Yo Light- Fender tuners

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Richard Monroe

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I've got a Jimmy Vaughan Tex-Mex Strat with Gotoh tuners, and a Highway One Telecaster with tuners marked on the back with the Fender "F" logo. I know you are a fan of the top of the line Gotohs, but my impression of these is that they are copies of some vintage tuners, and while they do not suck, they seem to be nothing special. The tuners on the tele are sealed, and are pretty damn good. Do you have any idea who makes them? I presume they are made for Fender under contract, but for all I know, Fender may actually make them themselves.
I'm considering changing the tuners on the strat at some point, possibly to a better grade of Gotohs or Grovers, but I would be happy to use the same ones that are on my Tele. Any clues?-Richie
 
Bump- sorry- the system doesn't seem to know this thread exists.-Richiw
 
What makes a tuner "good"? I know what makes them bad. It just seems like they reach a certain level of functionality and then anything done to improve it doesn't have much impact. I say that because I really like the vintage style fender tuners where you stick the end of the string down into the post. I have nice sealed tuners on other guitars, but I just don't see any advanage when it comes to adjusting the tension of a piece of wire. The split post with the hole down the middle lets me change a string in like 9 seconds even after 4 beers.

My main stage guitar has these old jazzmaster tuners on it and one of them has a flat place in the gear. Which sucks a little, but it hasn't had an impact because the flat spot hasn't been up when the string was tuned to pitch. Just to show that perfect tuners aren't "necessary", although they may be preferred by some.
 
Yo Cephus- the vintage style tuners to which you refer are precisely the Gotohs on my Strat. I also like the design, sticking the string down into the center of the post. What makes tuners good? When they are not bad. For me, that means that it takes large adjustments in the keys to make a small adjustment on the string (16:1 is great, 12:1 is usable, if you're careful. 10:1 sucks.) More importantly, the movement of the post when the key is turned must be even and smooth, so you don't have to use a lot of force, which makes your hand movements uneven, and most importantly, the same amount of movement on the keys must *always* produce the same amount of movement on the post, in either direction, without any jumps or skips.
I'm sure it's not just about brand, but also the specific model. The Grover tuners on my Epi Les Paul are adequate, but not great. The Grover tuners on my Taylor are *perfect*. There's no way that Grover sold them for the same price. The Gotoh tuners on my strat are "adequate". The "Fender" tuners on my tele are better, but not perfect. Based on what Light has said about Gotoh tuners, I'm betting they make a model for my Strat that are *perfect*. I intend to find them and install them.-Richie
 
Richard Monroe said:
I've got a Jimmy Vaughan Tex-Mex Strat with Gotoh tuners, and a Highway One Telecaster with tuners marked on the back with the Fender "F" logo. I know you are a fan of the top of the line Gotohs, but my impression of these is that they are copies of some vintage tuners, and while they do not suck, they seem to be nothing special. The tuners on the tele are sealed, and are pretty damn good. Do you have any idea who makes them? I presume they are made for Fender under contract, but for all I know, Fender may actually make them themselves.
I'm considering changing the tuners on the strat at some point, possibly to a better grade of Gotohs or Grovers, but I would be happy to use the same ones that are on my Tele. Any clues?-Richie
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Most of Fenders Tuners are made by Gotoh, but they also get some from Schaller (their locking tuners), and many of the cheaper guitars gears (including your Hiway 1) are made by Ping, which is about the cheapest gear on the market. But yes, it is only the high end Gotoh's I like, not the cheaper ones.

The big thing with gears, of course, is that with proper stringing and tuning technique, MOST of them will work extremly well. If you want to upgrade, feel free, but I wouldn't say that the Pings are an upgrade. They may not be a step BACK, but they wouldn't be a BETTER gear. They may be more familiar, but not better. I'm assuming the ones on the Strat are sloted gears, right? They are quite different to string than other gears. Cut the string off just a hair past the next gear, and then stick the end down the hole. Then you wind it. When they are done right (as opposed to the 37 wraps with 13 sheepshanks and twelve clove hitches that people always seem to have on the guitars they bring into the shop), they work as well as anything which isn't much more expensive.

If you REALLY want to upgrade, Gotoh 510's are the way to go, though they are quite expensive.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Thanks. Light. You're a guitar tech god. I've also seed the sealed Fender strat tuners that say "Fender" on the back, as opposed to the Highway One, which just have the "F" logo. The "Fender" ones seem to generally suck, and the 2 types may represent 2 different grades of Ping. And I figured out how to use the slotted tuners just fine. Two or three sheepshanks, and you're good to go-LOL.-Richie
 
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