Strats - I love and hate 'em

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Fractal Fanatic
I avoided Strats for years ..... a LP was my first decent guitar back in my youth and any time I picked up a Strat it just felt too weird in comparison (plus too expensive for me back then too which was as big a factor).

I moved on to using Charvels and then my beloved Patrick Eggle which I bonded with from the first 5 minutes of picking it off the wall at the Eggle factory showroom. It became my workhorse for many years (still is). I finally bought a used USA Strat Deluxe a few years back to add to my stable of various things I'd picked up.

There's no denying a Strat is a versatile and good sounding guitar ..... but man there are some annoying things that makes my life difficult. Well more my right hand than anything else ........ if I'm not clattering the vol knob I'm clattering the selector switch and if I'm not clattering either of those I'm clattering my pick off the middle pickup.

It's the only guitar I own that forces me to be conscious of my right hand .... it makes nice sounds and I adapt to it ....... but it's always a fight!

Is it just me?
 
I've been a Strat lover for a long time - my main guitar for about 20 years - and those things don't bother me... until recently. I hadn't played my Strat in a while, and suddenly I found myself constantly bumping the volume knob. Go figure :)

On the other hand, I find that the 3-way selector on Les Pauls gets in my way...
 
I cut my tone knobs out and moved the volume knob down, if you arent look-conscious you can pop the cap off the knob and it'll help too
 
I'm a fairly recent convert to my #1 being a Strat (from a Les Paul).

I find it more challenging to use but ultimately the amount of expression it can make is addictive enough for me to continue on the journey. :)

She is an evil but oh so satisfying mistress :)

More and more my Les Paul feels like a blunt instrument.
 
I would love to have one ( I'm a Les Paul Guy now ) but my picking hand turns the volume down while i'm playing like the posts above.
 
I have a Strat Deluxe and only recently have been able to better use it...I installed the Clapton Mod, Noiseless Pickups, Mid Boost, etc...now it's much easier to dial in the sounds I hear.
 
Mine is a 70's blonde with maple board.

I had it Pleked and refretted. Bone nut. Kinman pickups. It looks vintage but has a few tricks up its sleeve :)

Plays like a dream. A Plek and refret is astonishing for what it does for playability.

I bought it on a whim and never played it much. After the Plek, she drew me in :)
 
I modded mine too but all under the hood ...... put a toneshaper circuit board in and set it to have a decent treble bleed cap value on the vol pot to clean up the stock noiseless pickups better and set the 2nd tone pot to be a neck/bridge blend pot (middle tone pot is universal tone over all pups). Can't move pots about as they are all integrated with the toneshaper board - not that I want to move the pots anyway - want it to be traditional layout. It's just my right hand takes a minute or two to become traditional too!
 
Mine is a frankenstrat to begin with - '57 reissue body w/ '62 neck (I think ;-) ... I had a guy in LA build it for me in the late 80's. Modded w/ a coil split on the bridge (currently a JB Jr, used to be a Hot Rails) that's wired to a 3-way switch where the bottom tone control would be. The one remaining tone works on all 3 pups, and is a push-push that engages the neck/bridge for Tele/LP sounds and all 3 pups for real slinky rhythm. In a lot of ways it's not really a Strat anymore...
 
For the first 40+ or so years of my playing, I was always a humbucker kind of guy. I could just never bond with Strats. Closest I came was a Strat-shaped Ibanez back in the early '80s that had dual humbuckers. It was my #1 back when I was touring a lot.

But then about 5 years ago I bought a used MIM Strat and loved the tones I could get out of it...they worked very well with the acoustic/electric band I was playing in. It was pretty easy for me to get used to the knob and switch placement. As of late last month, I'm now up to 5 Strats, although I still use my humbucker guitars quite a bit, too.
 
My first guitar was a Les Paul, some Japanese copy. I hated it. First Strat I got, I loved it. When I read about you guys hitting volume knobs and selector switches my first impression was what kind of clumsy elephants in a china shop are you guys? I've never done that, even when I'm strumming like crazy. But I guess a statistical sample of one (me) is not really a reliable statistic to base opinions on.

I like everything about the Strat. You can mod the shit out of it, throw humbuckers on it if you want too. Make it sound like a Les Paul without the drawbacks of playing a Les Paul (heavy, cumbersome). There's only one thing I don't like about the average standard Strat, them having only 21 frets. Many have 22, but 21 is still the standard on most. That's one thing I took from my first Les Paul guitar, I do like having that 22nd fret. So I have selected my Strats ever since with that in mind. Thankfully, being a modular guitar, throwing on a new neck with 22 frets is as easy as changing a car tire. Try doing that with a Les Paul. ;):p
 
My first electric guitar was a Hagstrom. It was red, and had a cheesy plastic plate between the pickups, with little points on it (like a cheese grater). Man, only the Marquis De Sade would design a guitar with a cheese grater between the pickups. But I digress. It did not sound like a strat, or a Gibson. I was so consumed with figuring out how to play it, that I did not really pay much attention to how it sounded. Eventually, I did discover tone, and from that time on loved both the Strat and the Gibby, but for different reasons. I still do.

My favorite single coil guitar is a Suhr Classic, loaded with ML pickups. After many years of trial and error, I found what for me is the perfect Strat. On the humbucker side, I have several favorites, depending on what I need for the song. The point being, for me, I love both, but for different reasons. I don't try to get my Strat to sound (or play) like my '71 Les Paul, and vice versa. I want them to be different.
 
Well my first electric was a mex strat that did well for a long time then I moved to a music man and epi les paul. In my more pro years I used a PRS until picking up a nice nash strat a year ago. I totally hear ya. They take some time to get used too. Humbuckers are just generally easier to dial in tones and are more forgiving. However, I am a firm believer in using both all the time. I use my mono dual and I love always having my PRS and Strat. I just need to swap that PRS for a nice LP eventually. That said strats can have some noise issues to address. I've been putting up with mine and dropped it off at my shop and they were astounded at how bad the noise was on mine. Needless to say they are potting the pickups and going to do a few things.
 
@Geezerjohn , your good taste is showing again ..Ive had some truly horrendous Fender Strats over the years, my first being a protostrat 68 Mustang, and one or two keepers..My favorites now are are all Suhrs, my trusty old Rasmus Govan HSH super Strat, and most recently, a lovely PeptoBismol painted Suhr Classic pro with the new stock noiseless pups....
 
bradlake said:
@Geezerjohn , your good taste is showing again ..Ive had some truly horrendous Fender Strats over the years, my first being a protostrat 68 Mustang, and one or two keepers..My favorites now are are all Suhrs, my trusty old Rasmus Govan HSH super Strat, and most recently, a lovely PeptoBismol painted Suhr Classic pro with the new stock noiseless pups....
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Ya gotta kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince. My "desert island" guitars are my Suhr Classic (with roasted maple neck) and my Suhr Modern with 2x JST humbuckers. The Classic is vintage sunburst and the Modern is a charcoal black. Both play and sound phenomenal. The Suhrs are two of the finest guitars I ever owned. I imagine that Rasmus is an awesome guitar.
 
Geezerjohn said:
Ya gotta kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince. My "desert island" guitars are my Suhr Classic (with roasted maple neck) and my Suhr Modern with 2x JST humbuckers. The Classic is vintage sunburst and the Modern is a charcoal black. Both play and sound phenomenal. The Suhrs are two of the finest guitars I ever owned. I imagine that Rasmus is an awesome guitar.
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Yeah, I think John Suhr realized he was offering too much value in the cheaper Rasmus line, that Guthrie govan is easily the best dollar-to quality I've ever seen.
 
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