Squier Sonic Telecaster vs Squier Classic Vibe Esquire | Which is the better choice? Guitar Shootout

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Today, we’re comparing two of my Squier Tele types: the 2023 Squier Sonic Telecaster in California Blue and the 2021 Squier FSR Classic Vibe Custom 60s Esquire in Lake Placid Blue!

Squier Sonic Tele at Thomann:
At Sweetwater:

The Sonic Tele is part of Squier’s 2023 Sonic Series, which replaced the iconic Bullet Series as Squier and Fender’s most affordable family of guitars and basses. The Tele costs around $200/€179, so it’s a great natural choice for students and beginners, but Fender say the Sonic Series also offers great guitars for players on any level.

The Sonic Tele features a poplar body and a C-shape satin finish maple neck with a 9.5" radius laurel fingerboard. The bridge is top loading, the hardware is chrome, and you get a pair of Squier-designed single coil Tele pickups too. In short, quite a lot for your money!

For many, though, a step up from the Sonic Series would be to Squier’s Classic Vibe family – and this is where my Squier Classic Vibe Esquire comes in! This guitar - which costs about twice the price of the Sonic Tele - shares a lot of DNA with the Telecaster, except for one key feature... it only has one pickup!

There is a 3-way switch for the Fender Designed Alnico Single-Coil, though. In the middle setting, you basically have a Tele bridge pickup, and the Tone control works as normal. On the 'bridge' and 'neck' settings, the tone control is taken out of the circuit to give you some interesting tonal variations. The Esquire also features a nato body and a vintage tint maple neck with a 9.5” radius laurel fingerboard.

The big question is: how do the two guitars compare? Is the Classic Vibe guitar a step up in tone and performance? Or does the Sonic Tele punch way above its weight? We’ll find out in this video, as I put the two guitars through their paces in as many different musical styles as I can, from country, folk and indie, to pop, rock, blues, punk, metal and more.

Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits:

00:00 Hello!
00:17 Introduction and what we’re doing today
02:08 Sonic Tele specs and info
04:46 Esquire specs and info
08:47 Today’s rig and plan

Clean Sounds
09:36 Clean tone reference chords
10:03 Poppy barre chords
10:32 Ascending droning indie chords
10:45 Country lead sound
10:58 Country ballad arpeggios
11:11 Strummed country chords
11:30 Funk rhythm chords
11:44 Blues progression
12:06 Strummed folk pop chords

Overdrive Sounds
12:23 Kings Of Leon inspired riff
12:38 Choppy barre chords
12:56 Upbeat droning indie riff
13:10 Garage rock riff
13:26 Edgy indie barre chords
13:40 AC/DC inspired classic rock riff
13:55 Driving rock riff
14:10 Groovy classic rock riff
14:27 Hendrix inspired riff
14:44 Classic rock riff

Heavy Overdrive Sounds
15:01 Hard rock riff
15:18 Hard rock melodic lead
15:39 Airbourne inspired rock riff
16:01 80s rock riff
16:21 ZZ Top inspired riff
16:31 Classic hard rock riff
16:49 Glam rock rhythm riff
17:17 Alternative rock riff
17:41 Green Day inspired punk rock riff
18:07 Pop punk melodic lead riff
18:23 Pop punk riff
18:49 Progressive rock riff (Drop D tuning)
19:04 Modern rock palm-muted power chords (Drop D)
19:29 Rage Against The Machine inspired groovy riff (Drop D)

Metal sounds (all in Drop D)
19:46 Metal chugging riff
20:03 Mastodon inspired metal riff with country twang
20:15 Heavy metal lead sound
20:30 Hardcore punk riff
20:44 Rammstein inspired industrial metal riff
20:57 Classic metal/sludge riff

21:33 My thoughts
22:39 Price
23:04 Looks/aesthetics
24:05 Build quality/feel
25:35 Weight
26:27 Playability and necks
27:11 Sounds and pickups discussion
30:52 Do you need a neck pickup on an Esquire?
31:29 Which guitar is better? Which should you buy?
33:02 What other similar guitars are out there? Squier Affinity!

My setup was as follows: I ran the guitars into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head, also using my Greer Lightspeed and Revv G3 pedals for drive sounds. The amp went from the Red Box DI straight into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, which went into Logic Pro X. That's it. No post-processing on the sounds was done.

Here’s some links to those bits of gear:

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H&K Black Spirit 200 head:
Greer Lightspeed:
Revv G3:
Focusrite 4i4 (the new 2i4):
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Enjoy!

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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe.

#Squier #SquierGuitars #SquierTelecaster #SquierEsquire #Telecaster #Telecaster #FenderEsquire


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@fender