What is your favorite model/year Stratocaster?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ido1957
  • Start date Start date
I had a 2000's Squier Strat and it was a pretty good guitar until I destroyed :/
 
I had a 2000's Squier Strat and it was a pretty good guitar until I destroyed :/

Yeah, the Squier Strat I have is from about the same year. Good guitar, really- this one's a "Standard" model, which is the top of the line, according to an ebay guide. It's not my "favorite," but it's a good guitar. Only real reason I am selling it now is 'cause I was able to step up to a USA Standard Strat.
 
I've had a long hard think about this one and the answer is Telecaster.
 
So, is a Tele with contours cut in it really a Tele? How 'bout one with humbuckers? A mid pickup? Tremolo bridge? Etc. etc. etc.
 
I really can't understand why anyone would hate on a Strat or a Tele, other than considerations of suitability to the kind of music you're playing. When I hear a humbucking guitar, (played by amateurs, obviously) I usually get "tired" in the ears fairly quickly - they're either too overdriven for everything they're used on, or the tone is too muddy when they're clean. I love my 1983 Squier (note spelling) Stratocaster. It's an awesome guitar, as good as any Strat I've ever played. No other guitar gives that clean "ping" that you get on the second position of the five-way switch - it's as recognisable, unique and as universally recorded as any guitar, ever.

For me, the Gibson Les Paul is the single suckiest guitar in the history of luthiering. Not only is it massively overpriced, unjustifiably worshipped by guitarists and totally fugly but it is also a complete one-trick pony - Superb on the right track, but shit everywhere else.

I don't understand why some people (Americans in particular, but teenage Americans more than most) harp on about "tone", then smother their guitars in overdrive and reverb. What's going on there? Strats and Teles are perfect for certain kinds of music and there's no point hating on them because they sound wank on "Sweet Child O'Mine".

I'm rambling now, but I think "horses for courses" is the message I'm trying to get across.
 
For me, the Gibson Les Paul is the single suckiest guitar in the history of luthiering. Not only is it massively overpriced, unjustifiably worshipped by guitarists and totally fugly but it is also a complete one-trick pony - Superb on the right track, but shit everywhere else.
.
I don't like 'em. I have one and it's aight for a good rockin' rythm sound but ergonomically it's a POS. I've had probably ...... mmmm .... half a dozen of them. They're not my cup of tea but what guitar is right for you is a very personal decision.
Some players love 'em and can play serious shit on them so ....... meh.
I sorta like ALL guitars ..... some more than others.
 
bubba, really? so what are you insinuating, good real tone doesn't exist when you use overdrive and reverb? please.

i love my tone, through both my parker with duncan hums and my strat with lace sensors through my JCM2000 stack. however, when i need more push, i use a marshall guvnor and/or a boss sd1 for OD and gain; many times i'll throw on a boss OC-2 for riffs to throw out the lower octave. now THAT is delicious tone, and guess what? it's created by overdrive or an analog octave effect.

and get out of here with that "americans in particular" bullshit. please. teenage guitarists everywhere, british ones in particular (see what i did there? no hard facts, so don't state something so silly), smother their guitars with effects because everything is digital now and a majority of them run software and/or line 6 shit and think that's tone. so if that's what you mean, then i apologize, because yes that's shit tone. but even when i was a teenager, i still played through a full tube marshall stack supplemented with analog pedals because i know what good tone is.
 
Are you asking me?

Yeah, sort of. And also throwing it out there.

To my thinking, contours on the body of a Strat is it's best design feature- made it much more comfortable to play. Great idea- so I can't think of any reason they should not be on Teles, and Pauls, etc.

But I never understood monkeying about with pups on a Tele- I don't see the point of putting a bucker in the neck position, and 3-SC's on a Tele just looks wrong. And putting a trem bridge on a Tele seems to take away it's most iconic feature- the soap-dish bridge (although I don't think I have ever seen a trem on a Tele.)
 
bubba, really? so what are you insinuating, good real tone doesn't exist when you use overdrive and reverb? please.

i love my tone, through both my parker with duncan hums and my strat with lace sensors through my JCM2000 stack. however, when i need more push, i use a marshall guvnor and/or a boss sd1 for OD and gain; many times i'll throw on a boss OC-2 for riffs to throw out the lower octave. now THAT is delicious tone, and guess what? it's created by overdrive or an analog octave effect.

and get out of here with that "americans in particular" bullshit. please. teenage guitarists everywhere, british ones in particular (see what i did there? no hard facts, so don't state something so silly), smother their guitars with effects because everything is digital now and a majority of them run software and/or line 6 shit and think that's tone. so if that's what you mean, then i apologize, because yes that's shit tone. but even when i was a teenager, i still played through a full tube marshall stack supplemented with analog pedals because i know what good tone is.


