randythoades

Welcome and a nice collection there. I have a real fondness for the Korean Squiers and definitely the best colour...!

Yes, makes a real difference when you get good service and good advice. Goes a long way. And a lovely looking guitar. Good purchase.

I have also heard that. I did have an Encore very similar to the one in the original post and it was very nice, certainly for a beginner guitar. I carried on playing it even after I had progressed onto a Fender, it was just as good to my inexperienced ears. I only sold it because I became embarrassed by playing it instead of my Fender. I am not as worried by that image now and take a great delight in playing my homebuild Strat with Squier neck and a couple of Vintage VZ99 Zip guitars from the mid 2000s, one like a Danelectro with lipstick pickup, and another the same but with a humbucker. Brilliant guitars, irrespective of price and I love it hen people turn their noses up at it and then I play it with the band and you get a grudging shrug of 'it's actually pretty good...'. So to sumarise, the Encore and Vintage brands are good quality overall and perfectly nice guitars.

I agree with @Dad3353, this seems like an overly complex way of switching and definitely a danger of switching everything off by mistake and causing an issue. It would be a much easier job to wire in a fresh decent 5 way switch, or even one of the fancy 7 way 'Gilmour mod' switching options that give ability use bridge and neck pickups together etc with a push pull pot. There will be wiring diagrams online and it can't be that hard to do (or just buy a replacement harness that will also then upgrade the Squier control pots)

Ah, it is a fine balance between looking cool and being comfortable. ... there is a reason that a stratocaster has been around for over 50 years.

That is it exactly. I love the Esquire, much prefer it over a standard Tele. And I love the shape and look of the Strat but struggle to get tones I like from it, so I took apart my Hank Marvin Squier and used the neck on a hardtail strat body which I sprayed satin Fiesta red, no laquer so that it will age more and get dinged. Love it. Although, now I see the prices that the HM squier are up for on eBay, I often think that I might have made a mistake, but I love the neck to pieces, so comfy...!

I know exactly what you mean. I have a lovely LP junior type with lipstick pickups. I love the sound of it for almost everything, but some things don't work under my fingers on it. But grab the StratoTele (in my avatar) and all fits into place for some reason. And the same in reverse. Must be something subtle about the size of the neck, the radius, scale length that just suits some tracks and not others. Although I have to say that the StratoTele covers far more bases than any of my others. If it had to be one it would be that one.

I think it is, yes. Been a long while since I last played an LP, but this is the way I remember it !!

This is a repost photo from a version I found on a Jazz guitar forum when I was trying other genres to help me fall in love with a strat. This one uses a single coil humbucker in the neck for a more rounded jazz sound, but I think it looks fantastic without the dummy coils.

Most physical shops will already have looked at an instrument and made sure it didn't have any issues with action etc before putting them on display. An online service where they are just shifting boxes will be different and minor remedial action may be needed, but most new instruments are decent from the factory and only need minor fettling to get them right for personal preferences. But any reputable shop will sell a good instrument off the shelf (if it wasn't, they would have sent it back). As Douglas says, if you see and play it in person, you shouldn't need to do anything to it. If it feels right, it feels right. If something feels off then it isn't the one for you. Feel free to negotiate about anything, the smaller the shop, the more flexible they may be about including soft case, spare strings etc but don't pass up a nice instrument just because you don't get a case.

Welcome to the forum and congratulations. I tried to get both my children interested, but not really happened. Biggest piece of advice I can give (that I am sure will be echoed by other members too)... Take it SLOWLY. I know it is difficult and you want to jump straight in and be amazing in a short space of time, but keeping it slow and going over the same exercises will really help with muscle memory. Precision is much better than speed in the early stages. Speed will come with time once you have the basics nailed. Do short 'lessons' of 15 minutes at a time and then make a noise if you like, but shorter more frequent sessions are better than one long session in a week.

I like it - it's different. Did you have to make the body for it?

Several people have converted their strat to a single pickup setup, both just bridge or just neck (including myself on occasion - and I like the idea myself of just middle as I rarely use bridge or neck pickups), but I am not sure I see the point in your case.. If you are going to just leave the other pickups there as 'dummies', just leave the switch in neck position and everything functions as you want without modifying the wiring or functionality. If you want to make a real point of it, just rout out a blank scratch plate without the other pickup holes and a single volume and tone so it looks like a single pickup version (neck in your case). If you have the other pickups in place no one would know the difference.

Yes, just like that video. Each pickup had a volume and tone knob so that you can set them differently and the swicth does exactly as you say, upwards is for neck pickup, middle activates both so you can have a blended sound, and downwards activates just the bridge pickup.

Agreed. You can't go wrong with any of the Yamaha's. Consistently good guitars across all the price bands.

Not attempting to be argumentative, but if you are looking at attaching a tube amp into a transisitor amp, why not just either use the tube amp you already have, or get one that you can use at a lower volume? Seems that actually your Yamaha isn't actually doing the business for you, so just move it on and get something that does. There are plenty of small power valve amps for not a lot of money. I actually prefer to use transistor amps so would be inclined to just use a pedal if that was the sound I needed. As mentioned above, I have got a couple of the Joyo character pedals (the Tech 21 clones) and they do the business when that sound is called for.

