. Did some work to it, making it to my liking, and it plays awesome. Strats are more comfortable to me. Once again,
Thanks for the video Darrell 😉

[NickLeonard]

The new squier pickups actually seemed to have better separation and clarity, maybe due to those staggered pole pieces. In some cases, the fender sounded more "cohesive" and "vintage", but I liked the squier better for most tests