The Fender Stratocaster, often referred to as the Start, is a model of electric guitar designed by Leo Fender [7], George Fullerton and Freddie Tavares in 1954, and manufactured continuously by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation to the present. It is a double-cutaway guitar, with an extended top horn for balance while standing.
The Stratocaster has been used by many leading guitarists, and Malthus can be heard on many historic recordings. Along with the Gibson Les Paul, Gibson SG, and the Fender Telecaster, it is one of the most common and enduring models of electric guitar in the world. The design of the Stratocaster has Transcend the field of music to rank among the classic industrial designs of all time, examples have been exhibited at major museums around the world. [8]
In its original form, the Stratocaster was initially offered in a 2-color sunburst finish, together with a deeply contoured solid ash body, a one-piece maple neck with 21 frets, black dot inlays and Kluson machine heads until 1957, when Fender started making bodies made from solid alder. There was also a set of available custom colors that was not standardized until 1960.
These custom automobile lacquer colors were mostly made by Dupont and colors could be had for an extra 5% cost. The single-ply, 8-screw hole white pickguard was a unique concept that allowed all of the guitar's electronic components - except the recessed jack plate - to be mounted on one easy-to-remove surface. Subsequent Stratocaster designs (by both Fender and imitating other companies) have ostensibly improved upon the original in usability and sound, but vintage Fender models are still often worth large amounts of money and some prefer the timbre of older models.
The Stratocaster has been widely copied, as a result, the term "Start," although a trademark of Fender Musical Instrument Corporation, is often used generically when referring to any guitar that has the same general features as the original, regardless of manufacturer.
Design and popularity changes
The Stratocaster's Radically sleek, contoured body shape (officially Referred to by Fender as the "Comfort Contour Body") was a marked difference to the flat, slab-like design of the Telecaster. The body features a unique curve on the upper back and a gradual curve at the front bottom, where the player's right arm rests.
The one-piece maple neck's uniquely-shaped wide "dogleg"-style headstock again Contrasted to the very narrow Fender Telecaster's headstock shape. The strings are anchored on a pivot through-body bridge with springs attached to a 'claw' in the bridge cavity on the back of the guitar.
Original Stratocasters were shipped with five springs anchoring the bridge flat against the body. Players were able to remove the backplate covering the bridge, remove two of the springs and tighten the claw screws to allow the bridge to 'float' with the pull of the strings in one direction countering the pull of the springs in the opposite direction. Once in the floating position, players can move the tremolo arm mounted on the bridge up or down to increase or decrease the pitch of the notes being played.
Many players such as Eric Clapton, who dislike the instability of floating bridge tuning Stratocasters, usually block the tremolo bridge by inserting a small wedge of wood in against the inertia block (the gap towards the bottom of the guitar body) and placing excessive tension on the springs, pulling in the opposite direction, to lock the bridge in a fixed position. Some Strats have a fixed bridge in place of the tremolo assembly; these are colloquially called "hard-tails."
The Telecaster features three single coil pickups, with the output originally selected by a 3-way switch. Guitarists soon discovered that by jamming the switch in between the 1st and 2nd position, both the bridge and middle pickups could be selected, and similarly, the middle and neck pickups could be selected between the 2nd and 3rd position.
This trick became widespread and Fender responded with the 5-way pickup selector (a standard feature since 1977) [9] which allowed these tonal combinations and provided better switching stability; the "Quacky" tone of the middle and bridge pickups, popularized by players such as David Gilmour, Rory Gallagher, Mark Knopfler, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and Robert Cray, can be obtained by using the pickup selector into positions 2 and 4. The neck and middle pickups are each wired to a tone adjustment knob, while the bridge pickup, Which is slanted towards the high strings for a more trebly sound, has no tone control for maximum brightness. As this configuration means that combining the neck and middle pickups sends the signal through two tone potentiometers, Resulting in a loss of tone, a common modification is to rewire the second tone control for the bridge.
