EdwardMarlowe

Nines or tens are pretty much industry standard in my experience. That's for a 'regular', concert pitch tuning. One you get seriously into metal type drop tuning regularly on the fly, I'd go looking for something like.... was it Hipshot do those bridges where you can flip a level to switch to drop D or Drop C and whatever and then back without having to spend time retuning?

Nice guitar! I remember first hearing of Lag about thirty years ago. Electrics, in that case - some very Superstrat type guitars with a lot of work put into the maple tops - like PRS had started out making an answer to Ibanez. I've never played one of their acoustics, but I gather they are very nice indeed. Enjoy!

I'd compare the price of the two options. Years ago I had a Tanglewood dreadnought top suffer a crack. I had a tech add a thin patch on the back to hold it and stop the split getting any worse, and that worked well (with no discernible impact on the sound). Sounds like your top is far enough gone that a replacement might be as easy as repair, especially if the labour time (likely to be the most expensive bit of any repair ime) is about the same...

Sounds like an interesting idea. If it can fit (should be able to from what I can see online), a Submarine Pro in the middle (and so the option of sending output from the same guitar to another amp / direct to the PA) could be a fun variation too - https://www.submarinepickup.com

Very nice gift idea - and those Classic Vibe series guitars are really nice. IMO, they could as easily be labelled "MiC Fender" as Squier... If hubby is a big Nirvana fan, the Competition Mustang model is styled after the 60s Fender model that Kurt Cobain played on Smells Like Teen Spirit. https://www.fender.com/en-GB/squier-electric-guitars/mustang/classic-vibe-60s-competition-mustang/0374079502.html If you can stretch just a tiny bit over the RRP (should be somewhere selling it cheaper than the £449 quoted on the Fender website, though) - the Limited Edition Squier Classic Vibe 60s Jaguar in silver sparkle would be a nice choice, in that being LE it won't be around forever, so it's a guitar that is sort of tied to a particular Christmas in time as well, which would be nice - https://www.fender.com/en-GB/squier-electric-guitars/jaguar/limited-edition-classic-vibe-60s-jaguar/0374092581.html

I loved those Zip guitars. Would have bought at least one, but they didn't do a left hander. Pity.... maybe HB will pick up the torch there!

I heard some of the early ones were nice. The really collectable ones now are the first range of 'Vintage' brand guitars from JHS which were styled "Encore Vintage Series". These were the ones that Trevor Wilkinson first worked on and where the Wilkinson version of the Fender trem first dates from - 1995. Not long after that the Vintage brand started in earnest. I see on JHS's website now the Encore brand still exists - actually looks like it's more of a range than I think there's been for a long time. Vintage has been lifted right up to be challenging the MiM Fender range (with the sort of online following Harley Benton has in these parts), and now even has its own lower-priced range, the Vintage Coaster Series (priced somewhere between the Vintage and Encore guitars). My first electric was a Marlin - they had a brief moment in the sun in the very early 90s when for just one year they outsold Squier in the UK...

Yeah, the dear old Strat is a design I keep coming back to. What I love so much about it is it's so iconic, and yet the design was, in the first instance, very much about form following function, which produced such a beautiful form. Says a lot too how it's been so adaptable over time for all sorts of different tweaks (chamfered neck joints, different trems and pup combinations, and all the rest of it), yet still remained identifiably a Stratocaster.

I love the look of that! Custom build? Looks basically like an Esquier but with a Strat form-factor....

Nice thing about a Strat mod using a whole new guard is that you can also retain the option of very easily reverting to standard if you want to (or, indeed, if you're certain that won't be an issue, sell the original plate complete and wired in order to fund the new version....).

I've had similar experiences. The feel (sometimes even the look - all psychosomatical...) of a different guitar leads me subconsciously to play in a different way or to play different things... By extension, I suspect that different things just feel 'right' on different guitars... What was it recorded on originally, do you know? Something with a similar neck shape (so it - irrespective of the player - 'feels' better on the type of neck / guitar feel it was written / recorded on... Not sure I'm articulating that so well, but you know what I mean?

Sounds like standard LP-type wiring?

Yeah, if you want it to look standard but only use the neck pickup, I don't see any need to rewire at all. I'd only get into that if - as randythoades says - you wanted to only have the one pick-up on there, make it a feature. If you want to keep the standardised Strat look, I just don't see any advantage to doing any rewiring here (aside from switching in your preferred choice of pup).

