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n2mpujack wrote:Frodo:
You mention Clapton's sound - you have to ask which era?
Of course. I'm looking at the scope of his Strat era.
n2mpujack wrote:...Blackie was traditional single coils, the first EC signature Strat (the one I have) was Gold Lace Sensors and his current sig model has Vintage Noiseless. And both signature models have the same electronics - a TBX tone control and a mid-boost circuit powered by a 9 volt battery. This mid-boost circuitry really ups the drive from the axe - really thickens up the sound (and the volume).
Now, you're talking!! I was holding off on the custom specs, but hinted at the importance of such details in the process of getting "the sound".
Yet, it's not so much about getting Clapton's sound specifically. My efforts are a little more general in that the closest things I have to a Strat are a Gretsch Duo-Jet and and Epiphony [sic] knock-off. Not even close, right? Yeah-- I know.
Thing is, I'd like to work on my developing own sound, if there is such a thing or if such a thing is possible.
So, almost any Strat is going to make the bulk of the difference in my case. Electronics and outboard gear do not escape me-- and it could soon be an extension of this thread or another topic entirely. We've not even gotten into amps.
But I need a Strat and perhaps a Tele as well sooner than later. If I find one that is hobbit-friendly, I think kit-bashing it will be fairly easy to do.
Hope you're well and doing fun things.
The earlier question re. rosewood or maple f/b is a very important one IMHO. My Strat is an '82 20th anniversary with Rosewood fingerboard. It never did have that crystalline tone that you get from a maple fretboard. I've found it doesn't matter what you do about pickups and other mods - the fretboard has an immutable tonal characteristic.
The other major consideration IMOH is the neck profile. The Clapton model, for example, has a deeper "V" shaped neck which I always found tends to shorten my reach on the fretboard because it fills the palm more. My '82 custom shop model has a thinner profile and wider fretboard which allows for more finger extension. Given that I love making stretched chord shapes for more interesting harmonic content, this neck profile has always been a major consideration for me.
Ultimately I believe you just have to pick up lots of guitars and find the one that talks to you. Hope you and that ultimate Strat and or Tele meet up sometime soon.
Cheers,
Dave.
Lots of stuff and a recently acquired ability to stop buying
davedempsey wrote:The Clapton model, for example, has a deeper "V" shaped neck which I always found tends to shorten my reach on the fretboard because it fills the palm more. My '82 custom shop model has a thinner profile and wider fretboard which allows for more finger extension. Given that I love making stretched chord shapes for more interesting harmonic content, this neck profile has always been a major consideration for me.
I'm leaning towards the thinner neck for may of the same reasons. I have long fingers, but my pinky is proportionally on the short side compared to that of others. I often have trouble stre-e-e-e-tching to reach some inversions.
davedempsey wrote:Ultimately I believe you just have to pick up lots of guitars and find the one that talks to you. Hope you and that ultimate Strat and or Tele meet up sometime soon.
Cheers,
Dave.
Truly, this is going to take some time and thought with a lot of trial and as little error as possible.
It will be interesting to see which guitar feels best and what color it turns out to be. I almost don't care about the color, but visual appeal will probably account for 5% of the decision.
I thought I had necks all figured out, until I tried a few dozen guitars that felt different than I expected. There are several variables, and neck width is only one of them. Unfortunately, you really do just have to pick them all up and try them, and not rule any of them out in advance.
It's funny about Dave's comments re: crystalline tone only possible with maple fretboard. Maybe I still need to find the right maple Strat, but the rosewood ESP's sound more like Strats to me than any of the maple fretboards I've tried recently (including the G&L Legacy that I sold).
And after reading some Strat-specific forums, it seems that rosewood may be slightly preferred (even historically, but via custom models) for Strat and maple for Tele? In the end, though, what matters is how it connects with you.
I have abnormally small hands with extremely short and stubby fingers. So go figure, I'm a bassist, and have trouble with instruments such as mandolin (which I sold)! Thus, I tend to prefer a wider and shallower neck with more of a "U" shape. I've tried some "V" shape Strats in the current custom series and it felt like grabbing a trackball or modern Logitech mouse: instant tendon problems!
As far as Teles are concerned, almost everyone I have played with recently who has one, is using a hollow model, which seems back in vogue these days (especially with country and crossover artists). I'm so ignorant I didn't even know about those until a year ago! I think they even have a budget one in the Squier line now.
