Am I the only one who doesn't like the Strat body style?

[DaveAronow]

Sorry for the condescending. You are right. It obviously was.

 

I guess we are just talking about varying scales in our definitions of the word "difference" when it comes to tone.

 

By the way, you ought ot see my collection of music.

 

I dont think it can get any more ecclectic or diverse than that.

 

Glad to hear you are one of us. A simple lover of music just for the sake of music.

[curseoftruth]

+1 - Can't stand them.

 

 

+1, not my favorite style. I'm just not a strat guy though. To each his own.

[csm]

 

The person I was responding to made it sound as if "What???? Clapton and SRV don't sound anything like each other! They aren't even in the same universe!"

 

 

Please don't put your words in my mouth. Apart from anything else, it's unhygienic.

 

Anyone who listens to blues-based music with more than half an ear is aware that different players can extract very different tones from very similar equipment. It's in the taste -- ie how you hear the music, how you CHOOSE to play, what kind of tones you dial in -- and in the touch. The gear is only tangentially important, even when you get down to details like the active boosts Clapton's had fitted to his sig Strat since its inception, though throughout the Blackie Years, he used a cleanish tone even more dissimilar from SRV's than his 90s-to-present sounds.

 

For that matter, Buddy Guy and Buddy Holly both played Strats through Bassman amps in the 1950s, and sounded completely different. They could have followed each other onto the same stage, used the same guitar and amp and even played the same song.

 

Yes, SRV and EC were both white. Both played blues. Both used Strats. Same universe, same planet -- different players, different tones, VERY different take on superficially similar themes. If you can't tell the difference, cool -- but don't tell those of us who CAN that we're deluded or trying to hand you horse{censored}.

 

EDIT: And this point STILL has nothing to do with the original topic, which is to do with OP's attitude to the Strat bodyshape. Can't think why you bothered to raise it in the first place.

[inkblot]

The look is fine, I don't like the feel at all.

[soundcreation]

love strats; love SGs; love Les Pauls; and teles are really begining to grow on me.

[RaVenCAD]

To the expert that don't like white-boy blues, all I can say is that you need to get over yerself.. Anyone that can listen to Clapton and SRV and then tell me "it's the same".. Well, your idiocy speaks for itself.. Good day to you.

[Doctor Morbius]

I emphatically love Strats so it stands to reason that there are those who hate them. Fortunately there are enough guitar styles for everyone.

[bsman]

Although I don't have ready access to the facts and figures, I guarantee you that more electric guitars have been produced in a "strat" body style than any other. Like it or not, the strat is undoubtedly the most successful guitar design EVER. It has succeeded wildly beyond the success of any tele, LP, SG, or any other guitar design. Therefore, like it or not - it's here to stay!

[HOMER308]

Just had to chime in here as a lefty player - there is the visual appearance of a Strat which I love, and then there is the reality that a lefty version of the Stratocaster has to be the most godawful looking thing ever made

I've owned a righty Strat for the last 15 years - restrung upside down - yeah, I know - there is no upper fret access for me, but I play more rhythm than lead anyway.

I bought a 50th anniversary lefty brand-spankin' new, but never could bond with it. Call me shallow or whatever, but I tried for a year, but it looked so odd sittin' in the stand (like it came from bizarre parallel universe) - I sold it to my brother! I kept the righty Strat and still have it today - it looks RIGHT!

All my other guitars are LP (OK) or SG-style (which looks GREAT lefty)

[bsman]

Just had to chime in here as a lefty player - there is the visual appearance of a Strat which I love, and then there is the reality that a lefty version of the Stratocaster has to be the most godawful looking thing ever made

Well, to be honest, all Lefty guitars look like they were designed by Simon bar Sinister!



And I AM a lefty (in everything except hockey, shooting, and guitar!)

[Oldskool Texas]

I find the Strat body shape to be supremely comfortable, but I don't like that almost 50% of the top is covered by the pickguard. I like the wood, not the plastic.

I also like the tone, although I often wish it wasn't quite so distinctive. While lots of people say that you can make a Strat sound like many other guitars, I find that the opposite is true: they always sound unmistakably "Stratty" to me, no matter who is playing it, or through what. The Tele, on the other hand, is more of a tone chameleon.

