Restoring my love for Strats

[demioblue]

I used to play strats, and nothing but strat styled guitars. After a while, I got bored, and moved on to Les Pauls. I have grown to love fat necks, and thick sounds, and find my strats too thin and brittle sounding. (even though I'm using CS Fat 50's pickups). They seemed to lack those meaty tones that I could coax from a sweet Les Paul. I also found the necks a bit too thin for my liking, though my Vintage Hotrod is still much thicker than my EBMM JP6.

Then recently I acquired a nice strat. It's got a big, fat chunky neck. So thick that I had problems initially playing above the 12th fret on the lower strings. I've gotten used to it, and I'm happy to say that it feels fantastic now.

And the pickups? Oh wow. Thick, chimey, and no icepick. Even the bridge pup, on some gain, fills up very nicely, and still retains the clarity that single coils are known for, without the icepick.

Even the frets feel like the tall Gibson Les Paul Standard frets that some people don't like. I love them.

What strat was this?

This is it:


To be honest, the neck really feels like my Les Pauls do, and the tones are a lot sweeter than most single coils. I still like the neck tones of the fat 50s, but these present a different sound. So now I have a set of Les Pauls and a Strat that feels so similar and comfortable. I wish I had a nice maple strat that felt like this too. (maybe I should send my 57VHR strat for a refret?)

And I just LOVE that colour... And the cool Incase it came in.

[Don]

Cool Strat! I used my Strat for a rehearsal last night (with my tweed Deluxe clone). It was quite a work out compared to the Carvin that I usually play (the Carvin just about plays itself), but I was rewarded with incredible tone and the sound that we're looking for for a upcoming barbecue joint gig!

[ch willie]

demioblue, I keep going back and forth between my Strat and LP, and I can never decide which I love more.

Tres cool looking Strat btw.

[demioblue]

I still like playing LPs at the end of the day. But there are times you get that strat-itch, and it's nice now to have a guitar that still feels as comfortable to me as my LPs.

P.S. That's a John Mayer Strat right there, actually. ;)

[Sixpense]

I used to play strats, and nothing but strat styled guitars. After a while, I got bored, and moved on to Les Pauls. I have grown to love fat necks, and thick sounds, and find my strats too thin and brittle sounding. (even though I'm using CS Fat 50's pickups). They seemed to lack those meaty tones that I could coax from a sweet Les Paul. I also found the necks a bit too thin for my liking, though my Vintage Hotrod is still much thicker than my EBMM JP6.

Then recently I acquired a nice strat. It's got a big, fat chunky neck. So thick that I had problems initially playing above the 12th fret on the lower strings. I've gotten used to it, and I'm happy to say that it feels fantastic now.

And the pickups? Oh wow. Thick, chimey, and no icepick. Even the bridge pup, on some gain, fills up very nicely, and still retains the clarity that single coils are known for, without the icepick.

Even the frets feel like the tall Gibson Les Paul Standard frets that some people don't like. I love them.

What strat was this?

This is it:


To be honest, the neck really feels like my Les Pauls do, and the tones are a lot sweeter than most single coils. I still like the neck tones of the fat 50s, but these present a different sound. So now I have a set of Les Pauls and a Strat that feels so similar and comfortable. I wish I had a nice maple strat that felt like this too. (maybe I should send my 57VHR strat for a refret?)

And I just LOVE that colour... And the cool Incase it came in.

It is a Fender Limited Ed. John Mayer Strat.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30059336@N08/3466194835/

[CocoTone]

If I can only take one guitar,,,my Strat wins every time.

CT.

[concert410]

If I can only take one guitar,,,my Strat wins every time.

CT.

Yeah, I see it that way too and always have. And as much as I love my Les Paul, my Tele (G&L ASAT Special) may edge out the Les Paul also.

[NDRU]

I go back & forth with the strat.

It is like my Mesa Boogie amp, I am very attracted to it and some nights it's great, but other nights it feels thin sounding and uncooperative.

but it is always a very comfortable guitar to play. It's more the tone--some nights the bridge pickup feels unusably piercing, some nights it's perfect and the neck sounds muddy.

I use a gibson style Reverend guitar and it is more consistently friendly, tone wise. Bigger, rounder, smoother. But when the strat is on it is as good as anything.

[demioblue]

If I can only take one guitar,,,my Strat wins every time.

CT.

I can't say the same. It would have to be my Les Paul, or my EBMM Silo Spec, which gives me the best of both worlds.

I brought this baby to a jam, and after about 20 mins, I was wishing I brought my Les Paul instead. Don't get me wrong, the tones I was getting were beautiful. There was nothing to someplain about, and most poeple in the room said I had the best sounding strat present (even though it's 100% stock).

BUT.

I still prefer the nice, fat, quacky tone of a PAF that I've come to really love. And it also sets me clearly apart from a room full of Strat players. Suddenly their tones sound weedy thin...

A nice in-between tone of a good set of PAFs is something to be adored.

[CocoTone]

When I think of "quack tones", it aint a Les Paul I think of.

CT.

[Don]

Unless it's Hubert Sumlin with one of his Les Paul's P90s out of phase!

[phantomman]

When I think of "quack tones", it aint a Les Paul I think of.

CT.

Agreed!

The LP/HB just doesn't "do it" for me anymore.

If God were a guitar He'd be a Fender Stratocaster.

[demioblue]

When I think of "quack tones", it aint a Les Paul I think of.

CT.

Normally, you'd be right.

But when I began playing with boutique PAF clones, I realised, that whether clean or slightly overdriven, nice PAF clones (or even real PAFs for that matter) do have a very odd tonal character, only found in PAF-ish pickups. The only thing I can think of to describe that sound, is quack. It's almost like a double-tone and a sunken middle riange, except there is quite a bit of midrange to a nice PAF. I don't know how to explain it. But if you heard it, you'd know what I mean too.

A very sweet PAF would normally result also in a tight, focused in-between tone very similar to what you'd get on some old BB King or even Peter Green recordings.

One prime example would be "Need Someone So Bad" from Peter Green, but listen to the Gary Moore version.

[Don]

Peter Green's Les Paul's pickups were out of phase (and Gary Moore often used the same guitar). This lead to the "quack" in his tone.

[tmmblues]

I was Gibson guy for years…started with a 68 SG eventually moved to a Yamaha SG2000 and avoided strats like the plague…thought they sounded thin and looked like a board. Fortunately for me my prejudice against strats ended when I bought my 97 Am Std. While I still prefer humbucker equipped guitars like my LP, Firebird or 72 Fender Tele Deluxe there is some blues that can really only be played on a strat. I'm now in the process of modding my strat with four custom shop 69's (one of them is a reverse wound so that I can pair it with any of the other three to make it more of a HB sound if needed).