The Borg aboard the mothership Fender

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

I works, why fix it?

... since the Stratocaster would be perceived as a very traditional instrument as more and more years pass. It would be seen as the archtop guitar is perceived today. And I love my American Deluxe HSS right now and into the classical jazz future.

Having worked in the field of Electro-Optics as an Engineer, I've had my musings about the possibilities of this technology integrated into guitars.

It goes something like... the electronics will change to work together with optics like has happened with high speed computers and other advanced technologies.

New options would include Guitar strings made from optical fibers and/or the pickups will become optical fiber speckle-pattern image processors to extract incredibly higher levels of subtlety and nuance from players fingers than has ever been done before. Were talking controlled and predictable micro-tonal expression!
This will give players like Jeff Beck the potential for new levels of expression and opportunities to create more fantastic Strat based recordings.

That sounds really cool even though I have no idea what you're talking about . But seriously, with technology improving the way it is I wouldn't be suprised.

Sounds scary, think I'll stick to the good 'ole Strat. The future's bright but not this bright please!

E

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'I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me, than a full frontal lobotomy'

2007 Custom Shop Clapton, Mercedes Blue
2006 USA 62 re-issue, 3-tone Sunburst - CS 54s
1988 USA Deluxe
2007 Yamaha SA2200
2005 Pro Reverb
Tube Screamer, Vox Wah

It's just another technology based on science. It shouldn't be any scarier than when they brought electronics in the glowing glass tubes of the 1800's into radios and TV sets, eventually becoming transistors and integrated circuits. BTW, those glowing glass tubes are still in a lot of guitar players amps.


I'd say the future is even brighter with optics, you could even say "I saw the light" (boo, hiss, I know)

Basically, an optical fiber can also be used as a sensor. Shine a laser into one end and out of the other end let the laser beam project onto a flat screen. The laser beam projects a "speckle pattern" of the laser light that was bouncing/reflecting all around inside the fiber in such a manner that it creates an interference pattern of the lasers multiple bouncing reflections, called modes. Then if you slightly bend or twist the optical fiber, the speckle pattern changes slightly. You then correlate the change in the pattern to the slight bend you put in the fiber. You just need sophisticated image processing computers to analyze the speckle pattern and its changes in order to interpret it as a guitar player, say, having just bent his "optical fiber" string from a "D" note to slightly sharp or flat "E" note.
That's it in a "nutshell".
Hopefully that helped a little.

BTW, with the arrival of digital cameras, there's now sophisticated image processing computers built in to small packages. That technology just needs to be adapted for the "speckle pattern" analysis and correlation.

In 50 years someone will be playing bbnco's "light Strat" on the Moon at Pluto's Casino and your great grandchildren will wonder what it was like to play a Strat with steel strings

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I'm not slow... and I'm not fast... just sort of halffast...

Evolution seems to be really slow for the Strat, so the next fifty years probably won't see much change.

Well, thanks to nepotism in the music biz the most popular model Strat will feature HELLO KITTY and all the successful artists will be the pre-pubescent daughters of music industry moguls.

But, seriously, the classic Strat will endure despite any advances in technology.
There will always be purists who favor it no matter what kind of sounds are produced with yet to be released instruments and electronics.

I think at some point there will be a switch from electric to electronic .... I hope its a good electronic though ....

I think there will always be Strats, like there will always be violins (strads?). But part of what made the electric guitar so cool is that it reflected in its sound and working, the car culture and sounds and feel of modern industrial life... trains chugging and whistling; whirring and buzzing things all over the place. And it was loud like machines were loud. The guitar (and amps!) gave us a chance to reflect modern life -- it's blues and ecstasy in music in a new way.

I'm sure the digital age will have it's instrument... but it probably won't be a real instrument, probably software and more closely related to Guitar Hero than real guitars.

That said digital technology has a long way to go before it passes mustard with the human soul... Just ask anyone who shoots large format photoraphy... digital still can't match the resolution of analog... someday it will, but not yet. Analog is real and continuous; digital is, information -- bits and numbers.

The good news is as long as there's trucks and trains and weed whackers the electric guitar will probably still be cool. But it looks like someday there will be an equivalent for the digital generations... Lord knows they'll need it.

!!! tried to post on my phone last minute but site wouldn't have it.. (for contest). boo!

I think they will continue to tweak it, but I don't foresee major changes. In my opinion, it is the perfect guitar.