"I'm just not a strat guy".

[Mr. 80's]

Not a typical Fender Strat guy but love Superstrats. Preferably a hard top with either H, HH or HS with a Floyd Rose. I would deal with an HSS HM Strat though, especially ice blue. I'm not a tele guy at all.

 

[Lucius Paisley]

Not a typical Fender Strat guy but love Superstrats. Preferably a hard top with either H, HH or HS with a Floyd Rose. I would deal with an HSS HM Strat though, especially ice blue. I'm not a tele guy at all.

When I think of superstrats, my mind goes immediately to Dave Murray's HSH Kossof strat. I can't look at HSS without thinking "lazy".

 

[jeremy]

how is hss lazy?

 

[BluesMan335]

After owning an American-made Strat decades ago, I can definitely say I am not a Strat guy. Just don't like anything about them: feel, sound, looks. The basic clean tone sounds like a sterile 'aluminum clunk' to my ears, and with too much of the wrong distortion, they have a distinctive bee-in-a-can sound. More than any other guitar, some players seem to have difficulty dialing in the EQ on a Strat.

First time I played an LP, that was it, everything I was looking for. Wouldn't change anything about the design. No Fender guitars in my house.

Some of my favorite players use(d) Strats (Hendrix, Blackmore, Johnson, etc) and theirs sound great. But I've chosen the path of my other guitar heroes who found their tones in Gibson-designed guitars. Regardless, music is in the heads and hands. A guitar is only a tool. You get comfortable with a design, and you play your best on it. That some players choose something very different shouldn't be an unfathomable mystery. If they play it well, it doesn't matter what kind of guitar they prefer.

 

[Lucius Paisley]

After owning an American-made Strat decades ago, I can definitely say I am not a Strat guy. Just don't like anything about them: feel, sound, looks. The basic clean tone sounds like a sterile 'aluminum clunk' to my ears, and with too much of the wrong distortion, they have a distinctive bee-in-a-can sound. When I see live bands, if the guitarists have Strats, it's a 50/50 shot that they'll either have way too much treble, or be a mediocre player. The bands with LP's or 335's tend to have better tones and are often pretty good players. Not all of them though; there's exceptions on both sides. I've seen impressive Strat guys and crappy players with LP's.

First time I played an LP, that was it, everything I was looking for. Wouldn't change anything about the design. No Fender guitars in my house.

Some of my favorite players use(d) Strats (Hendrix, Blackmore, Johnson, etc) and theirs sound great. But I've chosen the path of my other guitar heroes who found their tones in Gibson-designed guitars. Regardless, music is in the heads and hands. A guitar is only a tool. You get comfortable with a design, and you play your best on it. That some players choose something very different shouldn't be an unfathomable mystery. If they play it well, it doesn't matter what kind of guitar they prefer.

Finally got my answer - pretentiousness.

Thanks.

 

[Clint 55]

Strat is my ax. However, I don't like single coils, 9.5" radius, and prefer hard tails. That's a lot to change for a strat, but no production guitar would suit me more than a hardtail strat with a 10 or 11 inch radius neck and some fat pickups. I've heard players say they don't like the jangles of production strats no matter what pups are in them. I can definitely see that as a legit qualm. My hardtail strats aren't overbearing with the jangles.

 

[Clint 55]

I don't get the problem with the middle pickup. How hard are you digging in that it causes a problem?

I've always thought this. Either the player is strumming like a savage beast or some extreme kind of sensitive lol.

 

[Clint 55]

It's useless and make the guitar looks cluttered.

I've always kind of thought this. HSH is almost there to make me like it but not quite. I don't need a neck pickup to be that fat in a strat, and I don't need the middle to be that weak comparatively. I also don't need the notch positions lol. Ultimately, I like HSS 'form factor' better with either minis or sc size hbs. I like my custom pickguard idea even better with 2 neck pickups.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Not a typical Fender Strat guy but love Superstrats. Preferably a hard top with either H, HH or HS with a Floyd Rose. I would deal with an HSS HM Strat though, especially ice blue. I'm not a tele guy at all.

What is a "hard top"?

 

[Mr. 80's]

What is a "hard top"?

It's what Fender calls Strats that come without pickguards. They are a more uncommon than the standard pickguard style and IMHO much nicer looking and sounding. I guess hardtop is the appropriate way to spell it.

 

[v8stang289]

I'd be a Strat guy if you make it fixed bridge, HH, 24.75" scale, flatter radius, set neck....
Just Kidding.... kinda

I don't really mind a Strat, I just prefer the feel, sound, and look of a Les Paul.

 

[Clint 55]

I'd be a Strat guy if you make it fixed bridge, HH, 24.75" scale, flatter radius, set neck...

You can do that.

 

[v8stang289]

You can do that.

I could, but at that point I'd rather have a Les Paul.

I have nothing against Strats. It's a great guitar design that's pretty much infinitely customizable. I do hate the knob placement on a strat, I'm always accidently hitting/moving the volume, and sometimes I hit the switch if I'm strumming hard.

But the shape itself is just not quite right for me, It works, just not the best for me.

It's a to each his own type of thing. Really just comes down to personal preference and feel.

 

[FuseG4]

I have moved from strat to RG for my dabbling in rock, pop, blues, jazz, and metal Sometimes I miss that real deal strat tone and might buy another someday but I'm in no hurry
The RG is a little thinner sounding on low gain and clean but with more modern pickups it has the balls and is tight enough to play modern styles, while staying in tune.

