I use a Carvin..  Built in California.. ( Which those of us who do not live in Los Angeles still consider the USA. )  It has a neck through body, with locking tuners, tune o matic bridge....

Fenders are rarely made in the USA.  

zungle


Here's a few great Strat players from the 60's/ 70's/80's..................

Its a real shame they didn't go all out Gibson............

They may have been famous.............


Hendrix
Blackmore
Bolin,
Walsh
Gilmour 
Malmsteen
Beck
Blew
Knopler
Mayer
Oldfield
J.Young
Lifeson
Trower..............personal favorite.
SRV

Don't get me wrong I know there were alot of Gibson guys in that era(playing Norlins )

But a few guys on my list had at least small success on their thin sounding guitars.

Leave out one "e" and it's just not the same!  And, to be fair, if you actually found a list like the Gibson one, you'd have about as many names.  I can think of several off the top of my head that are missing (including Eric Johnson and Walter Trout).
 
The thing about almost all of the really good players out there is that they tended to have at least a few of both as well as customs and other brands.  Not sure where this topic is going actually other than to say what I said before:  Gibson has become overpriced and has lowered their quality significantly.  A few years ago I went to GC to get another Les Paul (Standard or Classic).  I tried out 22 different guitars and many had quality defects, most felt, played and/or sounded different from each other and only two out of that whole bunch were ones that I felt I might want to play and play (and only these two felt like my own older Gibsons).  I ended up buying an older Classic from a private party that was wonderful until I started getting customs built for me.
 
For electrics (non-basses), I've only owned one Fender guitar (a really nice Lone Star Strat with removable pickguards, one as S/S/S and the other as S/S/H).  I've had four or five Gibsons, a few Ibanezes, two Epiphones (one, a Korina Flying V), a couple of Schecters, a Steinberger (L-Series), two Peaveys (a T-60 & a Wolfgang), a Rondo (POS LP copy - my first guitar), a Chris Folke custom lap-steel, a couple of Music Man Axis' (loved 'em) and a Line 6 Variax (whose guts are still in one of my Jeff Miller customs). 
 
At one time or another I've played Hamers, Kramers (including the one with the alloy neck that weighed more than the body!), a Vandenberg, PRS', a Parker Fly, a Rickenbacher, BC Rich, Yamahas (the Pacifics as Beep would probably agree are highly underated for their price) and Carvins (I used to work close enough to their factory to go there during lunchtime to play - never cared for the necks or I would have bought a few!). 
 
Other than some GC curiousity, I've never played any of the ES-335 varieties, a Gresch, a Tom Anderson, a Danelectro, any resonator or dobro, a Gordon-Smith, a JET, a QuickSilver, a Charvel or - believe it or not - I've never played a Telecaster!  I always avoided them for the stupidest reason possible:  I thought they were butt fugly.  LOL!
 
The bottom line: Most people don't buy ONLY Gibson or Fender.

One day i'll buy a Gibson.

But for the moment, i certainly agree with Craigb's last line. My go to guitar is a Stagg L400 (which has the straightest neck i've ever come across) that's been modified with SD Phat Cats and a Bigsby. It sounds  really fat now but the b-minor is it weighs a ton.

I also have a Fender American HH, but whilst its good, the action and the sound are not quite the same as the Stagg.

Cheers,
Jerry

I thought about buying a proper guitar for the last few years and when I mean proper I mean Fender or Gibson. It takes a lot of saving for one of these in the UK as they are more expensive compared to USA prices.

In the end I bought a secondhand 52 Reissue Fender Tele because I could afford it at £1000. After playing it for 6 months I'm beginning to think that I should have kept saving for a bit longer and bought a Gibson Les Paul. However I find that even their Standard Les Pauls of late are a bit disappointing : ( especially at £2000.

I've been dreaming a bit recently and thought about getting a 58 for £2700 or a 59 for £4000. A 59 would definitely put an end to thinking about other guitars. Guitar monogamy sounds bliss but comes at a hefty price : )

As stated in another thread, don't discount trying an Agile guitar.  VERY much like an Les Paul and everyone I know of that have bought one have been extremely and pleasantly surprised.  Checkout Rondo Guitars for Agiles

Another one to try is a Tokai.  I know the guy who distributes these from So. Africa.  Check those out HERE.

Again, Yamaha Pacificas and some of the Schecters are also great values for the money.

offnote

Beepster


Clapton is poor example. His playing is kind of "thin" as it is... and I dare you to try and get a nice SRV tone out of a Gibson. It just ain't gonna happen.