As you probably know, jazz players who eschew the more traditional arch-top stylings, trend towards Teles. I guess it's easier to get a darker sound with them than with Strats. I'm discovering that Teles are way more popular than I thought, and in more genres and styles. Ten years ago, I thought they were mostly popular with country artists.
Certainly rosewood fretboards are much rarer on Teles than on Strats. In fact, I have yet to find one in a store. I was very impressed with the sound of Fender's current $1000-$1200 model, but am still holding out for rosewood.
When I started on bass and electric guitar in 1984 or so, I had all maple for many years, and didn't like rosewood at the time. Then something switched, and I found maple slows me down considerably, even when it isn't shellacked. I don't sweat much, so maybe that's why -- many tell me that maple fretboards take a lot longer to break in, so trying used might be more indicative.
Just a thought :
AFAIK, Stratocaster has bigger space between strings, than Telecaster.
That is to say a wider neck of course.
That could make sense in the live versus studio question.
Just got a tip on a key lime yellow Tele that is supposed to be in impeccable shape. It's on consignment and the asking price is "within range". Now key lime yellow wasn't what I had in mind, but my buddy Toby kicked this instrument into shape and swears by its condition. I swear by Toby in Portland, so it looks like I'll be swinging up there next week to give it a try.
For the record, I'm headed up to Portland anyway because I must attend a rehearsal on Oct. 9th. I also hope to hit Toby's shop while there in the afternoon and then grab a flight back to "the shire" in the evening.
Thing is, Toby's shop is snatching down prices on a whole lot of instruments, so this venture may not be about a Strat or a Tele. If I find a gem of any kind, I may have to go for it regardless of brand.
That's the thing with guitars. You look for a Fender and then realize that you've stumbled upon some other treasure that has nothing to do with your original intent. What I might buy in a couple of weeks may have nothing to do with this thread, but that doesn't mean that this thread is invalid. The Strat/Tele quest continues.
daniel.sneed wrote:Just a thought :
AFAIK, Stratocaster has bigger space between strings, than Telecaster.
That is to say a wider neck of course.
That could make sense in the live versus studio question.
Fender electrics, except for the 65 Mustang classic series model, have a nut width of 1.650 inches, hence all the same spacing between strings and same neck width/ The aforementioned Mustang has a 1.625 inch nut width and a 24 inch scale. What varies between Fender's electrics is neck radius and neck profile.
I actually find the V-neck on the Clapton Strat more comfortable to my hand for chord work than the huge neck profile on the SRV Strat, and I don't think I have huge hands (certainly not like Hendrix's). My fret hand (left) is 8.5 inches thumb tip to pinky tip and my right is a quarter inch longer. Or put it another way, on a standard keyboard I can cover an octave plus a whole step. What I think makes a difference to a player is palm size versus finger length. I've seen some guitarists that have absolutely long fingers but small palms.
Good lead on that shop in/near Portland. I'll be interested to hear feedback and info, as I'll probably revisit next year due to having some friends and relatives who've moved there in recent years. I was there last April but didn't know about Toby's guitar shop. Sounds worth a visit!
Yes, steeper radius is said to be better for chording and shallower radius for lead playing, according to some nice articles that I printed a few weeks back (if I can find the URL's, I'll list them later). And, as mentioned, one's hand stretch isn't completely related to finger length. I can reach a 9th or 10th on a piano in spite of small hands.
It's funny about finding something else on the path to a different goal. It was during my search for the perfect Tele that I came across the Jazzmaster, which I for some reason had been ignorant of all these years, mistaking them for Gibson Thunderbirds in the tiny photos on CD covers. I never paid them close enough scrutiny!
Good lead on that shop in/near Portland. I'll be interested to hear feedback and info, as I'll probably revisit next year due to having some friends and relatives who've moved there in recent years. I was there last April but didn't know about Toby's guitar shop. Sounds worth a visit!
Oh, yeah. Just got off the phone with Toby a little while ago. It's called Apple Music Row-- and it's actually three adjacent buildings. One is the electric guitar Eden. Next door it's all drums and percussion. Next door to that, it's all acoustic guitars, mandolins, balalaikas, etc., etc. Very unassuming, anti-glam, but honest and for real. I've been doing business with these guys for 11 years now.
mhschmieder wrote:
Yes, steeper radius is said to be better for chording and shallower radius for lead playing, according to some nice articles that I printed a few weeks back (if I can find the URL's, I'll list them later). And, as mentioned, one's hand stretch isn't completely related to finger length. I can reach a 9th or 10th on a piano in spite of small hands.
