I've really been looking at new guitars lately (seeing as i only have a white ESP guitar) and so of course i've been coming across strats a lot. I really love the look of them, and they've been highly recommended to me by many people. I haven't been able to actually try out a good one, on account of everyone i know who has a 'strat' actually having a squier or a starcaster, and same thing with all the local stores in my town. Besides my blathering, (and besides the fact that this is a Fender website!) I need some really good opinions on how good real strats are. Most people swear by them, while some complain that they're too twangy or difficult to play. I'd rather buy a Strat than a Les Paul because those things are WAY overpriced and just too heavy, but I've also been looking into Ibanez guitars, like the RGs but with no floyd rose tremelo. Once again, besides my blathering on and on,
Strat opinions please?!?

Strats are alright.

if ur completely new to strats i would recommend going for an american standard strat.i am also planning to buy a strat.i have been doing research on strats since a long time,and trying to play as many strats as i can.the main objective is try to get ur hands on as many strats as possible and see which one suits u best.I would not recommend going for the american deluxe strat as the pik ups on it have a raw sound and no fullness.Hope this helped.

Don't look down your nose at Squiers or even begin to classify them along with Starcasters. Starcasters are the height of awful. Whereas Squiers kick unbelievable amounts of $@!!

For the Ibanez you mentioned, you couldn't pay me to play those. Everyone I ever bought sounded muddy and would fall apart in less then a couple years. The bridge saddles, output jack and volume knob seemed to always shake themselves loose. You really love it when you look down and realize the screw holding your string saddle on is completely gone and the only thing holding the saddle onto your guitar is the strings tension. Like I said, you couldn't pay me to play an Ibanez.

My opinion on Stratocasters however is that they're amazing, durable, dependable, comfortable, sound great, are easy to fix, upgrade or modify, they're beautiful pieces of art (in a way), but mostly in my experience after owning just about every electric guitar you can possibly own (with the exception of a Gretsch) I'd find myself coming back to Strats over and over.

And after 22 years of playing nowadays I really won't play anything other then a Strat.....





....except maybe a Telecaster.


Good luck man, happy hunting. And don't be scared to try a Squier. The Squier Deluxes, Hot Rails, and Custom Vibe guitars are amazing.

HW, You come to the strat forum to ask about Strats what kind of feedback do you think you are going to get.lol I hope you are not looking to play a Strat because Hendrix did. I was as big a Hendrix as there could be (still am) but my #1 guitar for over a decade was a tele with Dimarzios before I totaly was comfortable with a strat. To be honest and I have asked a lot of players this a Strat is not the easiest guitar to tame it is like you have to fight with it a bit compared to a lot of other axes. Play a lot of guitars and get what is comfortable for you at first if it is a Strat so be it but make sure you are getting it for the right reasons.

you know what Straycat, you're 100% correct. When I was a kid and first started playing I hated Strats, they were harder to play (possibly due to the longer scale length) the tone of the pickups have so much clarity to them that no amount of distortion will hide your mistakes, and like you said, it seems like you had to fight them. I always wondered how Stevie, Jimi, Yngwie, etc could get such amazing sounds out of them. At the time I preferred the muddier sound of a Les Paul or an Ibanez because it was easier to play and it hid my mistakes. I always avoided Fender.

In my experience it wasn't until I'd been teaching at a particular studio for a couple years and while there I'd use one of the stores guitars so I wouldn't have to drag mine back and forth to work. Guess which one it was, lol. A Strat. At the time I started using it I felt it was the best guitar in the store. (the guy doesn't exactly sell top of the line instruments, remember how Music & Arts use to be? Yeah, like that.)

After a year of playing it for "work" (gotta love it) I realized that I'd really gotten use to the guitar and I also noticed that after I stopped fighting it that I hadn't really been "fighting" it at all, it was actually forcing me to play better. And now I can honestly say I do play a hell of alot better due to that guitar, (which I ended up buying btw.) My attack and speed for leads is alot stronger now.

Guess I'm starting to ramble, but yeah you're right. They can be a little difficult at first, but I think it really pays off in the long run. I've got 2 Strats now and I'm currently budgeting and saving for the next 4 that I've been drooling over.

In my opinion Strats are the best electric guitar. It was one of the first ones, and it's still one of the best ones.

Really amazing when you think about it. in 50-60 years no one's really ever come up with a better or more comfortable guitar then the one Leo Fender (r.i.p.) designed.

I agree as well. Having both a tele and a strat, in my earlier years I prefered the ease of play associated with the tele. It was just right. The strat was always a bit of a struggle, which caused it to be played very rarely over the course of about 8 years. I recently decided, to tame the strat... and I love it. Its a rewarding axe to play.
Disregard my previous post if you have not already. You would be foolish to expect any negative feedback on a strat here, where everyone is mildly obsessed with strats.
J

er, I wouldn't say "obsessed" really. I'm a full-time working musician, it's what I do 24/7. An electric guitar is just a tool I need to do my job, create new music and express myself. I don't collect them, don't hang them on the walls, don't know all the little details about each years minor differences, couldn't tell you if one is made of basswood or another poplar. They're just tools to me. The Strat I've been using the past couple years I carried around in an unpadded gigbag. It gets beat up, it gets dinged, it's been dropped, when I recorded in Delmark this weekend when I was done playing there wasn't a stand or anything around so I just layed it on the floor like the tool that it is.

However despite the way I treat it, it always works, I don't have to redo the setup every 2 weeks like I have with lots of other guitars and personally I've just found them to be the best tool for the job.

I don't need to babysit them, they just work and sound good everytime. I couldn't ask for a more reliable piece of equipment.

I own a Squier and i think they are some of the best guitars you can own. I've played other guitars and I still come back to the squier because it sounds great and lasts forever.

I would buy a Squire over a MIM or MIJ or MIChina or MIIndonesia anyday. They are great value for money and non pretencious guitars.

I have owned many FMIC products, and loved most of them but to say that you would prefer a Squire to a Fender Japan Strat is beyond me!! The build quality coming out of Japan is much higher than just about any Squire I have seen. I know the new Vintage Vibe models are nice, but I will put my MIJ Strats up against any Squire any day. Fender does not sell MIJ products in the USA anymore (except for special models) for they compare favorably to the MIA products. FMIC does not want Corona and Fuji Gen competing for our dollars.

Same here.
Playing a Strat has probably helped me improve my playing because of how hard they are to play in comparison to other guitars and the fact that the muddiness you were talking about isn't there. When you can hear every note you play, you have to work really hard to break bad habits that you sometimes weren't even aware you had.

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Wow...

In my dictionary the picture next to the definition of "guitar" is a Strat.

Just to toss this in the ring, also: get a newer MIM and upgrade the pickups and/or trem unit with a Callaham. For much less than the American Standard, you can get yourself a guitar that will sound as good. Lots of people have talked about Strats being "hard" to play. A few of my friends over the years (who play rhythm guitar) have generally hated the strats I've owned - they go out of tune for them (laying their hand on the bridge!), they don't like the single coils, etc. I have an LP and a HWY1 Strat I use for our band, and one thing I find to be very different between the two is the sustain. Switching between guitars for different songs, I've really noticed this. I have to work on my vibrato a little more with the notes, and adjust my stompboxes accordingly, but it works for me. Love strats, always have. The LP is more recent, so I am actually getting used to that guitar! If a Fender strat can't do it for you, there is also plenty of options with Carvin super strats, etc. For me, you can't get that strat sound, the bell-like tones in position 2 and 4 without a strat! This is really why I have one, in addition to using the trem to abuse feedback and such.