Hi! Stupid question, but i know absolutely nothing about guitars.

I've always thought that Prince plays Telecaster, but i've now noticed that people call the guitar HOHNER... so, what's the difference. Does Hohner sound like telecaster? It sure looks like it...

Thanks!

Hohner is the brand and Telecaster is the model

prinssi said:

You can find lots of posts about Prince's guitars here.

Hohner is another guitar manufacturer and yes Prince's "tele" is actually made by Hohner. "Real" teles are made by Fender. But the basic style of the "tele" as well as the "strat" have been stolen and aped by many manufacturers over the years. Hohner was one such company.

Prince's Hohner was bought off the shelf from a local music store in Minneapolis in the late 70's/early 80's. It was an inexpensive instrument beleived to have been bought by Prince because it matched his stage outfit at the time. He started using it live and eventually fell in love with it and it became his signature guitar both live and on record until the white cloud came into the picture during PURPLE RAIN time. He never really stopped using the Hohner especially on records.

There are many things about the Hohner that are different than standard teles. First of all it is made of maple both body and neck. Fender teles are usually ash or alder. Maple is a much brighter tone wood. There are also differences in the hardware of the Hohner, especially in the bridge.

The Hohner basically has a tele sound- single coil pick ups, funky and jangly. But it has a unique timbre to it due to the wood and hardware. It also has more sustain than your standard telecaster.

In fact Prince loves his Hohner so much that most of his later custom guitars (Clouds, Symbols, etc) ape elements of it- such as being constructed of maple.

Hohner eventually realized that Prince was playing their guitar and giving them lots of free advertising. The model Prince bought was called the TE (for Telecaster) at the time. Hohner later tried to cash in on the Prince connection by renaming it the TE PRINZ and marketing it as a "signature" type guitar. This guitar is not consider to be as good as the original TE although its still highly sought after. Then later they re-issued it again in an edition called TE THE PRINZ (I think) and this one is not considered very good. I believe they even changed the headstock shape on this edition. (Fender cracked down on people aping their headstocks too closely!!)

Today he has several Hohner teles I think and I've heard rumors that he has had the pickups and necks upgraded. But its still basically the same guitar he bought off the shelf way back when!

All of this is my best recollection of the facts. If I'm off please correct me!!

A cool guitar and I'd love to have one!!

I've got a TE Prinz. Cool sounding guitar, but it's not the most playable thing in the world. I have a Suhr tele, so it's hard for cheap knock-offs to compete. That said, it does have it's own unique character and I do pull it out from time to time.

Thanks Krebsne!

prinssi said:

FUCKIN' HELL!