Correct. Palm size and finger stretch are two different things on the guitar than they are on the piano. Just to give you an idea, my piano "reach" is a 15th (very unhobbit-like, I know). That doesn't really help me at all on the guitar, so I have to get creative with chord voicings sometimes.
mhschmieder wrote:
It's funny about finding something else on the path to a different goal. It was during my search for the perfect Tele that I came across the Jazzmaster, which I for some reason had been ignorant of all these years, mistaking them for Gibson Thunderbirds in the tiny photos on CD covers. I never paid them close enough scrutiny!
Indeed-- this entire Fender excursion might send me home with a ukelele--- who knows?
But-- if I can lure twistedtom into joining me for a tuna sandwich, it will be well worth the trip.
n2mpujack wrote:My fret hand (left) is 8.5 inches thumb tip to pinky tip and my right is a quarter inch longer.
Wow-- your right is a quarter inch longer? Interesting. I'm 9 1/8th on both on the dot.
Curious-- what's the distance between the tip of your fretboard pinky and the tip of your ring finger?
On my left it's 1.5 inches and on my right it's 1.25 inches.
The balance of Nature may be one thing, but the symmetry of Nature is clearly something else entirely.
With the fingers tight together it's just over an inch on both hands. Where I get the extra length on the right hand (and remember that dimension was with the hand outstretched) I think is in the length of my thumb - it's .25 inch longer on the right hand.
Two thoughts- EVH was not a strat guy per se, he built his own strat style guitar out of 3rd party components. He used a single humbucker vs. the single coils. What a sound!
Gary Moore used a strat on his early solo stuff. A great heavy strat sound, Check out his cover of "shapes of things" - that tune friggin' cranks!
I read somewhere that Jimmy Page used a tele to record "whole lotta love" - I was shocked to hear that. I always think of Tele's having a real spanky sound. That is one heavy tone.
My only advice is to buy quality. Cheap wood and marginal electronics have a way of sounding ok at the dealer, but will always have you tweaking your mixes to get the guitar to sound right. Make sure the guitar looks and feels good to - so you want to play it.
n2mpujack wrote:My fret hand (left) is 8.5 inches thumb tip to pinky tip and my right is a quarter inch longer.
Wow-- your right is a quarter inch longer? Interesting. I'm 9 1/8th on both on the dot.
Curious-- what's the distance between the tip of your fretboard pinky and the tip of your ring finger?
On my left it's 1.5 inches and on my right it's 1.25 inches.
The balance of Nature may be one thing, but the symmetry of Nature is clearly something else entirely.
My fretting hand (left) is 10.25 inches tip to tip and my pinky is 0.98 inches shorter than the ring finger.
My right hand is very close to the same tip to tip - just a tad less, but the pinky is shorter relative to the ring finger - around 1.2
That's probably attributable to all the stretching etc on the left hand.
Symmetry looks weird in nature. Ever seen altered images of people's faces where the right has been morphed into symmetry to the left? It looks totally wrong.
Lots of stuff and a recently acquired ability to stop buying
To go single coil, to humbuck, to go noiseless, or reverse wound.... sounds, tones.. wabbits, wabbits, wabbits...
Sound.... billf's question. Is it so much what sound I think I want as it is what center point will give me the most flexibility to render the sound(s) I want in general until such time I can kit bash a second instrument for even more specific results?
Should that second instrument be a Tele right now or should it be a Strat with a whole different setup?
Rhetorical questions which need not be answered right now.
Nice thing with a Strat is that because of the way they are constructed with all the electronic components mounted to the pickguard (save for the output jack on all models and the preamp in the EC version) if you want to go with a different sound all you have to unbolt is remove the strings, change pickguard assemblies, restring, and away you go. The output jack is still wired to the assembly, it's just not physically attached to anything. Want Texas Specials in an axe that has Vintage Noiseless but may want to go back to the old VN setup? Change pickguard assemblies/pickups. Assuming the body routing is okay, you could even swap in an assembly with humbuckers, or a mix of buckers and single coils. No messy unbolting pickups, dealing with the wire loom, etc.
