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Whassap Michael!
OK, first, I want to preface that what I'm saying is the basic fruit of a
gear-centric page I'm creating that you will be able to find on under a "The Nebulas' Intro to Surf"-esque page. I
too share an affinity for wanting tangible, legitimate reason why X and not
Y. I'm always in the pursuit of those answers, like "Why does a regular
Showman sound better than a Dual Showman?" and question of that measure. So
here goes...
"What is it that you find missing from the Strat's tone?"
It's not that there's anything MISSING. In essence, it's still 6 strings,
two pickups, a volume and a tone knob wired in a way to allow that signal to
travel through a cable into an amp. Same as a Jag, same as a JM. For lack of
better terms, I'll just put it like this:
The Strat has a higher, crisper sound to it that no matter what guage
strings you put on it, it will always have a discernable sound. For example,
without having verification in any way, I can listen to The Varatones album
they put out a couple of years ago (which I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoy)
and I can tell based on sound alone that the lead guitar is a strat probably
flying the flag of .11s. It's "that sound". There are a million players who
know more than I, and a million players who know less. The only thing I can
truly rely upon are my own ears.
The JM always seems to have just a little smoother tone...my example of this
is Big Ray and The Futuras "Airwaves" album. The lead guitar is a reissue
jap jazzmaster. There's no mistaking the sound as that of a strat. Same goes
for Gein and The Graverobbers. Dave's JM lends a darker tone to their music
that would be lost in the clutches of a Strat.
I guess without making it a physics or a mathematical equation of pickup
ohms and resistance and blah blah blah, I just go with what sounds good to
me. My first guitar was a strat. (Whos wasn't?) It was an '85 American
Standard. I once had the chance to play the same parts on a Jag, and just
felt the sound had a more aggressive attack and a "surfier" sound. I've read
somewhere online a long time ago that the Jag was a "sleeper" guitar that
never really caught on. All sizzle and not enough steak.
The bottom line from The Dano School of Dano's Opinion is that when you pit
a resisue strat with a reissue unmodified reverb tank together and declare
"It's GO! Time...", it's roughly the equivalent of taking a razorblade,
heating it up with a torch, and passing this white-hot eviscerator through
the timpanic membrane which separates my inner ear from that which creates
this sound.
>IMHO there are only a
>couple of people who can pull off strat surf and have it sound good.
Ivan of
>The Madeira and/or The Space Cossacks is one.
Dick Dale??
Yeah, Dick is good. He's also been at it for almost two of my lifespans, so
he had BETTER have it down pat by now. To add to that, I don't think ANYONE
can say that they haven't winced in pain at least ONCE during a Dick show,
if not for the tone, then the volume, and if not for the volume, than the
awful rendition of "Smoke on the Water". If they didn't flinch, force them
to admit they wore earplugs.
"You seemed to think the Ghastly Ones' guitarist did pretty well, eh?"
He did AWESOME and after seeing their performance and his tone, the Strat's
stock has gone up.
"I kind of wish you'd <asked> him
1.Why a Strat?
(maybe he's waiting to see how far the band's revival goes
before investing in another Mosrite, or maybe he's hunting for a good
one."
Luckily, I know someone who DID ask him and I got the low-down. As fact,
Garrett happens to be an AUTHORITY on Mosrites, and knows so much about them
I know he's been consulted about it on a major level more than once. It has
also been claimed that he can build a better Mosrite than any of the
companyies who have tried to reissue them. If there's anything to be known
about a Mosrite, it goes without saying he'll know the answer. I would go so
far as to say he knows more about Mosrites by ACCIDENT than I will ever know
on purpose. With that said, he HAD a red mosrite with him, and only rolled
it out for a couple of tunes. The reason he primarily used the strat is
because as the days pass and Mosrites become rarer and rarer, to find a
truly good one and actually go play shows with it is just too much of a
gamble. Of all the guitars he auditioned a as substitute, he said it just so
happens the Strat was the one that came close to capturing the Ghastly
sound. Luckily for me this harps back to what I mentioned about just going
with what sounds right to you, the player.
My Jag is an original '63, and it's got so much character that shy of simply
saying goodnight to it before I go to sleep, I haven't nor will I do
ANYTHING to it.
The White Jag you might catch in any of our pics is actually the property of
our bass player Frodo, and he purchased it in an initiative to stadardize
our "white guitar" look. Luckily for me, it arrived fresh from the Ebay
purchase sounding like a million bucks. Like I said, I got lucky.
"Also, have you heard a Cyclone II,
the model that comes with 3 Jaguar pickups and
a Strat trem in a Mustang body?"
Sounds cool, right up until the "Strat trem in a Mustang body". In my
experience, it takes many years of falling out of tune mid-song to begin to
master and appreciate the use of a Strat trem, ESPECIALLY for surf. (It
didn't take me years to figure that out though. My adult ADD kicked in and
it took me about a week to realize I didn't have the patience)
">Why cheat a blues band out of
> a guitar?
LOL- gotta admit, that's a great line!
> Play a Jag, JM or Mosrite.
Is it possible that it's at least partly an emotional thing
in the sense that a Jag, JM, or Mosrite
is almost like a badge that says "Surf Guitarist"
whereas a Strat is so....undefined?
(and many bluesers <don't> play Strats, and not all Strat players play
blues)
So general purpose?
Does that make it somehow "blah"?
Sort of utilitarian, like driving a Toyota Corolla?
Or.... a Dodge minivan???
(Corolla and Caravan drivers, don't flame me,
I drive an old Camry, as utilitarian a vehicle as you can get! ;^)
But you have to admit-
It's easy to find a Strat to buy- and easier to find
a buyer for a Strat you need to sell!
I've played a real Jaguar,
and a long scale Jagmaster...
I found both rather nice actually!
(so I suspect I'd like a real JM)
I've only played a Mosrite <copy>...
and it felt <very> strange...
Can you put your finger on what quality
draws Mosrite players to that guitar?"
I DEFINITELY think theres an emotional attachment as a surf player to the
Jag and JM. It's all about street cred yo. And for the Mosrites, I think its
a couple of things: first off, the pickups are WAY hotter than they are on a
Jag. Its got something to do with impedance (note smell of feces as I begin
talking out of my ass) which we proved firsthand one day when I put my
Showman on three, played my Jag, and then Rudy plugged in his Mosrite and
the volume was much louder.
Personally, I think the Mosrites suck for rhythm guitar work because the
strings rest really high up off the body of the guitar, and instead of
getting a "phat" chunking sound with plenty of nasty drip, you get what
sounds like a slightly overdriven attempt at trying to get the same chunk
you would get with a stringset that was much lower. You can't really lower
the strings anymore because they will A) get too close to the pickups and B)
throw off the overall geometry of the setup of the guitar.
Another unique characteristic to the Mosrite is the closeness of the
strings. It really takes some finesse to make your way gracefully around
those strings. (I've also heard speculation that jap guitar players like
them so much because their hands are small and the neck is much more suited
to small hands, but I can neither confirm nor deny that statement at this
time) Of all the people I've talked to who played them, and I'm sure anyone
on the list who's played one will agree...players love em or hate em.
There's no middle ground, or if it is, its very, very small.
"Anyway, it sounds like you may have more than one reason
for your antipathy to Strats.
Thanks for any light you can shed on this!"
I wouldn't call it antipathy, I encourage anyone who will listen to go
woodshed and create killer tone with a Strat! We need to liberate the Strat
from bad renditions of "Mustang Sally" all the world over! Make it a
priority!
-D$