[Jamiegaskin]

I like double cuts, especially if its a carved top, and i don't mind things like godin's freeway classic which is a strat shape, BUT i can never get myself to like the way a strat style body looks with a pickguard.

[rummy]

Yes, you are.

[wavenger]

The Strat body style is a daring design, and it has a lot in common with 50's and 60's ideas of the future. It's very asymmetrical, contoured, and designed to fit the body. By contrast, the Les Paul has an awful lot in common with acoustic guitars and is very conservative - more symmetrical, more circular, tight waist like a violin. It's easier for something that takes a lot of risks to fall out of fashion than something which is just the next logical step, but likewise a classic design will never really be in fashion. You'll always look sharp in a nice tuxedo, but it's hard to make waves.

It'd be interesting to see how many Strat players dislike the Les Paul body and how many Les Paul players dislike the Strat body, purely from a design standpoint.

I love the Les Paul body shape and hate the Strat shape. It's surprising I don't have one, but I have a PRS - vaguely a superstrat in body design. I guess I just haven't met the right Les Paul at the right price point.

[bsman]

I can't stand Les Pauls - upper fret access sucks, they're unbalanced, and too friggin' heavy.

[Muddslide]

Sorry for the condescending. You are right. It obviously was. I guess we are just talking about varying scales in our definitions of the word "difference" when it comes to tone. By the way, you ought ot see my collection of music. I dont think it can get any more ecclectic or diverse than that. Glad to hear you are one of us. A simple lover of music just for the sake of music.

 

 

Thanks for the kind words, especially after I came off sounding like king wannabe egghead professor asshole.

 

Apologies....

 

I do see your point(s)...I just disagree that there is such a huge gulf between those particular players and their sounds. To me, the difference is more like the difference between two brands or years of bordeaux wine as opposed to the difference between a bordeaux and a beer or some scotch.

[phil47uk]

Can't do without one..A marriage made in heaven.



Like spanners and screwdrivers, You need em both in the tool kit.

http://www.historiclespauls.com/index.php?action=showgallery&id=161&requesturi=%2Findex.php%3Faction%3Dshowmodel&model=%25&orderby=hits+DESC&volltext=


.

[Hemroidius]

I've owned a number of Strat type guitars. In my younger years I thought it was the quintesential cool design (Hendrix having played one surely influenced my taste there).

As I've gotten older I've been ambivalent about the shape. ...maybe cause it's been so widely copied it's lost some allure for me. But still, when I pick up a good playing Strat with comfortable weight, I dig the whole design all over again.

[Muddslide]

Please don't put your words in my mouth. Apart from anything else, it's unhygienic.

 

 

Yeah, I owe you an apology as well. (Please see my above post to DaveAronow...I think/hope it will apply aptly to you as well...)

 

 

Anyone who listens to blues-based music with more than half an ear is aware that different players can extract very different tones from very similar equipment. It's in the taste -- ie how you hear the music, how you CHOOSE to play, what kind of tones you dial in -- and in the touch. The gear is only tangentially important, even when you get down to details like the active boosts Clapton's had fitted to his sig Strat since its inception, though throughout the Blackie Years, he used a cleanish tone even more dissimilar from SRV's than his 90s-to-present sounds. For that matter, Buddy Guy and Buddy Holly both played Strats through Bassman amps in the 1950s, and sounded completely different. They could have followed each other onto the same stage, used the same guitar and amp and even played the same song. Yes, SRV and EC were both white. Both played blues. Both used Strats. Same universe, same planet -- different players, different tones, VERY different take on superficially similar themes. If you can't tell the difference, cool -- but don't tell those of us who CAN that we're deluded or trying to hand you horse{censored}.

 

 

I don't disagree. Really, I never did, except in terms of degree. I am actually a huge blues afficionado and consider myself something of a historian on the subject, though my interest is in pre-war rural Southern blues. I don't care for much of the later/electric stuff, though I admire a lot of the players. I actually think blues has become more insular/formulaic over the passing of time. Again, this is a totally subjective opinion (though I believe it is a fairly well-informed opinion.)