Early days. I gather there's a bit of a collector's market for those early pieces. Still have (though it's at my folks' house back in the old country, got to be sold in the Spring) my old Tanglewood bowlback, which I believe was Cort-made in Korea. Paid £189 back in 1994 for that one. Bought a TW15NS (the dreadnought model, all-solid) back in 2002/3. Hanging on to that one - nice guitar. I think that was after they'd switch to Chinese manufacture, and the buzz around them started to grow. Their early electric could be quite nice, too, though afaik they've all but given up with the electrics as it's as an acoustic brand that they really hit.

Also occurs to me that there's a question to consider - is it the lived sound or the studio sound you're wanting to replicate? I know Jimi used pedals both live and in the studio, but it always seemed to me as best as I could make out at a historical distance that he was *somewhat* more reliant on the amp's own sound live as opposed to the studio - even if he did cane it in the studio as well. Fun fact: according to the Hendrix bio Eddie Kramer co-wrote (from memory that's where I read it), Jimi's doctor told him a few months before he died that if he didn't turn down the volume, he'd be stone deaf in two years.

Pretty much. I'm not much knowledgeable about SRV, but my understanding is that's what he did, with Hendrix being a big influence on him.

Works for me - I've never been much inclined to play above the 15th fret or so anyhow.... My very marked preference for a 21 fret over a 22 is purely aesthetic.

Thanks, I'll look into their line. Best

I know how you feel! I shied away from Hendrixing a Strat for years because those comparisons would..... not be flattering.... now for that very reason I'm tempted because there's no way anyone could accuse me of sounding like him.

That's fun. The challenge with such a distinctive instrument is making it your own; going for such an atypical colour can, imo, help with that.

Depending on budget, I'd also consider the (very affordable) Harley Benton range from Thomann. £350 would buy you both a ST-62 and a TE-62, letting you try at a relatively small outlay both classic types. (The only proviso here being that they are a much flatter fingerboard radius than an actual Fender, but that probably won't make a significant difference to a new player.) Comfort-wise, tbh I don't notice a significant difference between a Strat and a Tele body, but I find I markedly prefer a rounder neck profile and a narrower nut. I've sold a couple of guitars over the years because I ultimately didn't like that very 80s wide/shallow/flat thing. Great for shredders, but I'm not that sort of player.

I'm looking for a wiring diagram for a Strat for a three-way switch instead of a five.... but not the conventional wiring. Realised recently all I really use on my old Strat are positions 2 and 4, and I wish it had the option for neck and bridge together. Considering picking up a HB ST62 to experiment with, and wiring it for three positions: neck and middle, neck and bridge, middle and bridge. Anyone ever seen this done?

STOP.... http://madisonchasefitness.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/MC-Hammer.jpeg GRAMMARTIME!

Eh... well, which Hendrix fuzztone do you want? Jimi used a few different ones across different albums. Worth narrowing down which exact tracks using fuzz are what you're after. Andertons have a decent blog on the general Jimi sound here - https://blog.andertons.co.uk/sound-like/sound-like-jimi-hendrix - though it's not much help on narrowing down the fuzz if it's a very specific one you're after. If you want to experiment with a range of different Big Muff sounds (Jimi used an EH Big Muff later on - I think from memory Band of Gypsys era?), the Mosky Big Fuzz might be worth a try - several different variation on the BM sound in one box - https://guitarmetrics.com/products/mosky-big-fuzz-guitar-effects-pedal If budget is not an issue, go straight to the source: https://www.roger-mayer.co.uk/rockets.htm Roger Mayer was Jimi's studio guy and personally work on / modded all Jimi's pedals. These are a step up again in price from anything labelled with Jimi's image, however if you really want a very specific Hendrix fuzztone (as opposed to a general 'sounds like Hendrix' approach), imo you'll be a lot more certain of getting it with this for a bit more money than the many Jimi pedals that to my ears don't sound massively different than any other, generic sixties fuzz sound -at least not stripped of the context of absolutely everything else matching Jimi's gear. If it is a more general Hendrix tone you want, though, in truth most any half-decent, Sixties-sound fuzz will do the job. The biggest challenge with fuzz I always found is taming it enough for it to be useable: less is always more. Dial it right back to basically 'clean boost' and add in from there. To my ears - ymmv - Jimi never had quite as extreme a fuzz effect going on as we often assume.

And here it is!!! Set up is lovely, and it was practically in tune (I will have to get used to the locking tuners). Frets feel like a tiny polish on top needed, but playing in will deal with that. Neck is gorgeous, and I love the firemist colour. Either a very, very almost imperceptibly tiny ding on the headstock, or a miniscule imperfection on the headstock finish, but that's the sort of thing it'd get in a few days' use with me, so.... Overall, a stunning piece. The gig bag is surprising good, much higher quality than I expected, and the 25th logo inside it is a nice touch. Highly recommended. I still hope they do 5his soec in the CC colours going forward, as a DLX model.