I don't agree, but here you go Thin Lizzy, try get such great sound out of the fender - it aint' gonna happen...
listen to the solo at 56s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fG8TCHccIU

I too would agree that Clapton is a poor example. If anything, I sincerely feel his more commercial/newer stuff is way thicker than it was in the old days. I like his tone, playing and writing more now than when he was young and carefree.
 
As for the Thin Lizzy tone, it's not the guitar as much as it is the pups and mic placement. Give me a strat with humbuckers and I'll nail that tone. To me, you get way more tone options with a strat. Add a humbucker and keep a coil tap switch in it to go to single coil and you have the best of all worlds along with the 5 position toggle switch. To me, that smokes all the Gibson's I own...and I have quite a few.
 
Fender put out a guitar in the 80's that I was so crazy about, I bought 3 of them. To me, the best strat ever made simply called "Strat" otherwise known as "The HM Strat" with 24 frets, a humbucker and a coil tap toggle switch.
 
At the end of the day, it's going to be a personal preference thing. For me in how I play now as well as what I play, neither Fender or Gibson has anything to offer me that compare to my custom Carvin DC-400's. I can get just about any tone known to man out of them. Active pups and passive pups all in one package via push/pull volume knob. Full single coil tap switch, phase switch for the tele type sound...it's a sick guitar.
 
That said, I'd never blame a guitar for the rise or decline of music. Blame the industry for what it accepts and the choices made by artists. No matter what guitar I play, I sound like me. People either like my style or they hate it...the guitar matters not other than my personal preference or the idea I'm trying to convey which dictates which one I'd use.
 
Gibson and Fender both have their place in my world. However, their prices are so insane, neither are worth anything to me other than the old ones I have that I've kept for investment purposes. But to play them...I'd rather play a Carvin or an Ibanez.
 
That said, I do have one Gibson that sticks out sound wise over any other I own. I call it the 8th wonder of the world. A custom shop all lucite Les Paul Custom. At 22 lbs it's a bear to play, but the sound and feel is unlike any other Paul I own or have played. I just wish it wasn't so heavy as you can barely play it sitting down...but man does it sound fantastic!
 
-Danny

You want others to read all of this. Some of it emotional, and some for discussion of opinion points. Where's the music?

Because they're so fricking expensive, among other things.

But when I grew up as a teenager back in the 80s, the classics weren't really cool anymore. I had a Les Paul copy which was probably one of the most uncool guitars, right before telecasters and those hold hollowbody guitars.. 

I remember watching Iron Maiden's Live After Death w/ an older friend who just couldn't believe it when he saw Adrian Smith put down his awesome Lado to play that butt-ugly old piece of junk Les Paul Goldtop on certain numbers... lol 

Fender strats weren't the coolest guitars either, but they were acceptable, because w/ the addition of a humbucker or two and a Kahler or Floyd Rose, they held their ground against Kramer, Charvel, BC Rich and other super strats.

I've played strats for the biggest part of my life - the minute I could afford replacing that old Les Paul copy, and eventually could put my hands on an american one.

Would I buy a genuine Gibson Les Paul? If I were swimming in cash, maybe. But I think the prices are obscene. Paying $1000 for my american strat was justifiable to an extent. But 3 or 4 times as much? No way. 

As for tone, I like both. Most of my favorite players played strats - Gilmour, Bolin, Hendrix, Blackmore, SRV, etc. My favorite Gibson guy overall has got to be Jimmy Page - but in the studio, he used a variety of guitars and amps coupled w/ clever mic techniques to sculp his tones. The Les Paul is a live thing for him.

I also liked Randy Rhoads a lot - he's the reason I started playing electric guitar - but I can't honestly say much in favor of his tone.

I've recently switched back to Les Paul (Epiphone) as my main guitar. My playing isn't as swift and fluid on the LP but I'm not really into that type of playing and sound these days. The LP gives me something ballsier - they're just so loud...

But then again, thinking of EVH's tone on that first album, we can't really say that strat models necessarily sound "thin". 

offnote


and one more thing, Jimi Hendrix once told me he played fender only because couldn't afford the gibson.
Later on he played he got gibson as well.

You talked -knew the one and only Hendrix +++1

My vote goes for using the right tool for the job.
In my youth, I went with a Strat partly because of the cover of the Jeff Beck "Wired" album... and yes, I already had "Blow by Blow" and knew several types of guitars were being used.  (So where does this "Fenders make inferior music" concept come from?)

My neighbor said he grew up a Jimmy Page fan so he went with Gibson, but of course....


 



and then of course my favorite that's neither Gibson nor Fender, the Silvertone: