Strat positions
- Thread starter '59
- Start date
I totally get this... Although I play practically everything on a relatively regular basis, I think my basic underpinning has become a strat.
For example, my primary teaching guitar right now is a Reverend that has a bridge humbucker and a p90 neck.
If I'm in humbucker mode and I need to get thinner, I'll parallel the bridge and my mind thinks "what a beautiful strat bridge"
If I'm going to push into clean rhythm, I'll often go to the middle position, matching the p90 with the parallel bridge and my brain will think, "that's a nice second position strat."
And when I want the warm sustained Hendricks tone I'll go to the p90 thinking "that's a nice fat strat neck sound."
I've never really thought about it before, but I think the strat became the foundation for all electrics because it has practically all combinations.
If I think Les Paul bridge, my brain jumps to HSS strat with a little tone rolled off. If I'm thinking middle position Les Paul, I'll be thinking about the "tele mod" with some tone rolled off.
Of course none of those tones are exact matches, but it's a lot easier for my brain to expand from the simplicity of three single coils.
Chistopher
malapterurus electricus tonewood instigator
There's a psychological term for this way of thinking that escapes me at the moment. I think it's a type of availability heuristic. You tend to think in terms of Strat, so you tend to view the world as if it were designed in terms of Strats. I tend to view guitars I think relative to Telecasters.
uOpt
Something Cool
I still doubt that the black Strat has a AWG43 pickup at the bridge.
beaubrummels
Well-known member
A few more examples, for fun.
Position 1 - pure bridge tone, for GuitarStv
Position 2 - start at 0:48 seconds
Position 3 - this guy spends almost the whole night on the middle pickup
Position 4 - at 14:27, this guy gets the #4 position to sound pretty bad ass
Position 5
Position 1 - pure bridge tone, for GuitarStv
Position 2 - start at 0:48 seconds
Position 3 - this guy spends almost the whole night on the middle pickup
Position 4 - at 14:27, this guy gets the #4 position to sound pretty bad ass
Position 5
For many of us, Strats are an aural treat for the senses, especially clean...
For me, i cleaned up all the riff-raff, installed 4-way switches in every eligible piece of wood, did away with the solo middle & the neck+middle, so I'm now (with north-south-south, or south-north-north orientation)
B•BM•BN•N, 1 volume, 1 tone (either on bridge only or all 3), & a tone cap in the .007uf range (secret sauce!)....
Each one of my Strats sound different & prettier than the next.... Knopfler, Cale, Clapton, James Calvin Wilsey, Burton..... all there!!,, but my main thing is amps!!
Each one, an exemplary ingredient~ Cheers:nervous:
For me, i cleaned up all the riff-raff, installed 4-way switches in every eligible piece of wood, did away with the solo middle & the neck+middle, so I'm now (with north-south-south, or south-north-north orientation)
B•BM•BN•N, 1 volume, 1 tone (either on bridge only or all 3), & a tone cap in the .007uf range (secret sauce!)....
Each one of my Strats sound different & prettier than the next.... Knopfler, Cale, Clapton, James Calvin Wilsey, Burton..... all there!!,, but my main thing is amps!!
Each one, an exemplary ingredient~ Cheers:nervous:
Lake Placid Blues
New member
Great examples.
I find a lot of strats with vintage single coils players tend to use pedals and/or a high gain amp a lot more, while the straight into the amp guys will more often want a humbucker in the bridge, hot wound SCs, or an onboard preamp. This is not a hard and fast rule of course, and there's a lot overlap in approach, but a vintage pickup strat lends itself to that approach.
There's the pedal or preamp making up for the low output aspect, but a lot of it is the strat being a blank canvas and adding and subtracting sound colors. For example Jimi, using a fuzz, univibe, and wah a lot. In one of the vintage pickup examples above, the SC tone is still drenched in reverb. A really cool sound btw.
I find a lot of strats with vintage single coils players tend to use pedals and/or a high gain amp a lot more, while the straight into the amp guys will more often want a humbucker in the bridge, hot wound SCs, or an onboard preamp. This is not a hard and fast rule of course, and there's a lot overlap in approach, but a vintage pickup strat lends itself to that approach.
There's the pedal or preamp making up for the low output aspect, but a lot of it is the strat being a blank canvas and adding and subtracting sound colors. For example Jimi, using a fuzz, univibe, and wah a lot. In one of the vintage pickup examples above, the SC tone is still drenched in reverb. A really cool sound btw.
