Mesa Amps:

chilipeppermaniac said:
I actually like my 2 Strats in Stock form. This is likely due to my 2nd guitar ever being my 1991 Gunmetal Blue Am Std my pawn shop buddy picked out for me. It was my return to guitars after giving up and stupidly selling my '79 LP STD.
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Yeah, I mean, obviously they work well in stock form for a huge number of people. Maybe more than Gibsons even.

But for me, no. Teles are just shrill and annoying-sounding to me (aside from being ugly and uncomfortable), and while Strats are more versatile and have nicer tones they just don't have the balls I need wtih the stock pickups.
 
chilipeppermaniac said:
I actually like my 2 Strats in Stock form. This is likely due to my 2nd guitar ever being my 1991 Gunmetal Blue Am Std my pawn shop buddy picked out for me. It was my return to guitars after giving up and stupidly selling my '79 LP STD.
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gball, that GM blue Strat came to me about 9-10 years later after picking up my first drum kit and getting inspired in 2000
 
gball said:
Yeah, I mean, obviously they work well in stock form for a huge number of people. Maybe more than Gibsons even.

But for me, no. Teles are just shrill and annoying-sounding to me (aside from being ugly and uncomfortable), and while Strats are more versatile and have nicer tones they just don't have the balls I need wtih the stock pickups.
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HAHA @ balls. My stock Strats or even a cigar box guitar would have enough balls for me thru my '72 JMP 50 watt above 3-4 on Channel 1 with jumper wire low 1-upper 2input... 4x12 1960A 300watt cab.
 
chilipeppermaniac said:
HAHA @ balls. My stock Strats or even a cigar box guitar would have enough balls for me thru my '72 JMP 50 watt above 3-4 on Channel 1 with jumper wire low 1-upper 2input... 4x12 1960A 300watt cab.
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That's another thing. I know this will be a controversial statement for us aging, guitar-playing, hard rock loving types, but man I do not like the way Strats sound through a loud, dimed NMV amp. There are these weird overtones and resonances that I find really unappealing. To wit, I of course love Jimi Hendrix' songs but I am not a fan of his live tone at all.
 
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Gball. tell me a few something's regarding your last comment and my next question.

Many factors would color tone in your dislike. Old 100 Watt Greenbacks vs Modern 300+ watt cabs, Non MV vs MV amps like JMP's vs Mesa's. Effects, pups, amount of acid intake, and as you and I are too young to have been there. Recording quality of the clips of Hendrix we can only hear through vinyl, cd's tapes, etc.

I am guessing you mean SSS Strats and not HSS or HH ones? My guess is these Humbucker Strats would sound similar enough to LP's through NMV amps to not be grating. It is primarily the SSS ones you prefer not to hear.

Granted I am pretty sure he is using MV JCM 800's or 900's ( Tell me which)
Check out Matthius Jabs Single H Strat @ 10:50+ on Can't Get Enough here: I think his sound freaking rips for middle aged/ old school. This is my 2nd question. What is his setup here?

 
gball said:
I never met a Fender I like in stock form. I've modded the hell out of every one I have ever had just trying to get something usable (to me) out of them. Teles especially are just appliances to me - ugly, uncomfortable, awful tones. At lease Strats are pretty. Oh, and I blame Freddy Tavares for the ridiculous knob situation, not Leo.
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Fender Stratocasters really are the small block Chevy of guitars. Rugged and a great modding platform.

My YelloStrat sounds like a Les Paul until I hit the middle and neck pickups and it takes on a Stratty personality.

Just a great guitar...

No single coil buzz or squeal, no 7.25" radius fretting out on bends, no shrill bridge without a tone control...
 
gball said:
That's another thing. I know this will be a controversial statement for us aging, guitar-playing, hard rock loving types, but man I do not like the way Strats sound through a loud, dimed NMV amp. There are these weird overtones and resonances that I find really unappealing. To wit, I of course love Jimi Hendrix' songs but I am not a fan of his live tone at all.
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I loved SRV's playing but I was not a fan of his tone.
 
chilipeppermaniac said:
HAHA @ balls. My stock Strats or even a cigar box guitar would have enough balls for me thru my '72 JMP 50 watt above 3-4 on Channel 1 with jumper wire low 1-upper 2input... 4x12 1960A 300watt cab.
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If you have a Stratocaster with a single coil bridge rout, then I would suggest the DiMarzio DP404 (Virtual Vintage So) that was my staple pickup for over 20 years...

 
chilipeppermaniac said:
Gball. tell me a few something's regarding your last comment and my next question.

Many factors would color tone in your dislike. Old 100 Watt Greenbacks vs Modern 300+ watt cabs, Non MV vs MV amps like JMP's vs Mesa's. Effects, pups, amount of acid intake, and as you and I are too young to have been there. Recording quality of the clips of Hendrix we can only hear through vinyl, cd's tapes, etc.