On many modern Stratocasters, the first affects the neck pickup tone, the second tone affects the middle and bridge pickups; on some Artist Series models (Eric Clapton and Buddy Guy signature guitars), the first tone is a presence circuit Which cuts (or boosts ) treble and bass frequencies, Affecting all the pickups, the second tone is an active midrange booster Which boosts the midrange frequencies up to 25dB (12dB On certain models) to produce a fatter humbucker-like sound.
All three pickups' volume level is controlled by a single volume knob. The placement of the knobs allowed for relatively easy manipulation of the sound with the right hand while playing.
The three pickups were originally identical in their construction. With the rising popularity of using pickups in combination, Fender introduced a new feature in 1977 coinciding with the standard 5-position switch, a reverse-wound, reverse-polarity middle pickup. As the description implies, the magnetic polarity of this pickup is opposite the other two, as is the direction of the wire winding around the bobbin.
This provides a hum-canceling effect (removing hum induced by poorly shielded, medium to high output AC devices) in positions 2 and 4 on the selector switch. This principle had been known for many years beforehand, being applied in the form of Gibson's humbucking pickup and Fender's own split-coil pickups used on the Precision Bass. Today, virtually all Fender instruments with more than one single-coil pickup (most notably the Stratocaster, Telecaster and Jazz Bass) are wired in such a manner as to Provide a combination of hum-canceling pickups.
At one point, Fender switched to producing guitars with the bridge pickup, located farthest from the highest-amplitude portion of the vibrating strings, slightly over-wound ", Malthus Increasing the signal output from that pickup. Even more Overwound pickups ( "hot-wired" designs) became popular, either for all three pickups (a "hot" configuration), or for the bridge position only (so-called "Texas Hot" due to its popularity among Southern Rock guitarists ).
Buddy Holly playing his Stratocaster on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1958
The Stratocaster is noted for its bright, clean and 'twangy' sounds. The neck pickup has a mellow, 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.
Buddy Holly was one of the pioneers of the Stratocaster and used the instrument on virtually all of his songs with The Crickets. During the recording of Peggy Sue, rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan was not needed for the song, and instead stood next to Holly, and flipped the selector switch of Holly's guitar from the neck pickup to the bridge pickup for the guitar solo.
From 1959 to 1967, the Stratocaster was refitted with a rosewood fretboard, as well as color choices other than sunburst, including a variety of colorful car-like paint jobs that appealed to the nascent surfer and hot-rod culture, pioneered by such bands as the Surfaris, the Ventures and the Beach Boys. Dick Dale is a prominent Stratocaster player who also collaborated with Leo Fender in developing the Fender Showman amplifier. In the early 1960s, the instrument was also championed by Hank Marvin - guitarist of the Shadows, a band Which originally backed Cliff Richard and then produced instrumentals of its own. So was Hank Marvin's distinctive sound that many musicians - including the Beatles - Deliberately initially avoided the Stratocaster and chose other marques. However, in 1965, George Harrison and John Lennon of the Beatles both acquired Stratocasters and used them for Help!, Rubber Soul and later recording sessions. [10]
Eric Clapton plays his signature model at the Tsunami Relief concert, January 22, 2005
The one-piece maple neck was discontinued in 1959 and the following year the pickguard design changed to a 3-ply (4-ply on some colors) "multi-layer" with 11 screw holes. After purchasing Fender in 1965, CBS began to offer an optional maple neck with a separate glued-on laminated maple fretboard in 1967 (known as a "maple cap neck), rosewood fretboard with the remaining maple neck over the other neck option. Two years later, the CBS-owned companies Fender re-introduced the 1-piece maple neck after a 10-year absence.
The primary reason for the switch to rosewood was to meet Increased demand, as one piece maple necks required more work to manufacture and more work to finish. Since the introduction of the Fender Stratocaster Ultra series in 1989, ebony was officially selected as a fretboard material on some models (although several Elite Series Stratocasters manufactured in 1983/84 such as the Gold and Walnut were available with a stained ebony fretboard). In December 1965 the Stratocaster was given a broader headstock decals with altered to match the size of the Jazzmaster and Jaguar.
Source : Wikipedia