 

I've had the same arguments with people claiming it all sounds the same-- one old black guy playing acoustic guitar and singing the blues. "The HELL you say?!?!?!" I respond, going on to delineate the obvious differences between someone like Mississippi John Hurt and someone like Barbecue Bob. Or between Blind Wille McTell and Skip James.

 

So, I do know where you are coming from. I just personally find Clapton and SRV rather generic. As well as a lot of other more modern blues. It's like they can't break out of 12 bars and AAAB rhyme schemes.

 

Again, though, it's not that I can't tell the difference (as I acknowledged several times) it's that--to me--the difference is not all that measurable. Nothing like your later example of pairs of players who use substantially different equipment to play completely different genres of music.

 

 

EDIT: And this point STILL has nothing to do with the original topic, which is to do with OP's attitude to the Strat bodyshape. Can't think why you bothered to raise it in the first place.

 

 

You are correct. I'm an OT sorta guy I guess. Go off on tangents. Guilty as charged.

[TeleStratMan]

I like tele much better, Strats look too ordinary for me.

[Flintc]

I've always found strats to be ugly as sin. But I recently bought a guitar I found damn attractive and sexy, and it wasn't for several weeks that I realized the body shape was a strat clone!

So what's wrong with the strat? Two things. (1) the paint (paint is for plywood you intend to leave out in the rain); and (2) the pickguard (if you can't control your pick, practice!)

Conversely, I do not think there is any guitar shape however gorgeous that you can't ruin by slapping pickguard and paint on it. God made wood beautiful for a reason.

[csm]

 

Yeah, I owe you an apology as well. (Please see my above post to DaveAronow...I think/hope it will apply aptly to you as well...) I don't disagree. Really, I never did, except in terms of degree . I am actually a huge blues afficionado and consider myself something of a historian on the subject, though my interest is in pre-war rural Southern blues. I don't care for much of the later/electric stuff, though I admire a lot of the players.

 

 

Never mind. Mates, okay? I LURVES me some prewar blues myself -- John Hurt, Son House, Skip, the immortal Robt, Blind Willies Johnson & McTell and loads more. We only differ in that you see postwar electric blues as a dilution of the pure milk (or should that be pure whisky?) of the prewar stuff, whereas I see it as the same wine in radically different bottles, with the likes of Muddy, John Lee, Wolf and Sonny Boy II as the bridges between that world and the T-Bone/BB/Albert/Buddy Guy strain, which in turn links up to the 60s whiteboys, Jimi etc, blah-blah woof-woof.

 

Consider yourself bought a virtual beer.

 

*sobs*

 

Let's NEVER quarrel again!

[Muddslide]

You make a good analogy. Consider yourself repaid one virtual beer.

 

*hugs, tears*

 

EDIT: PS-- I DO love Howlin' Wolf, Muddy, Sonny Boy II (and Sonny Boy I for that matter...I'd love to pick up harp...)

 

I admire your knowledge of the lineage. I think you are spot on.

 

What's your take on Keef? He's actually one of my favorite of the white Euro-bluesmen. Steve Marriott was no slouch either. I prefer both of them to Clapton, though I dig a lot of Clapton's work up through Derek & The Dominoes.

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

I disagree. There are nuances of difference. I think SRV got a little more overdriven and creamy with his tone, but they are still strat tones with only slight differences (to my ears...Knopfler has pretty much the same tone as well, IMO)...and in both cases played by boring white guys trying to be bluesy and soulful.

Do you wear {censored} in your ears as an accessory, or just to smell bad to girls?

[Alecto]

I've actually come full circle. As a kid, I loved Strats and wanted one. When I got older, I bought a Telecaster (sounded amazing, but weighed a ton), then shifted to Les Paul and 335 shapes because I wanted the meat of humbuckers.

Now I've gone back to a Strat and I think it's one of the most comfortable body shapes going. It's also surprisingly versatile.

@ Muddslide: I agree that blues became incredibly formulaic in the 70's, 80's and 90's, but I'm really digging the Mississippi hill country style: Buddy Guy's Sweet Tea (if you don't own this CD, GET IT!!!), T-Model Ford, The North Mississippi All-Stars, The Black Keys and "Booba" Barnes (RIP). That's pretty far from 12 bars and AAAB rhyme schemes while staying within the blues realm.