Just to add more. I owned a tele about 8 years ago. It was very nice. It played well and sounded great. You can't surf much on a tele though. I've owned a 335 and pretty much never played it. I still own a V and Les Paul and enjoy playing those but you can't really surf on those. I sold my Jag several years ago. Loved the tone, didn't bound with the styling or scale. I pick up a atrat and I can play any type of music and feel like I'm home.

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Last edited: Nov 01, 2020 04:44:54

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Last edited: Feb 02, 2024 14:57:48

IvanP wrote:

To paraphrase Shakespeare, "The fault lies not in the Strat's tremolo, but in yourselves."

The trem works perfectly on my cheap Mexican 50s Strat. The only mod I've done to the guitar is replacing the white pickguard with a gold anodized one. It has actually become the guitar I play the most around the pad these days although I seldom play surf on it...

IvanP wrote:

In surf you have the Atlantics that used the shit out of their Strat trems in the '60s [...]

The Atlantics were not a surf band music wise and they had a lot more in common with the European guitar bands, especially the French ones. I hope you're not one of those who also calls The Shadows a surf band...

T H E ✠ S U R F I T E S

Klas wrote:

IvanP wrote:

In surf you have the Atlantics that used the shit out of their Strat trems in the '60s [...]

The Atlantics were not a surf band music wise and they had a lot more in common with the European guitar bands, especially the French ones. I hope you're not one of those who also calls The Shadows a surf band...

Ivan
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Ivanp,
Thanks for joining the discussion - was wondering how long it would take. With our going back about 15 years, I trust you understand I do respect you. Part of that acquaintance, however, is when we disagree. Something about your getting your dander up just piques my interest. In the past, we've disagreed about guitars, Guitar Player Magazine and perhaps some other subjects I've forgotten.

So - to address
"Y'all are ridiculous. To paraphrase Shakespeare, "The fault lies not in the Strat's tremolo, but in yourselves."

Well, there, Ivy -
As a counter-argument and to maybe put a cherry on top of TQI and Deathtide's comments, a little literary prose to paraphrase back a you:
"The Emperor's New Clothes' is a short tale written by Hans Christian Andersen and published in 1837."
In short, Ivan
The townsfolk (millions playing the Strat) uncomfortably go along with the pretense of Emp's new clothes and guitar (Emperor is sans clothing - with a Strat) but, they do not want to appear inept or stupid (or ridiculous as you so stated). Then a child blurts out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all (and playing a very problematic guitar). The people then realize that everyone has been fooled. Although startled, the emperor continues the procession, walking more proudly than ever. He keeps playing his Strat - butt naked.

It would seem then from the above that you and I (and others on this forum) have our separate and distinct visions of the "truth" with regard to the Stratocaster.
I like to think I've come to my opinions on the Strat through perhaps__ a more extensive experience with guitars than you. I've seen you play a Jazzmaster, maybe a Jag, and some acoustics with the Strat - that's about it. (Correct me if wrong). In contrast - There's a lot of guitars out there and I own a lot of them - as you have seen firsthand. So - objectively or subjectively for me, the Strat gets very low marks.
I studied a bit of mechanical engineering in my misspent college years. From that perspective - The Strat tremolo is a mechanical engineering nightmare. And additional(negative) points - the Strat is also a resonance and sustain killer - happens when wood is removed from a guitar body. Science and physics is an unforgiving bitch.

But let's take an even different approach -
There are those who don't appreciate the Mosrite guitars I prefer - the neck is too slim; frets too low...etc., etc. reasons - I've heard them all. And that's fine - I understand that.

And a BTW you may have overlooked - I did qualify my initial post by stating the Strat was played by millions. Millions can also say the "king has fine clothes. From my perspective, I just know differently. Many people also saw witchery in Salem Massachusetts a few centuries back and believed it as the truth. How did that "truth" work out?

My points taken, I trust. Can we agree to disagree or should we continue to rattle each others cages some more?
I'm cool either way. Deep down you know me well enough to know I always have a counter argument in my back pocket.