I was ranting a bit, sorry. :oops: I was just articulating the irritation I get on websites like Ultimate Guitar which seems to be infested with thirteen year olds having flame wars about tone when they then play their guitars through a series of metal fuzzboxes with the saturation turned up full. The chord playing then sounds like arse and the leads even worse. I do apologise. :D
 
Genearally I have to agree. Off the top of mead the tone produced by Duane Allman, Eric Claptop, Peter Green, Paul Kossoff, Bob Marley, Mike Bloomfield, Frank Zappa, oh and Les Paul was total suckage. Thats why I voted Telecaster.
 
bubba, really? so what are you insinuating, good real tone doesn't exist when you use overdrive and reverb? please.

i love my tone, through both my parker with duncan hums and my strat with lace sensors through my JCM2000 stack. however, when i need more push, i use a marshall guvnor and/or a boss sd1 for OD and gain; many times i'll throw on a boss OC-2 for riffs to throw out the lower octave. now THAT is delicious tone, and guess what? it's created by overdrive or an analog octave effect.

and get out of here with that "americans in particular" bullshit. please. teenage guitarists everywhere, british ones in particular (see what i did there? no hard facts, so don't state something so silly), smother their guitars with effects because everything is digital now and a majority of them run software and/or line 6 shit and think that's tone. so if that's what you mean, then i apologize, because yes that's shit tone. but even when i was a teenager, i still played through a full tube marshall stack supplemented with analog pedals because i know what good tone is.

Dude, Bubba is total troll. Pay him no mind.
 
^ There's your troll. Two guys have a difference of opinion, and someone just can't resist weighing in on it, without really having anything to say.

Sad.:rolleyes:
 
Says the guy that adds nothing to any thread. Troll alert. ^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
Here is the most myopic opinion ever. If you change anything, it ain't a Strat anymore, but Strat-style. There are a few very minor exceptions, but overall, no Strat made after 1971 is really a Strat. Did you mess with the pickup 'formula'? It won't sound like a 'real' Strat anymore. Sorry, CBS. Did you change the tremolo block? You changed the tone. Did you change the fingerboard radius? You f*cked with the feel. Did you change the truss rod? You changed the feel and the tone. Sorry. People with their Squiers or 1990's or 2000's 'Strats' with floating tremolos have no idea what a 'real' Strat plays like. 12" radius fingerboards? You haven't got a clue what a 'real' Strat feels like under your fingers. Blame CBS if you must.
It's all moot anyway, as you plug into your Big Muff and into your high gain Boogie. Yech. Any 'Strat' sounds like crap now.
 
Here is the most myopic opinion ever. If you change anything, it ain't a Strat anymore, but Strat-style. There are a few very minor exceptions, but overall, no Strat made after 1971 is really a Strat. Did you mess with the pickup 'formula'? It won't sound like a 'real' Strat anymore. Sorry, CBS. Did you change the tremolo block? You changed the tone. Did you change the fingerboard radius? You f*cked with the feel. Did you change the truss rod? You changed the feel and the tone. Sorry. People with their Squiers or 1990's or 2000's 'Strats' with floating tremolos have no idea what a 'real' Strat plays like. 12" radius fingerboards? You haven't got a clue what a 'real' Strat feels like under your fingers. Blame CBS if you must.
It's all moot anyway, as you plug into your Big Muff and into your high gain Boogie. Yech. Any 'Strat' sounds like crap now.

Sense at last. Word.

Besides...aint it all about how the guitar 'feels'??? With all those pedals and gain stages and the like, who can tell what guitar is being used. On a recording you absolutely cannot tell. But some player with a single wire and a nicely responsive amp and the guitar that makes all the dreams come true can burn a place to the ground if everything is right at the moment.

@ranjan....Its SLI duder. (Strat-like instrument)!!! [REAL Strat owner}
 
come on, seriously? if you guys can't hear the difference between a single coil running through crazy distortion and a humbucker, then well i'm quite surprised. you can tell when a strats being played, even if it's through a boogie.

but what ranjam says, i mean i pretty much agree. my strat has lace sensors; in my mind, it's not a real strat at all lol...yes the quality is great, it was made in california, and it's got a wicked blueburst paint scheme that i've never seen anywhere else...it plays great and i think sounds cool....but would i call it a true strat? nope. lace sensors, IMO, have a much diff tone than regular ol single coils...but it adds some flavor to it; it's a different kind of sound...and since i was never big on single coils anyway, i decided to go for something with a bit more beef.

bubba, i see what you're saying now..i don't visit websites like that...for music, i stay here because all of us know what tone is, and we're not a buncha 13 year old dumbass kids lol..but like i said, with all that digital bullshit today, tone is definitley not what it used to be..and since that's the generation that's up and coming, in 20 years we'll probably see kids playing on stage live through a god damn line 6 POD into the house PA with no real amps! sigh. lol
 
I have an MIM Strat from 05 or 06 that I put Lindy Fralin Vintage Hots in, Schaller locking tuners, Tremol-no, and a few other things I don't remember in...Thing plays and sounds amazing.
 
Back
Top