 

[Coma]

Depends on what you mean by a strat. If you can make them hardtail with dual humbuckers and mahogany what is left that is hard to tweak is the fact that it’s bolt on and 25.5.

When I’ve heard that it’s been generally due to the single coils.

Yup, pretty much this. I think strats sound great clean in the neck position, but I don't like the clunky and outdated heel design, nor the scale length. I've never come across a strat neck that actually felt comfortable or one where the strings didn't feel far too stiff in relation to their gauge. The belly cutaway is awkward for me and puts the guitar at a weird angle when I play standing up.

To put it bluntly, besides the outline of the body and headstock if viewed from dead on, there's nothing about a strat that appeals to me.

 

[Coma]

You can do that.

From a custom shop, sure. But nobody has ever mass produced them. The closest you can get is the 1989 Charvel 750/1990 Jackson Soloist AT Pro, and those are few and far between and steadily increasing in price. The closest thing available today are offerings from Schecter, Jackson or ESP/LTD, and those all come with 25.5 necks.

Fender did build the Aerodyne strat with a 24.75 neck, but it's still a bolt-on.

Beyond that, there's not much. And a custom build is not within most people's budget.

 

[Mincer]

From a custom shop, sure. But nobody has ever mass produced them. The closest you can get is the 1989 Charvel 750/1990 Jackson Soloist AT Pro, and those are few and far between and steadily increasing in price. The closest thing available today are offerings from Schecter, Jackson or ESP/LTD, and those all come with 25.5 necks.

Fender did build the Aerodyne strat with a 24.75 neck, but it's still a bolt-on.

Beyond that, there's not much. And a custom build is not within most people's budget.

My Brian Moore is almost that, but it has a trem. They did mas-produce them with a TOM and hardtail in the early 2000s.

 

[Obsessive Compulsive]

I don't understand the b1tching about the scale. 0.75 inch makes no noticeable difference.

 

[Ewizard]

I AM a Tele guy, but the Strat has been my primary guitar since day one. My first guitar was a strat. I hated the sound of it. Couldn't gel with it at all. Being broke at the time, it took about 4 years to get a guitar with humbuckers. That guitar was a '69 Cameo Deluxe SG copy. Shortly thereafter I picked up an Epiphone SG. Knowing I prefer the sound of Humbuckers, I started loading my Strats ( by this point I had two of them ) with Single-Coil sized humbuckers. This was the answer for 20 years. Why I keep gravitating to Strats is a mystery to me, there was never anything about them that really " had me " so to speak. I played out with my SG earlier on, but as soon as I had humbuckers in the Strats, they then became the primaries. I have never owned an LP, and I have never picked one up that impressed me. They sound fine on the records and even in person at shows, but every LP I have ever played has just been meh.

I say I am a Tele guy, and I am, now... It took about 20 years for me to finally acquire one. I have always wanted one, and always loved the look and sound of them, but just never acquired one. I finally set out to own one and decided to build one instead. It became my primary instantly. I had it loaded with SC sized humbuckers at first, as I was still stuck on the humbucker train. It is now loaded with a set of single coils that I hand-wound to my specs, with my machine!!! They make me smile every time!

I currently own 4 Strats, and one of them I had always left alone for the most part. It had basic single coils and never really tickled my fancy sound-wise. I decided that since I have a pickup winding machine, I would take a crack at making a set of pickups for it that I really liked. I have succeeded!!!. I picked up a set of Antiquity Surfers around the same time and swapped the two back and forth a couple of times, I kept going back to my set. Between the Strat and Tele pickups that I made, I realized what the single-coil craze was all about. All of my guitars that in standard form would have single coils are now ALL loaded with single coils that I have either made or purchased.

When I had humbuckers, it was all about forcing the sound to be a certain way. Now that I have gone to single coils, the sound is more dynamic, nuanced, organic, and real. The Strat has a thing or three that it does that cannot be done on any other guitar. The ergonomics are an issue for me sometimes, but I play around it, which is why I am a Tele guy. Ergonomically the Tele is perfect, nothing in the way and it just has the bark, growl, and bite that I have always wanted in a guitar. I now own two Telecasters, both of which I have built. One is loaded with an SD Jerry Donahue bridge and a Fender Twisted Tele neck. My other is loaded with a custom-wound set of my own making. My next Tele is going to be a P90 loaded one with a fully back-routed setup. Just need to finish up the design.

I think what turned me on to single coils was when I started my amplifier designing. I wanted to make an amp that went from clean to mean with minimal controls. This is extremely hard to do have and maintain an original design. I could get the clean to mean with humbuckers, but it was just too this or too that, and with single coils, it was just too thin and weak. When I designed the amp around working with SC's it just sounded better with either pickup type and instead of going for clean to mean, I went for clean to dirty. That was the ticket. Now I have an amp design that is very much a pedal platform amp, that if you wish, can do the dirty crunch thing. The clean sound is where it is at though. Ever since I started that venture 2 years ago, single coils have been my newest fascination. The Strat wins in that category, you can't replace it for that job. The Tele sure puts a good argument though, that country twang, snap, and growl is what gets my blood pumping.

 

[v8stang289]

I don't understand the b1tching about the scale. 0.75 inch makes no noticeable difference.

Except that it does...
I don't Bitch about it, but there is absolutely a very noticeable difference
especially in string tension and fret spacing/finger reach.
I can play either, but I'm much more comfortable with a shorter scale.

also, That's NOT what she said.