Be well, Ivan
J Mo'

Danny,
If I might wax philosophically -
To take your post a bit further out.
Isn't life itself about nothing in the long run??
We have these discussions to communicate with each other.. it relieves some of the boredom in this life about nothing.
See?
J Mo'

IvanP wrote:

Klas wrote:

IvanP wrote:

In surf you have the Atlantics that used the shit out of their Strat trems in the '60s [...]

The Atlantics were not a surf band music wise and they had a lot more in common with the European guitar bands, especially the French ones. I hope you're not one of those who also calls The Shadows a surf band...

That’s quite a clipping, Ivan.

I happen to like the Shadows approach, using delay instead of reverb. My own sound, used on everything from Jazz standards to early ‘60s Pop, to Country, to Surf, is a combination of plate reverb and delay. The only thing that varies is the amount of reverb, and my right hand technique. If I let the notes ring out, the delay only adds depth. If I use a more staccato approach, the slapback becomes audible.

For some time, I have been fascinated by the geographical influence on music. In the US, spring reverb was prominent, while in many other places, delay was the source of an open sound. Fender amps reigned in the US, while Vox amps had greater influence in the British empire. It’s a interesting study in parallel development, using a different set of tools to achieve similar, but not identical, results.

To my way of thinking, this demonstrates the significance of the genre. At roughly the same period in time, a similar musical sound was being developed in far flung places. By purist definition, not all of this is down the centerline of SoCal Surf, but the results are startlingly similar in many ways; clean, bright guitars with either reverb or delay expanding the sound. Growing up in the US, during the ‘60s, I was aware of the Surf Music scene, but knew little more about the Shadows than their name, but I see them as part of the same global phenomenon.

Add in the effect of geography on the compositions and it gets even more interesting. Dick Dale was of Lebanese origins, and culturally exposed to Middle Eastern music as he grew up. He may well have seeded much of what happened in The American Surf scene, because of this. Similar sounds were being created in the Soviet Bloc, quite likely because of Turkic and Balkan influences. So, as I see it, Surf was the American branch of a much larger tree, and Dick Dale played a significant role, introducing the more nuanced sounds of Harmonic Minors to the genre. It was sort of a cross pollination, Duane Eddy bringing the sound of twangy electric guitars to the fore and Dick Dale playing that sound back with more reverb, but applying it to music that was based upon more than the Major Pentatonics that Duane Eddy used.

It all depends upon how we want to define it. I could see defining Surf as music played on Offsets, through Brownface Showman amps and 6G15 tanks, but that strikes me as a bit narrow. Everything is the result of something that has come before. Even by the most narrow of definitions, Surf Music probably would not have happened without Duane Eddy, Fender Jaguars probably would not have happened without Strats and spring reverb units probably wouldn’t have happened apart from some of the other approaches that existed, such as magnetic drum delays.

Frankly, narrowing the definition of Surf does nothing to promote the genre. When I learned of the Shadows, the Tielman Brothers, the Atlantics, etc. I was enriched by the experience. Finding a broader world of similar music, and realizing that there was so much going on in other places only serves to add to my enjoyment.

I have to comment on the last sentence of that clipping, being a Denver-man, myself. That one busted me up.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

JMo', actually, believe it or not, my comments were not aimed at you - maybe I should have made that more clear. They were primarily aimed at the mysterious Tqi. I thought his own comments were pretty over-the-top while claiming (his direct quote) "My criticism of their flaws is my objective assessment". Well, here's another colloquial adage, since it seems to be all about them in this thread: the proof is in the pudding. John, you say "thousands play the Strat", which of course is factually correct but entirely irrelevant, as you also recognize. Much more relevant is that quite a bit of the most celebrated and influential music of the past 70 years was created with a Strat, and quite often using the Strat's tremolo fairly significantly. Even in this genre that brings us all together here, would it even exist without Dick Dale and Paul Johnson? (Eddie Bertrand, too, who used a Strat for the majority of his time in the Belairs and the second half of Eddie & the Showman.) And there are many other highly significant surf guitarists that played Strats more-or-less exclusively: Jim Messina, Skip Mercier & Willy Glover of the Pyramids, Brian Carmen and Bob Spickard of the Chantays, Bobby Fuller, Jim Fuller of the Surfaris, Al Nichol of the Crossfires, Larry Weed of the Original Surfaris, and even more than that. These guys created some of the most enduring and influential surf music ever using Strats. That seems to me to be the primary testament to the Strat not being nearly as bad as has been presented above. And then of course, there are players related to this genre though not directly part of it who most of us still love and are even influenced by - like Hank Marvin the Spotnicks and the Atlantics.

