I almost always use the Strat's neck pickup when I use a distortion pedal and I have found the most versatile as far as tonal range is the Big Muff Pi.The Muff can sound either very shrill and trebley or real mellow and bassy.It's quite easy to get weeping tones with a Muff and a Strat once you get used to fine tuning the controls.You can get a violin like sustain that's almost infinite with the Muff also as with the right settings dialed in you can tailor it to feedback in the same key that you are playing.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Apparently, not. EC has now a slightly short haircut similar to that of the 2009 Japanese/Australasian tours.



Not the much better "yardbirds crew-cut" look he usually gets sometimes since 1992! (as shown here in 2006 and 2008)





The 2010 hairstyle was reminiscent of the Journeyman/24 Nights era (1989-1991).

GUYS! Are you seriously discussing EC's hair??!??!??!?!?!??

i plug my e.c. strat straight to the amp with a compressor in the loop only. i plug my l.p. straight in with the compressor in the loop. i put an lpb-1 booster after my standard strat and have the guitar's pups wired to one tone control (Rory Gallagher style) and use the compressor in the loop. my amp is a bdri with fst preamp tubes and tung sol 6l6gcstr with early breakup. these set ups do the job for me. the comp in the loop lets me be able to lower the volume when i want. if i want to go full volume then i just remove it. these set ups have good tone for days.

Thanks for the replies. I seem to be leaning to HWY. 1 strat at this point. I have been looking into getting the BOSS powerstack. I used to think that compressers where useless but now I understand they actualy have a purpose... O and I love how this spun off into a Clapton hair style topic. Personly I like Cream-era hair.

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'10 Classic Player Jaguar HH
'07 Squire Fat-Strat
Vox VT30

Small Amp " Driven to Tears ". No pedals, only use the HRD settings and at that very minimal.
Other small amps I just crank, use the tone and volume on the guitar to control distortion.
Simple effective and does not require a noise gate.

When driving the amp versus pedals, your string attack is going to play a major role in your sound output. Say like hitting the string with the pick but following it up with the fleshy part of your finger, or using your finger nail and then following it up with the fleshy part of....
Experiment without digital effects, you'll be surprised at the results.
Amp must be tubes.....That is " De Rigueur ".......

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

Definately like my Hwy 1 with distorted or over driven. As I said before positions 2 and 4 sound best to me for this.

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1975 Sunburst Stratocaster rosewood finger board
1979 Stratocaster with roseowood finder board
2001 Candy Green Clapton Stratocaster
2007 Andy Summers Inspired Telecaster
2007 '51 P-Bass
2012 Taylor 110
2015 Mystic Ice Blue Deluxe Stratocaster Plus

I absolutely love my Am. Special > boss sd1 > Marshall guv 2 > sonic stomp > eq >ISP Decimator > mxr zw38 in stereo to a couple of marshalls, volumes high and gain fairly low. The neck pu is sooo chunky when I want it, the mid with no tone control gives me that raw old punk sound, at least my definition of it, and the bridge sings pretty well for whatever you need an hb for. You can do anything with a strat.

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— did that sound like something?

Lol, for the record I met Slowhand a couple of weeks ago. His hair was just above his shoulders! I hope this clears things up!

If you want to do that, go into the humbucker if you have an hss, or go unto the bridge or middle if you have an sss, but youll also need to eq your amp properly and not take the bass to high.

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You cant always get what you want

That's very cool that you met him. I saw him in concert during the Reptile tour. My buy who tried to get my EC Strat's pick guard signed said the he was a little brusque. My friend said that he wasn't signing anything. He was tired and just wanted to go home. I felt little let down, but I do understand that he just played for about 2 or 3 hours. It was a good show and I got my money's worth. So I wasn’t too disappointed.

How did you meet him and how did go?

I did meet Robert Cray and Buddy Guy. Robert Cray was very nice. He hung out back and talked with the fans. He signed my Strat, thanked everyone for come and said good night. I really get a chance to have Buddy Guy sign my Strat. His manager scooped him up and they left before I had a chance to ask. I did get the chance to thank him for a great show.

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1975 Sunburst Stratocaster rosewood finger board
1979 Stratocaster with roseowood finder board
2001 Candy Green Clapton Stratocaster
2007 Andy Summers Inspired Telecaster
2007 '51 P-Bass
2012 Taylor 110
2015 Mystic Ice Blue Deluxe Stratocaster Plus

I work at a very private airport in the UK, he came in to fly out. He was nice enough but couldn't really chat, the plane was waiting for him.

From everything I've read (his autobiography and interviews) and such it seems like he's not a particularly chatty person. From what I can tell he actually seems to be a bit of an introvert.

Thanks for the information.

This may seem like an odd question and I realize that England is big place, but are you anywhere near Rye, East Sussex? An old roommate of mine works at The Queen's Dead Inn. He tells me that it's a very nice place.

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1975 Sunburst Stratocaster rosewood finger board
1979 Stratocaster with roseowood finder board
2001 Candy Green Clapton Stratocaster
2007 Andy Summers Inspired Telecaster
2007 '51 P-Bass
2012 Taylor 110
2015 Mystic Ice Blue Deluxe Stratocaster Plus

Lol, it's not far, around 50 miles away. I don't know Rye well but I like where I live.

We saw him a week ago in L.A. The first of two nights. I fully enjoyed the concert. On the way out my wife says: " Do you realize he never once spoke directly to the audience except to say thank you?" I thought back and realized she was right. No, how you doing, or, it's good to be here. I guess when you can make a guitar talk like he can, he can get away with it.

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'10 American Deluxe HSS Sunset Metallic
'10 JA-90 Thinline Telecaster
'15 Music Man JP-15 Blueberry Burst
'07 Les Paul Standard Faded LCPG #82
'14 Carvin ST300
'12 Carvin CS424S
'66 Guild Starfire IV w/Bigsby
'14 Warmouth Partscaster Daphne Blue