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Vintage Fender Stratocaster

Posted by brian in Uncategorized on April 29th, 2012

An American icon, the Fender Stratocaster was designed by Leo Fender, George Fullerton, Freddie Tavares in 1954 as an alternative to the previous Fender design, the Fender Telecaster. Affectionately referred through its life as the “Strat,” the vintage Fender Stratocaster has become the most successful and copied guitar of all time. It has found a place in most modern genres of music, including country, rock, pop, funk, blues as well as R&B. Early versions of the Fender Stratocaster, even its early copies, have become collector’s items, renowned for rarity, construction and tone.
The Fender Stratocaster’s contoured body shape (officially referred by Fender as the “Comfort Contour Body”) was decidedly different from the flat, slab-like design of the earlier Telecaster, giving it a more comfortable feel on the body and balance in both the sitting and standing position. The Fender Stratocaster’s double-cutaway design gave the player a greater access to the whole neck. The one-piece maple neck’s wider “dogleg”-style headstock contrasted with the Telecaster’s extremely narrow headstock shape.
The Stratocaster’s strings are fed through a body pivot bridge attached with springs to a ‘claw’ in the tremolo cavity on the back of the guitar. Springs attached to the bridge from inside the Stratocaster’s body could be adjusted by the player to “float,” giving the ability to bend the pitch of the note being played. Players often manually adjust the float of the Fender Stratocaster’s tremolo in order to minimize detuning associated with a moving bridge. Some Stratocasters have a fixed bridge in place of the tremolo assembly—these are known colloquially as “hard-tails.”
The vintage Fender Stratocaster is well-known for its bright, clean and ‘twangy’ tones. The neck pickup has a mellower, fuller and louder sound compared to the brighter and sharper tone of the bridge pickup. The middle pickup provides a sound somewhere between the two. The neck and middle pickups are each wired to a tone control that integrates a single, shared tone capacitor, whereas the bridge pickup, which is slanted towards the high strings for a more trebly sound, has no tone control for maximum brightness.
The traditional vintage Fender Stratocaster has three single-coil pickups, which originally were controlled by a three-way selector switch. Players soon found that they could “jam” the pickup selector switch on the Stratocaster between the first and second position as well as between second and third position, effectively giving the guitarist the ability to pick up a signal simultaneously from the neck and middle pickups and middle and bridge pickups respectively. This practice became so common that from 1977 on, Fender Stratocasters were manufactured with a five way selector switch, easing the player’s ability to employ the technique.
The wood construction of the Fender Stratocaster has varied greatly since its introduction in 1954, with its neck construction varying in solid maple, rosewood, pau ferro, or ebony. A vintage Fender Stratocaster was originally constructed of ash, but since 1954 the Stratocaster’s body has been constructed of alder and poplar, with varying tops that contribute to the guitar’s finish.
Without a doubt, the Fender Stratocaster has made its mark on music history. Signature models of the Fender Stratocaster have been made for no less than Buddy Holly, Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Eddie Van Halen and Stevie Ray Vaughn. With possible exception of the Gibson Les Paul, it is safe to say that the Fender Stratocaster is the most popular electric guitar of all time. But undoubtedly, being so widely available to the general public, (even more “economical” versions of the Fender Stratocaster are of superb quality in manufacturing and tone), the Fender Stratocaster ranks at the top of the list of sheer universal appeal, becoming both the first choice of professional and amateur guitarists alike.

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