Graham50 Posted December 25, 2025 Posted December 25, 2025 I’ve never owned a Strat, but on the occasions I’ve played one I find the position of the volume knob is right in the way and I alter the volume probably turning myself off as I play. I am only a strummer. So it’s definitely not on my wish list.
EdwardMarlowe Posted Sunday at 15:13 Posted Sunday at 15:13 On 15/12/2025 at 14:58, EliasMooseblaster said: I wouldn't worry: I have the same problem with Jazz basses. LOTS of players - be it people I know, or well-known bass-heroes - have played great basslines on them. But I can't seem to make the sound work with my playing style. Give me a Precision or a Thunderbird and I'll be happy as Larry, but for reasons I can't fathom, I've never been satisfied with the tones I get out of a Jazz. It's just something I've had to accept! That said, have you ever tried a "super-strat"? I've seen H/S/S setups, and twin HB setups - the former might do something for that "shrill" bridge pickup, and you still get the look and feel of a Strat. I hear you. I'm definitely a P Bass man.... but that neck on a J bass.... My first bass (still owned) was a Squier Precision Bass Special. I realised quickly I can well live without the J pickup, as long as the single split P pickup has a decent tone knob, but the J-style neck on that guitar is a joy. One day I would adore to build a P bass with a J neck, P-set-up, and a firebird or RD shaped body (but other than shape, entirely in the Fender P style).
EdwardMarlowe Posted Sunday at 15:17 Posted Sunday at 15:17 On 19/12/2025 at 09:59, ezbass said: Filter-trons are an interesting ‘bucker option. Unlike PAF types, they don’t have that muddy honk. Oh, yes. A couple of Gretsches are very much on my wants list, but it's gonig to be a while before I can raise the cash. 5xxx series - I doubt, shy of a stupid lottery win, I could justify the 6xxx series.
ezbass Posted Sunday at 17:38 Posted Sunday at 17:38 2 hours ago, EdwardMarlowe said: 5xxx series - I doubt, shy of a stupid lottery win, I could justify the 6xxx series. Same. To be fair, the 5 series are really, really good and the price difference between a 5420 and 6120 is huge and the law of diminishing returns says you’ll not be getting an awful lot more. 5420, plus some TV Jones pickups and you’ll be pretty much 95% of the way there, for a fraction of the cost.
Kiwi Posted 1 hour ago Posted 1 hour ago On 12/10/2023 at 14:22, randythoades said: 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? I don't have an unmodified strat. I see them as a modding platform primarily. The ones I have built are all HSS or HSH apart from the Nile Rodges sig. I'm not a fan of the bridge pickup and the older strats I've heard are so weak sounding that I have to adjust the entire rig around them. So my approach has been more about lifting the weaknesses of the strat up to the standard of my other guitars so using them doesn't reqiure so much faff. I like the neck pickup sound in my strats but they have dimarzio, seymour duncan and EMG pickups - apart from the Nile strat which has vintage Fender noiseless (and they are also a little feeble sounding even after they replaced some faithful replica fifties pickups which were so anaemic they were next to useless...so I won't be using them again).