I could actually even quibble about the engineering and historical claims made by you and Tqi above about the tremolo system - for example, regarding the Strat tremolo and its impact on sustain - the Strat trem features a fat steel tremolo block into which strings are anchored and which is often referred to as the 'sustain block', and for a good reason. While a large block of wood is indeed removed to house the trem, the steel block makes up for the loss of that wood by providing an anchor point that's even denser than wood. I don't think anybody would deny that the Strat's sustain is considerably superior to the Jazzmaster or a Jaguar - and possibly even the Mosrite, though I'm not sure about that, I've never compared. As far as the historical claims made by Tqi that Leo Fender was aware of how bad the design was, that is just absolutely false - I've read multiple claims in definitive books about him, his company and the Strat itself that he was incredibly proud of the Strat's tremolo system after completing it and believed it to be a major step forward - which it certainly was, despite it of course not being entirely suitable for all the stuff that Eddie Van Halen ended up doing with it later - but clearly the Floyd Rose trem was a further evolution of the Strat design. Oh, and actually Eddie himself said he preferred the tone of the original Strat trem to the Floyd Rose, but of course the FR had much better tuning stability.

I obviously love the Strat, but to some extent I love almost all guitars, they're all pretty cool in one way or another. I just prefer the Strat, it does what those others cannot do from my perspective, given my playing style. But I totally get why others wouldn't dig the Strat and would prefer other guitars. In fact, John, believe it or not, I actually agree with quite a bit of your assessment of the Strat's design flaws, such as having the truss rod accessed at the heel of the neck or having to remove the strings to access the electronics. Yep, both problematic - though at least one of those has been fixed on all newer model Strats.

What I don't understand is when I see almost visceral hatred aimed at the Strat, which Tqi certainly exhibited above, but he's not the only one. Why would anybody feel so passionately negative about any guitar? I don't get it. Just don't play it. But then to just rant against it on a forum, well, God bless free speech, but do you really want to do that? If so, well, OK.

I love the sound of the Mosrites in the hands of the Ventures or even somebody like Victor of the Coffin Daggers. I love the sound of the Jazzmasters (which I did indeed play some of the time in the Cossacks) and Jaguars (which I never did play) in the hands of all sorts of other players. I would never go and start criticizing those guitars because I know a lot of great players that love them and that have created amazing music that I love with them. And I think it's beyond dispute that the Strat has been used to create a lot of amazing music. But if you don't like it, you don't like, so be it. Just understand that it IS subjective, not objective (and this is aimed at Tqi, not you, John). Some of those things that several of you brought up as flaws - say, the control layout - some of us have learned to turn them into a 'feature, not a bug' - I LOVE how the controls are laid out, I can switch pickups without barely any movement of my right hand between phrases in a fraction of a second - and I do, quite a bit - or reach for the volume knob with my pinky and do a volume swell (only occasionally, doesn't work as effectively with a clean sound). People like me love Strats because of those things, not in spite of them.

OK, I've made my feelings known. I will bow out of further discussion. If you guys wish to continue to dump on the Strat, that is your right. Enjoy.

Ivan
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Thanks for your comments, Doug (Stormtiger) - I agree.

Ivan
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Ivan,
Read your latest post.. all points taken in a positive manner. So one man's meat is another man's poison.. And life goes on.
Happy pickings to both of us -
J Mo'