It's the same when a friend comes round and asks you to play something... or even worse, when they bring their child round who also plays...'Hey, you guys can have a jam...' I sound like complete toilet...

Well, my initial guitar heroes were Buddy Holly, Hank Marvin, Scotty Moore and the players from the 50s and early 60s so I had no ambition early on for 'Liquid runs' (that came much later)... and was more about clean, reverb drenched rhythm initially or purely melody (like Hank). Then I started to do both rhythm and lead together like Buddy. I used the flatwounds on a strat originally as they were the same strings I used on my first guitar (a hollow body ply wood thing with an action you could put a whole finger underneath). I did move from the flatwounds after a year or so on the strat to a 'standard' 10-46 for the next 15 years, but as RSI started, I went to a 9.5 set, then 9.0s, now on 8-38 sets. I don't find I get much of a different tone on my Esquires whichever string I use, although it definitely needs technique adjustment. I might do that though and set my current strat to a 'standard' setup and use that as a base.

As it happens I don't ... These days I am the only guitar player in our group of friends and the others I know in the area are are Gibson players. Used to be that every man and his dog played guitar, but I was always in demand because I also played bass. Now the other way round. We have another 5 bass players in our little area and I am the only guitarist who doesn't only play punk... I do know a good guitar teacher, so might take a visit to him to discuss the finer points of tone. I do still have a strat in the cupboard and without strings so I could take my stuff over there. He is a PRS player, and is very experienced played around a lot. My use of very light strings is relatively recent, only the last couple of years due to increasing discomfort with RSI. I used to use flatwound 12s and gradually got lighter and lighter over the years.. Maybe it isn't that the strat sounds bad, maybe it is because of the tone that I have in my head (which fits nicely with the Tele) that I am trying to get from a strat. Perhaps I am being a little unfair.

I agree that we don't all have to have all the abilities in all the genres in everything and I am sure there is a lot of goat sacrificing going on... !! I am not down on my playing necessarily, I like a Tele (well Esquire actually), it works for me and I like to sound the way I do... I manage to still sound like me (and get a sound I generally like) with an SG or LP junior or Gretsch, so why can't I get the Strat to work? I can understand that the overall playing experience, neck thickness, weight, bulk etc might put off players in droves regardless of the tones achieved (I don't play Les Paul for instance) but some players seem to manage to get some amazing sounds out a guitar that I struggle to get even a decent basic tone from. Due to the huge variances with effects, amps etc, it is just that one's technique? I will admit to being quite an 'angular' player in that I dig in deep and 'chop' at the string rather than smoothly strum or pick. I like the percussive snap that comes with it, even though I use a very light touch and use very light strings these days. Maybe that is why the Tele suits and the Strat not. Bit frustrating though... Maybe I need to buy another, just in case.

Thanks for this. I know the tele is the one for me, every time I play one it just feels right. But I look longingly at a strat and wish I could just make it work I just can't get it to sound good at all to my ears, it isn't even about playing experience. I just don't understand how people manage to get them to sound so fantastic...!!

In an attempt to gain some genuine insight (as well as to stir up a discussion that no side can win), I am interested in how people use and get good sounds out of a Stratocaster... I love a strat, for me they embody the epitome of guitar design, sleek and still look space age after all this time. All my favourite players played strats and coaxed amazing tones out of them. BUT, I have had (genuinely no lie) more than 40 strats of various makes in the 35 years that I have been playing, 10 Fender USA, 7 Mex, 6 Squier and 11 MIJ Fender and a splattering of other makes (Gordon Smith, Greco, Aria etc). I lust after strats all the time but cannot make them work for me musically. I can make a telecaster work in almost every situation I am in, but not a strat (hence my building my own tele in a strat hardtail body). I always find the neck pickup too muddy, the bridge pickup too thin and shrill, so I stay on the middle pickup for the most part but keep catching it with my plectrum. I have tried out every make I could find on after market pickups and wiring looms to no avail. The only strats I can get to work for me to some degree are single humbucker strats in the vein of EVH, when I play rock orientated stuff, but even that isn't really my style for the most part, they don't have the snap that I like. I have had dozens of amps (a lot of different era Fenders to be fair, with some Roland, Peavey and Marshall) and effects units, preamps into PA, software amp modelling etc but always the same issues however I try to tweak it. I feel like the strat is like the Emperor's New Clothes... so many players seem to love them and use them but they just don't work for me. I know that I am the common denominator here and it is something about my style and how I approach it, but really... what am I missing?

Wow, looking amazing!!

I really like the idea and will be keeping a close eye on things.

So it is a really a quality take on the Guitarele? Tuned A to A? I am very intrigued and interested...! Would make just a brilliant travel guitar too. I like the feel and size of a tenor ukulele, although I am not that good at uke and really like the idea of the ukulele/guitar hybrid. A baritone uke is partway between the 2 as guitar tuning and 4 nylon strings, so that would probably be my first choice. There are a couple of different brands around (I think Yamaha is the main one, then a few by G4M and similar Chinese brands), but I haven't ventured beyond searching eBay.