Speaking of Hendrix and Gibsons, there is a video on YouTube of Jimi playing Sunshine of Your Love on a triple humbucker SG.

Gibson released a Custom Shop reissue of Jimi's hand painted psychedelic Flying V in 2006 for $8,000. That's way out of my price range but it sure looked amazing.

John

I have to agree with Ceri here. I don't know if he actually did this thing with the pickups, but it does make sense...strings are technically on backwards so the pickups probably would be too.

As to the tone of stringing a right handed guitar lefty (or a left handed guitar righty), I know I've recently read something that "scientifically" proved there was a difference...something about since the strings are at a slightly different scale length they vibrate a bit differently. To put this more into layman's terms, let's say you play an E at the 12th fret on the low E string. Then you play an E on the 7th fret of the A string. Technically you are playing the same pitch note (same octave) but because of the different string gauge between your low E and your A and the difference in scale length between the 7th and 12th fret, there -is- a subtle difference in tone. Try playing an E pentatonic minor scale for these two positions and you can hear a bit of a difference (on most guitars at least).

Now as this pertains to Hendrix...quite honestly, when you factor in the guitar pickups, the amp, the distortion pedals and the recording process, I think it's extremely debatable as to whether there is really much perceivable difference at all. When people are talking about a famous musician's tone...someone such as Hendrix, I think that a lot of people forget about the recording process. Recording is NOT typically about the sound of -1- instrument such as the lead guitar, it's about the mix. Now think about this for a moment...how many of you have been in a studio cutting some tracks and the lead guitar player or the vocalist or someone else will get into it with the recording engineer..."Hey! My tracks need to be louder!", LOL!!! Come on...I know a lot of us have seen this. Very simply though, it's not about "so-and-so", it's about the over-all sound and how each instrument (and voice) sounds in relation to that mix.

Now with most recordings in addition to the guitar, you are also hearing a signal that may have also been mildly to heavily eq'd to get it to "fit in the music space", it's probably been compressed (during the mastering process), you're also hearing the "color" of the mic that may have been used to record the track, how that mic was placed in relation to the amp (it's unlikely the Hendrix went DI), the ambiance of the room, any coloration from the recording equipment itself (particularly in those old analog environments) and a world of other things. In other words, it's very similar to what I said in another thread about hearing someone's guitar at a concert...it's NOT the same sound you would hear if you were sitting in a room with just Hendrix and his guitar and amp (and pedals). The difference in tone because of the scale length of the strings -is- real, but it's so subtle that when you factor in all these other things, it also become pretty irrelevant. As with so many things related to this thing we call sound, I'm sure that some people think they can hear a difference, but in most cases it's in their heads more than anything else.

Anyways, just my opinion as always but again I think a lot of this stuff is really subjective.

L8r,
Jim

I don't think Jimi reversed the pickups in his right-handed guitars. For one thing, it's not easy to do, it can be impossible without modding the routing.

Anyway, as a long-time right-handed player playing a left-handed strat, the biggest tonal effect I hear is due to the reverse angle of the bridge pickup. It's a LOT less "ice pick in the ear" trebly! Which is a good thing in my book. I can't say I notice at all the different stagger pattern on the other two pickups --- just turn the Marshall up a bit more, thank you.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

I have used right hand stagger pups in a left handed guitar before. All I did was make fine tuning adjustments to the pup height to get the volume level the same on both sides of the pup. It did sound decent.

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Chet Feathers

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I didn't Lose my mind, I traded it for this guitar.

I remember reading in one of the many books I have on Hendrix that he would sometimes re-wind the pickups too in some of his strats.

Well, if a pickup went bad, that would be how to fix them.

It's also been said that Roger Mayer "rewired" some of his Strats, but he went through quite a few guitars over his short time ... so it seems they were mostly disposable items to him.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.