Storm,
See what you learn hanging around me?
JM

Last edited: Nov 04, 2020 12:54:09

256 adjustments later, Lifetime of bliss!

The Kahuna Kings

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Kahuna-Kings/459752090818447

https://thekahunakings.bandcamp.com/releases

I had a 79 Pinto. I found it to be dependable and easy to maintain, just like a Strat.

Surf_Skater wrote:

I had a 79 Pinto. I found it to be dependable and easy to maintain, just like a Strat.

My first car was a '74 Pinto station wagon...a fake woody. I kept a cement block in the back. During the northeast blizzard of '78, I passed dozens of cars that were stuck in the middle of the highway. My Pinto kept on chugging along and I made it all the way home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U5dvC5qr6Y

Last edited: Nov 04, 2020 20:45:22

I've owned a strat for 22 years. It's never had a professional setup in its life. I adjusted the intonation twice, the truss rod once. Never needed a neck shim. I've wanted to hate strats, but it has never let me down (or broken a string. ever.) now considering building a second one.

Every jazzmaster, jaguar, bass vi, mustang i've had has taken hours upon hours of adjustment and work to play well. My kurokumo mosrite NEVER returned to pitch using vibrato despite polished zero fret and nut slots and countless hours tweaking. I love all these guitars dearly, but the strat is just always "easy".

My 60s Mosrite was just dandy. it and my strat were my gig guitars in every band.

Last edited: Nov 08, 2020 12:31:54

I know this post is not going to find much purchase because there is a dominant vein of traditionalism with the surf crowd (I like vintage too), but as I love this guitar model and the topic is fixes on the time-honored Stratocaster...

IMO, nothing has done such a comprehensive job as the Ibanez JS (Joe Satriani) Series. While many harbor animosity toward Ibanez and think every guitar they make are gaudy (many/most are), in most aspects the JS Series is closer to a traditional Strat than those 80’s guitars, especially the Steve Vai models which many transpose with Satriani. Some of the limited edition models are a bit out there but the production JS’s are all solid color with a nice palette from which to choose.

NECK:
The neck is a digital reproduction of a vintage Strat with a flat headstock like a Fender, not the angled butt rock style. It is not the much-hated thin flat Wizard necks with jumbo frets many associate with Ibanez. Improvements include a multi-radius fretboard, vintage 6105 stainless steel frets and genuine abalone dots that are slightly smaller than Fender dots. Something I like is JS’s almost always come with very dark light/no grain rosewood fretboards.

BODY:
The Strat body is pretty good as is. While Fender seems to have started with a Tele body and then added a top horn and a forearm and waist cutaways the Satriani body is completely rounded without a single straight edge anywhere (except for the traditional square neck pocket, again, not the AANJ Ibanez is known for). Instead of the cutaways, the top of the body is aero foiled on the front and back. Ironically, while it looks like a Strat shape from the from this aero foiling makes the body weight notably offset and extremely comfortable to play for hours on end.

FABULOUSLY ELIGANT CONTROL LAYOUT
Perhaps my biggest aesthetic pet peeve with the Strat is the front of the body is so freakin busy. At the polar opposite the JS has a clean presentation. In addition, both pots are push/pull. The tone pot splits the coils and the volume pot puts a high pass filter in circuit. You can get spankin’ single coil tones out of this guitar.

Tremolo:
While I would not advocate a Floyd Rose as a first choice for surf, the Ibanez Edge is widely regarded as the best licensed FR tremolo. The design of the push in arm eliminates the give that the Strat screw in design suffers from. It is silky smooth with surfy warble easily attainable and the guitar will stay in tune forever. If you do not have a light touch you can add springs to increase tension.

OVERALL QUALITY
The Ibanez Prestige-level instruments are exceptionally well-made and consistent. From the fret treatment to component quality everything is deluxe. The guitar has fantastic tone, even unplugged. Going back and forth with this and a Strat the Strat will feel noticeably clunky. The only thing objectively better about a traditional Strat is the ease of intonating the saddles.

SURFY BONUSES:
- The title of Satriani’s signature album is ‘Surfing With the Alien’
- While I do not know how to verify this, I would bet ‘Surfing With the
Alien’ is the best selling instrumental album with a surf board on the
cover

Makai

Last edited: Nov 09, 2020 18:48:23

cosmonaut wrote:

I owned two satriani Ibanez guitars when my strat couldn't quite do what my big space rock band needed. I LOVED my satriani models, and actually started my first Surf Rock band with a satriani, a marshall plexi, and my fender reverb unit. I also liked my wizard neck RG, but the satch guitars covered a lot of ground.

Love to hear it! I talk up JS’s when opportunity presents and have been pleasantly surprised with responses. They really are something special.

Makai