So, my first electric guitar was a strat, but I stopped using it sometime around 2002, broke it down into parts, and upcycled the neck into my first Jazzmaster build in 2008, which ended up broken back down into parts. I got a couple of O.G. Classic Vibe strats dirt cheap back in the day but sold them when I was moving cities and needed to downsize.
That's a long way to say that I've been largely strat-less for two decades, but that changed when HNB traded me this incredible '86 (birth year) ARI (no "V" yet) strat:
(Photo credit to HNB).
Oh. My. Goodness. I forgot how fun a good strat can be! That neck pickup tone is ingrained in my head as probably the greatest electric guitar tone of all time. I love my Jags, Mustangs, and JM, but after years of playing them, hearing a strat neck pickup still somehow feels like coming home. Something about the response of the bridge and trem springs, and the size and location of the pickup adds up just right to me.
I still kind of recoil in horror if I hear a clucky position 2/4 tone come from my own amp - that's still the blooz lawyer and 80's wedding cover band tone to me - but the single-pickup tones are all delightful. That bridge pickup, which I had once been convinced was "too thin" by Y2K-era internet forums and reviews - is just nasty in the best possible way. Especially in the era of amp modeling, where my AxeFX III can be set up with any patch for any guitar/pickup I care to play, it takes absolutely no effort to get it sounding as thick as I could want it to, but it's far more fun to let it shine in all its funky, spanky glory.
Forgive me, OSG, for I have sinned. It's been one day since I last played a Red Hot Chili Peppers riff and enjoyed it.
I find I have to shorten my strap a bit to get it playing at an ergonomic angle compared to my Offsets, though. I'm not sure whether I've just gotten used to Offsets (and now Gibsons - my other recent transgression), which have more of a neck angle and a higher bridge, but the strat bridge feels kind of awkwardly sucked into the body to me now. I'm sure I'll adjust. With a shorter strap or playing while sitting down, it seems fine, but standing with it makes my right wrist feel a little awkward with palm mutes especially.
Oh, and that volume knob. I'm now being reminded that while palm muting, it used to scratch up my cuticles the fingers of my right hand. Still does! Why is that volume knob so close to the strings? I literally haven't had this issue on any guitar I've played other than a strat. I get why some people would just uninstall the volume pot and go with a volume and master tone setup in the two remaining pickguard holes.
The magic of this guitar, though, is that it's a vintage-spec strat with a 35 year-old nitro finish that has been played hard. It's got that identical, worn-in/partially bare/greying in spots thing going on with the neck that I've only experienced on the 60's Jags and Mustangs I've owned. I'm sure as hell never going to spend the 5 figures it takes to buy an actual 60's strat, so this is the only way to experience true decades of play wear on one, and I'll be damned if it isn't a fully authentic experience!
I've played a number of poly CBS Fenders, and they just don't age the same. Old poly just kind of chips away, while old nitro sinks into the wood and just gradually disappears in the spots that are rubbed the most. The previous owners definitely didn't stick to cowboy chords - the wear comes up pretty high on the neck.
I'm a happy camper right now. If someone told me a year ago that my two most recent trade acquisitions would be a strat and an ES-335, I wouldn't have believed them. I think it's been decades since I had more than one non-offset guitar, and now they're multiplying. The shame!
The artist formerly known as mbene085.
