One of the most important debates within the guild of guitar enthusiasts, the vintage culture and vintage guitar pedals is about what advantages a vintage style has over traditional. This is never easy to answer or explain in a few words.

Purists tend to go for vintage models, focusing on highly technical and punctual aspects, things like vintage materials and manufacturing methods, unlike the traditional ones who tend to accept innovations in terms of materials and equipment to obtain greater fidelity.

This feud over guitars has made iconic manufacturers get involved by bombarding the market with ranges of instruments made to the standards of the day, such as hand-built, specific woods, and old-looking finishes.

Fender and Gibson are the greatest exponents on this subject, for this reason, some aspects will be evaluated regarding their popular guitar models that differ from their traditional and vintage versions.

Fender Strat Traditional vs Standard

Without a doubt, a Strat with a suitable guitar pedalboard will offer a superior tone that will appeal to almost any ear, but more than with execution and effects pedals, Fender has been able to make great differences with its traditional and vintage models in the market. without major accessories.

The Strat model hit the market in the ’60s, and since then, it has undergone modifications to improve its fidelity, even though today the guitars of the first ranges that hit the market back then are highly valued.

The iconic model could be considered to have kept its look and function with little change since then, to the point of becoming a standard. On the contrary, the vintage versions focus more on the sound in recreating the era and its sound.

Main differences

A fundamental aspect of vintage models is that they are kept up to nowadays or that their components and parts comply with the characteristics of that time, this means that an old guitar can be considered vintage for the sole fact of adding such antiquity to its range.

Prices

Fender has vintage models that can exceed $15,000, especially if they passed through the hands of important exponents of the time. Models that have been slightly modified can go up to $3,000. The traditional ones, on the other hand, are more accessible.

Gibson Les Paul Traditional vs Standard

Gibson guitars have always been exclusive and with higher prices than Fender models, the traditional Les Pauls had their origin almost simultaneously with the Strat, so from the beginning they have competed with each other in the market.

Main differences

The vintage Les Paul models do not have many differences compared to the traditional ones, and Gibson is one of the manufacturers that remains faithful to its standards, only modifying a few things in the circuitry of its instruments and in the bridge mechanisms. to make them more efficient.

Some traditional models feature pickups to emulate the vintage sound, so achieving a vintage tone with these guitars is considerably easier than with Fender models. 

Namely, pins with fixing systems, weight balancing systems, and state-of-the-art pickups are some of the most significant differences when comparing them with the vintage ones, and it is that the traditional models consider the interest of the fans in finding consensus between the vintage and new.

Prices

It is possible to find vintage models on the market for up to $50,000, considerable amounts for an instrument over 40 years old. Traditional guitars maintain solid prices of up to $3,000 with little difference from the original sound, something that trades in a widely speculative market regarding the tone and quality of the instruments.