Rounding Up the Best Squier Guitars with a Focus on Stratocasters and Telecasters

Best Squier Guitars (top Stratocasters and Telecasters)

At the price tag you won't find much to complain about. As a player of nearly two decades this model of the classic Jaguar is still appealing to me. You get the Duncan-designed pickups, which are similar to the Seymour Duncan Antiquity set, in a great looking guitar that’s visually indistinguishable from the Fender version.

Dual circuit switch and the vintage, non-locking tremolo are the two “highlight” features:

The tone and resonance is crisp and warm, sounding particularly inviting with clean lead melodies and pick scrapes. Jen Trani’s demo is a great showcase. We love this version of the Jaguar for beginners of all walks, especially the Kurt Cobain fans among us. Even players with some experience under their belts might find the Vintage Jaguar to be a good fit.

IDEAL FOR: Grunge and Kurt Cobain fans, classic rockers, blues and jazz enthusiasts

Yes, the pickups are stone cold stock.

But, at the same time, they're surprisingly responsive and satisfying from a tone perspective. While they can be a little noisy, don't assume that's a Squier issue. I owned a $1200 Fender American Telecaster that had a lot of problems with noise, which is, to an extent, part of the Telecaster charm. They've got a twang and slap back sound that almost does better with a little extra noise in the pickups.

In that regard, this version of the Tele sounds incredibly good. Pickups are the standard single coil arrangement you’ll find in mid-range Telecasters, with Alnico 5 magnets. Tonewood is Pine in the body of the guitar, which actually feels fairly heavy and solid. The neck is the familiar lightly-colored Maple that you see on a lot of Fender’s more expensive guitars.

I’d say its strongest response comes with both pickups selected, pushing a clean tone with a little bit of reverb. Bluesy runs and clean finger-picking just sound fantastic, with the familiar Tele twang that you wouldn’t expect out of a guitar at this price.

The neck pickup by itself produces a deep, bluesy response that’s strum-friendly and adaptive to high gain levels. For less than $400 this is a beautiful instrument that gives you a realistic taste of what it’s like to play a more expensive Telecaster.

IDEAL FOR: Country, blues, jazz and the player who doesn't know what kind of music they're into

Anytime you see “Classic Vibe” in relation to a Squier guitar, it’s in reference to an entire line of electrics and basses that Fender produces. We’ve mentioned a few of them in this post. From the Fender website, you can sort through all of them on the same page:

The '70s Stratocaster is one of the highlights of the group, with a vintage-style tremolo and the three single-coil Alnico pickups. While affordable and plentiful, the Poplar used in the guitar’s body has a soft and dynamic tone that does a surprisingly good job of capturing the familiar '70s guitar tone.

This guitar nails the aesthetics and stylistic aspect of the genre it was modeled after.

The pickups have a distinct bite and growl to them that responds really well to small amounts of gain, which is then easily shaped by a five-way pickup selector. This gives the '70s Strat a surprising amount of flexibility and functionality, especially if you're into heavy blues guitar scene.

Think Kenny Wayne Shepherd or Joe Bonamassa.

IDEAL FOR: Light to heavy blues, funk, jazz, classic rock and lead players

For those who don’t know (I didn’t) John 5 is Rob Zombie’s guitar player. The Squier flavor of his signature Telecaster comes with an Alder body that produces a thick, low-end response (especially with high gain levels) and a white binding that looks fantastic though is hard to notice in the above picture. The three-way toggle switch is moved away from the traditional Telecaster position and placed near the top of the guitar, similar to the way Tom Morello has many of his guitars wired.

You've got to appreciate the attention to detail that Fender put into this signature, since it would have been easy to ignore things like the binding and the selector switch location. So even if the pickups aren't anything to write home about, you've got some notable details included.

Clean tones sound really nice and full on this guitar, which I personally liked better than the distorted feel. Part of the appeal comes from the tonewood which is Alder, similar to more expensive Fenders.

Make no mistake, it's not a traditional Fender design. It's metal and should be exclusively considered within that context.

IDEAL FOR: Metal, hard rock and rhythm players or the all-around low-tuning and power chord fan

This Strat looks fantastic with three Duncan designed HR-101 Hot Rails pickups. Add the pivoting tremolo and a five-way pickup selector and you’re good to go. The body is Basswood with a dark-colored Maple neck and a large ’70s-style headstock.

With the Basswood, its tone is similar to the '70s Strat, though with a little more bite and gain coming from the Hot Rails single coils.

It reminds me a lot of the Billy Corgan Signature guitar that Fender used to make.

IDEAL FOR: Lead players, Smashing Pumpkins fans, classic to modern rock enthusiasts and most beginners

Slipknot’s Jim Root joins John 5 as a ranking member of the “Metal Guitarists Who Play Fenders” club. His signature Telecaster has a Mahogany body, which is a common tonewood that has also been used in the Gibson Les Paul Jr and early SG models.

The tone has a thick response on the low end with some bite on the highs, ideal for a guitar that’s intended to lean metal.

Pickups are a passive set of humbuckers that are meant to mimic the popular EMG design. Strings go through the body while the guitar is limited to one master volume control. If you plan to keep it around for a long time, consider dropping a pair of real EMG passive humbuckers into the mix.

IDEAL FOR: Metal, hard rock, power chords, low-tunings and rhythm players

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