The Strat Thread

[saarangnarayan]

Very timely NGD for me seeing how this thread just started:

It’s the Player II strat in Birch Green. Plays and sounds fantastic straight out of the box. This my first “Fender” strat as it replaces my 2017 Squier Deluxe strat. The Squier had been polished over the years to play almost as good as my MIA Performer Tele, but the Player II id already on that level right out of the box which is awesome! I can only imagine how nice it would play with more micro-tweaks and fine-tuning in the near future.

Of course I immediately put a Fimarzio cliplock strap and a graphtec string tree I had lying around. Just waiting for a new graphtec TUSQ XL nut to get this playing even better. The stock nut is the only real let-down; the string distance is a tad wider than the usual and it even looks cheaply done and quickly cut. Which is unlike the other parts of this guitar. The internal cavities have been routed extremely well, even better than my Tele, I’d say but it doesn’t really have much routing to compare.

All in all, this thing is superb! The finish is really awesome in person, too. Almost like a mature sea-foam green.

 

[Dez]

Very timely NGD for me seeing how this thread just started:

View attachment 57212
It’s the Player II strat in Birch Green. Plays and sounds fantastic straight out of the box. This my first “Fender” strat as it replaces my 2017 Squier Deluxe strat. The Squier had been polished over the years to play almost as good as my MIA Performer Tele, but the Player II id already on that level right out of the box which is awesome! I can only imagine how nice it would play with more micro-tweaks and fine-tuning in the near future.

Of course I immediately put a Fimarzio cliplock strap and a graphtec string tree I had lying around. Just waiting for a new graphtec TUSQ XL nut to get this playing even better. The stock nut is the only real let-down; the string distance is a tad wider than the usual and it even looks cheaply done and quickly cut. Which is unlike the other parts of this guitar. The internal cavities have been routed extremely well, even better than my Tele, I’d say but it doesn’t really have much routing to compare.

All in all, this thing is superb! The finish is really awesome in person, too. Almost like a mature sea-foam green.

I love that color

 

[Chocol8]

The finish is really awesome in person, too. Almost like a mature sea-foam green.

I really like that color! Closer to an aged Surf, but when I looked at it I didn't have that thought at all. I think it's more of sage green or whatever...its own thing. FWIW Sea foam is/was actually a blue before the nitro yellowed with age and made it look a little green.

 

[Stone]

My first ever guitar was a 2019 Fender player, plagued with problems and sold 6 months later

Now have an Ibanez that aint going nowhere

 

[FuzzyAce]

My first ever guitar was a 2019 Fender player, plagued with problems and sold 6 months later

View attachment 57217

Now have an Ibanez that aint going nowhereView attachment 57218

 

[Chocol8]

plagued with problems and sold 6 months later

That sucks! What kind of problems did you have with it?

 

[Stone]

That sucks! What kind of problems did you have with it?

many lol, Nut cut wrong, fret sprouts sharp as razors and wiring issue and a defective Pickup so yeah no more Fenders for me especially MiM

 

[Stone]

I tried once more since i wanted something single coil and same thing MiM sharp fret sprouts and something wrong with the neck or the truss rod didn't stay in tune etc ,so that also went, now i have a schecter MV6 which has no issues so thats a keeper.

 

[iaresee]

i have a schecter MV6

That's hella cool

 

[DrewJD82]

When looking over Teles the last week it made me realize how many lines Fender has put out in the last 30 years. I used to be able to point out Strats and Teles by their specific model names in the 90’s because there weren’t a ton of them and the specs were fairly exclusive; IE- if you saw 22 frets on a Fender in the 90’s, it was a US-made Fender and the only MIM guitar they put out with vintage tuners in the 90’s was the Jimmy Vaughn Strat, well before the Classics, Road Worns and Classic Vibe lines.

These days the features are spread across all the lines and you can no longer determine the country of origin based off the specs. If I remember right, you pretty much had the US Standard, MIM Standard, Strat Plus, Deluxe and the AVRI lines in the 90’s and that was it. Custom Shop stuff wasn’t sold in stores like it is now, I think it was an actual custom shop for one-off orders mainly, not an independent production factory that pumps out their own models.

 

[Chocol8]

There were Custom Shop guitars in stores in the late 80's to early 90's but it may have only been the early artist signature stuff like the high end versions of the Yngwie and Clapton guitars.

