G&L Tribute vs. "affordable" lines offered by others

This is the only Tribute I've ever actually owned. However, I've played and set up quite a few.



This guitar was great. I miss it and wish I had it back. My point is, as a person who sees many different guitars daily, Tribute's absolutely kill. I get other big name manufacturers "affordable" series of guitars in all the time with crazy huge issues. I'm not talking about a fret or 3 being a bit high or a smidge too much relief in the neck. I get them out of the box with crazy truss issues, nut too deep or not cut at all, pickups not secured, basically guitars unplayble upon delivery. For many, these guitars are the first impression a new musician gets of a brand. I don't think most companies see it that way.

I know the G&L staff work hard to make sure the Tribute line lives up to the promise made to Mrs. Fender regarding G&L guitars. From someone on the front line, it shows. Great work y'all.

I just wish some of these people had asked my advise before buying a guitar for a Christmas gift. I could have saved them time, trouble, and money.

Have a wonderful New Year y'all,

Larry Dale

Love my Tribute Comanche!

I'm not really a brand snob when it comes to electrics, nothing wrong with "affordable" guitars at all, but quality definitely counts. With other manufacturers, it seems to be that you need to spend time looking for the one guitar from a batch that feels right. With Tributes, though, it's just a question of picking the style of guitar you like, cos the build quality's so good.

Just thought I'd jump on the "preaching to the choir" bandwagon

Yeah, sorry if I got on my soapbox. I guess stress to get these guitars out along with little sleep and crappy guitar building got to me a bit. Setting up a new guitar should be easy, so I thought.

Zippy

Oh, no apology necessary. My old Ibanez was nice enough, but I could never get it set up the way I liked. 10 minutes with my G&L Tribute and it was just right, I didn't have to lose any sleep at all

I think they are great value for the money. In fact I recently bought a Tribute Invader that is pictured in your first post. They are available used if you keep an eye out. I have and American made G&L but do like my Tributes.

That Invader is out there somewhere. I loaned it to a life long friend for a recording project he was doing in Ft. Worth. I can't remember if he ever bought it from me, but that was his intention I believe as he liked it and I had 4 G&L's at the time. Anyway, we lost him in a motorcycle accident and the guitar wasn't at his house and has never been seen again.

Zippy

I love my Tribute legacy, especially after upgrading some stuff... But I find that with any lower priced guitars, the G&L seem to be a bit better out of the box... I have a Sterling that I like as well that is better than a lot of the similarly priced guitars out there...

Mark

Like Mark, I picked up a tribby ASAT special to mod and was very pleased from the start and with mods it has grown into a very cool gitar. IMHO Tributes have gotten better over the years. The latest SH ASAT Bluesboy with blonde finish could easily find its way to my house. Below is the progression of my modded ASAT

from ebay, love the sound of these big MFD's
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with Legacy Trib neck replacement 12" vs 9" radius
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with two custom wound Z coils and a 4-way switch and Hipshot B Bender
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Dollar for dollar, best value in guitar these days.

You have a hot B-bender guitar there, a twangtastic good 'un.

Awesome mod job. I'm thinking of putting together a guitar for pickup and cap experiments. Are the bodies swimming pools or specific pickup routes?

Zippy

Thanks for the kudos, this had individual routes that took a bit of additional routing. Very fun to play!

Before XMas I bought a Tribute Legacy HB from a local web shop here in Norway, and received it a few days later. Because I have played several G&L’s—US and Tributes—and because I own a US ASAT Classic since 2 years myself, I felt confident that the Legacy would be fine.

In the weeks before I tried and played different Strats and other models in shops and elsewhere, both China made, MIMs and US Standard models. Though they are all nice instruments, I am happy I went for the Legacy, which here cost ca. 40 % of a Fender American Std Strat, and not inferiot in finish nor in playability or tone.

However, The Legacy was in no way set up when it arrived, nor did I expect it to be at that price when I bought it online. It arrived perfectly well protected in a double cardboard box with plenty of foam. The Dual Fulcrum bridge was adjusted within G&L specs, but needed intonation and new strings, and the rosewood fingerboard was dry and thirsty for a treatment of lemon oil. After that, it plays beautifully, and very close to my ASAT, though the tone is different, like I wanted it to be.

That is really nice. Here's a question I was asked earlier. Are the Tributes still in SAE guages and standards or in metric. I remember years ago before the Tribute line existed, it was not uncommon for our European G&L playing brothers to request certain tools since it was difficult to find SAE in Europe. The most popular request seemed to be a set of SAE Allen wrenches.

Anyway, I was just curious to see if the Tributes are metric.

That is really nice. Here's a question I was asked earlier. Are the Tributes still in SAE guages and standards or in metric. I remember years ago before the Tribute line existed, it was not uncommon for our European G&L playing brothers to request certain tools since it was difficult to find SAE in Europe. The most popular request seemed to be a set of SAE Allen wrenches.

Anyway, I was just curious to see if the Tributes are metric.

Tributes are metric. See this post in our G&L Knowledgebase: Can you tell me which allen wrenches I need for my G&L?

Thank you Craig.

Craig, the dimensions are still in inches and just the hardware allen bolts and such are metric. Is this correct? The site state the neck pocket and scale length are all still measured in inches. That's confusing, but that's easily done for me.

I wish they were all metric. I know, my fellow American brothers claim I'm weird about this because I spent my formative years in Europe, but it just makes sense. The standard we use in America is crazy outdated. I think someone here is just mad at the French for some reason and won't allow us to make the change just out of spite because they invented it.

I'm just stirring up the bees for François.

Zippy

Craig,

Are there plans to offer a Tribute Bluesboy P90?

Craig,

Are there plans to offer a Tribute Bluesboy P90?

With Winter NAMM coming up later this month, I will see what they have coming up.
I'll ask Dave and Paul about your question when I see them then and report back.

Stay tuned.

Craig,

Are there plans to offer a Tribute Bluesboy P90?

With Winter NAMM coming up later this month, I will see what they have coming up.
I'll ask Dave and Paul about your question when I see them then and report back.

Stay tuned.

I talked with Dave about this and he said it is under consideration.

I got a tribute Comanche (blue body, maple fretboard, with white pg) on last trip to USA. Pissed me off somewhat: Why did I wait so long? haha. a bit heavy at 8.5 lbs, as I am geezer and pack that on back for about 25 min to play pen. Quality all wonderful, no set up needed(!). Don't know why some knock zee coils.. frightening how good they are. Except for weight, prefer over any strat I've played, and I've played quite a few in my life. Well done Leo et al.

As another ex-tech (at Manny's in NYC) I've also setup hundreds of guitars. To me the Tributes (especially the new ones) are head and shoulders above any other budget line, with the exception of the upper-end Mexican stuff being made by Fender. Incidentally, I just sold my own Tribute Fallout and got a USA-made ASAT! Just picked it up last night. So stoked!

Hey Oig,

Keep spreading the word. Also, post pics of the new ASAT!!

tribs are amazing. all of my G&L's except 1 are tributes.

rampage, superhawk, ASAT, JB-2.

love em all

Would LOVE to see more lefty Tribute models *HINT* *HINT* *NUDGE* *NUDGE*