I am guessing you mean SSS Strats and not HSS or HH ones? My guess is these Humbucker Strats would sound similar enough to LP's through NMV amps to not be grating. It is primarily the SSS ones you prefer not to hear.

Granted I am pretty sure he is using MV JCM 800's or 900's ( Tell me which)
Check out Matthius Jabs Single H Strat @ 10:50+ on Can't Get Enough here: I think his sound freaking rips for middle aged/ old school. This is my 2nd question. What is his setup here?

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I just use Hendrix as an example because you can hear it in the recordings - I guess he played VERY loud live. In live recordings I hear some of that stuff that I hate when I am live in a room with people (or myself) playing a Strat. I just find it unpleasant, and it disappears when you drop 'buckers into a Strat. Mostly that's what I did with them; gut them and put Hot Rails in.

For the Scorpions clip, I really have no idea. They always had amazing tone, but no-one this side of their tech/roadie would know for sure. Were they JCM-800's? They might look like it but who knows what's in the box? I remember seeing where Gary Rossington basically admitted that in the early days of Skynyrd's Peavey endorsement they were actually putting Marshall guts into Peavey boxes, until Peavey figured out how to make something for them that sounded good enough and didn't self-destruct by the end of their set. And I'm sure its happened many times with many people over the years, not to mention this is from the modded-Marshall era, when everyone was dropping a couple of gain stages into the amps.
 
Robert Herndon said:
I loved SRV's playing but I was not a fan of his tone.
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Honestly, not even that big a fan of his playing. Technique? Killer. But his style is soooo derivative, a mashup of very specific licks from very specific other players, that I find it kind of tedious to listen to. Great songs though.
 
chilipeppermaniac said:
I am guessing you mean SSS Strats and not HSS or HH ones? My guess is these Humbucker Strats would sound similar enough to LP's through NMV amps to not be grating. It is primarily the SSS ones you prefer not to hear.

Granted I am pretty sure he is using MV JCM 800's or 900's ( Tell me which)
Check out Matthius Jabs Single H Strat @ 10:50+ on Can't Get Enough here: I think his sound freaking rips for middle aged/ old school. This is my 2nd question. What is his setup here?

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I like Yngwie's SSS tone....

Jab's black Stratocaster is a well documented 1963 model with a Bill Lawrence L90 in the bridge. This was changed to a Dommenget Musclebucker in 1984.

Jab's amp (as seen on the 1984 World Wide Live video) is a JCM800 2210 (confirmed as a 2210 in a Guitar World interview)

e00f24090519b6db2824559ea9c72839.jpg
 
gball said:
In live recordings I hear some of that stuff that I hate when I am live in a room with people (or myself) playing a Strat. I just find it unpleasant, and it disappears when you drop 'buckers into a Strat. Mostly that's what I did with them; gut them and put Hot Rails in.
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Exactly!!!

You'll find that anomaly totally absent t in my YelloStrat, love it or hate it...
 
gball said:
Honestly, not even that big a fan of his playing. Technique? Killer. But his style is soooo derivative, a mashup of very specific licks from very specific other players, that I find it kind of tedious to listen to. Great songs though.
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Geez!!! You must hate my playing!!!
 
Robert Herndon said:
The fact that Leo Fender was not a guitar player could be no more evident than in the Stratocaster's lack of a bridge tone control and the shrill, ice-pick twang of the telecaster.
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That’s a bit of an oversimplification. Whereas Leo may not have been a guitar player himself, he did a great deal of the design work of the Stratocaster, especially, in collaboration with guitar players of the time.

I think it is more fair and accurate to say that what was developed at the time for the music and musicians back then was not completely suitable for newer developments in music, and required some upgrading to its feature set.

But this is true of most inventions.
 
Robert Herndon said:
I like Yngwie's SSS tone....
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Not really too much of an Yngwie fan. I saw him live a couple of times and it seriously felt like he just wanted to wank away and not really even play songs and have everyone worship him for it. The endless weedly-weedly got really old really fast for me (surprised I even went to see him a second time to be honest), and he had this huge wall of amps that were evidently all on and all loud that completely drowned out the rest of the band. On record I find his tone kinda ice-picky from the old days, and more recently he uses WAY too much gain so it's just mush.

Plus, let's all face it - the guy seems to be an arrogant dick
 
smitty_p said:
That’s a bit of an oversimplification. Whereas Leo may not have been a guitar player himself, he did a great deal of the design work of the Stratocaster, especially, in collaboration with guitar players of the time.

I think it is more fair and accurate to say that what was developed at the time for the music and musicians back then was not completely suitable for newer developments in music, and required some upgrading to its feature set.

But this is true of most inventions.
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The absence of a bridge tone control alone warrants a public whipping. It's literally soldering a jumper. No excuse.

The three-barrel bridge is equally asinine.
 
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