But you are right! What I remember as options were Standard (MIM or if you were lucky MIJ) the American Standard, the Deluxe, and just a few signature and other oddballs like the occasional historic reissue.

Edit: There was also an Ultra that showed up in that time frame.

 

[Chocol8]

OK, so I found this treasure trove of model information that will make your head spin!

Stratocaster Database

A full archive of Stratocasters, listed by series and years of production, accompanied by specs and images.

www.fuzzfaced.net

It looks like it may have only been the early Clapton signature guitar from the Custom Shop that was in stores in the late 80's.

 

[la szum]

I'd have to think that's a wildly different line across the board and I've mostly thought of this when the Jim Root sigs started churning out....they're techincally Strats, Jazzmasters and Teles due to the body shape, but the electronics and configuration really removes the things that makes those guitars inherently them. I can see from Root's perspective, "I'd like a Tele version and a Strat version and blah blah", and not being able to argue against calling them that in that context.

For me, I suppose it's when the modifications remove the sound of the guitar the guitar is known for, like slapping an 81/85 set in a Tele, but that also doesn't technically stop the guitar from being a Tele just because the guts are different, so that's definitely up to the individual. I know I've referred to my Solar as an Explorer before because I remember someone giving me a bunch of shit over it

Yeah, there's a lot of cognitive dissonance for me in what is a Strat, Tele, or yeah... even a Jazzmaster, as you
point out.

That said, I ain't got no time for gatekeeping about silly shit like that.


It is a very interesting conversation for me, though. Like that Kotzen Tele. It actually oozed more Les Paul vibes

than Tele vibes for me.... both playing it, and tonally speaking.

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

@la szum Has your Edwards Strat arrived yet?

 

[la szum]

Oh yes! It did.


Just haven't had much time with it, or to offer up an update with all the festivities.

Fit and finish are on point as far as comparing to my other Edwards guitars.
I want to pull the deck off and check under the hood to see what kind of PUs
it has. I do know it sounds very "Stratty," in the best and worst sense of that word.

 

[Chocol8]

Some great color options hitting the thread today! I feel like I need to up my game and get another Strat or two!

 

[Sleezy E]

Some great color options hitting the thread today! I feel like I need to up my game and get another Strat or two!

All the cool kids are doing it

 

[saarangnarayan]

I really like that color! Closer to an aged Surf, but when I looked at it I didn't have that thought at all. I think it's more of sage green or whatever...its own thing. FWIW Sea foam is/was actually a blue before the nitro yellowed with age and made it look a little green.

You’re right. I think I should have mentioned Surf Green instead of SFG because my reference for the latter is the Premium series JEM (and not the classic Fender colour) that came out a few years ago. Love this nonetheless. Calms me in a very particular way that only good pastels can.

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

Oh yes! It did.


Just haven't had much time with it, or to offer up an update with all the festivities.

Fit and finish are on point as far as comparing to my other Edwards guitars.
I want to pull the deck off and check under the hood to see what kind of PUs
it has. I do know it sounds very "Stratty," in the best and worst sense of that word.


View attachment 57224

Beautiful! I like that the guitar only has one tone control and that the volume control is positioned slightly away from the strumming hand. Is this a mod or was it built this way by Edwards?

 

[Alex Kenivel]

My first electric was pops' 80's MIJ Squier. He started playing a lot of bass so it was just sitting in its case. I used to sneak out to the garage as a preteen and play the few chords I could remember. Mom "caught" me one day and pops couldn't have been happier. I still remember the smell, of all things. I played that thing until I became an adult and left home.

I moved out and the guitar had to stay. I moved on to an RG, a LP Jr., then a V. I borrowed my old guitar again from pops when I got into a serious band and wanted a more funky sound. He had turned it into his project guitar, swapping necks and such.

By the time he was ready to let it go he had changed everything but the body, and had dropped in a Jeff Beck signature loaded pickguard into it. The bridge he got for bit doesn't fit correctly because the holes in the body are of different spec. I decked it and eventually swapped out the loaded pickguard into my 2011 MIM Standard, scraped the pearloid off of the pickguard and continued to modify it over time.

I have a lot of strat-esque guitars ranging from cheap Squires to an Ibanez Prestige AZ. Quite a few were modified or Frankensteined.

I should find them all and take a family picture sometime but I'll drop a few random ones I have on hand.

My first guitar, with it's second neck, circa 2008 after I had moved out and then borrowed it:

A more current Pic of my 2011 MIM Standard, heavily modded:

Ibanez AZ: