Hi all, new guy to the forum thought I would say hi. I also recently picked up my first Fender Strat. I am not completely new to Fender though, I have a T-Bucket acoustic and 2 Fender Mustang amps, 1 and 3. I'm usually an Ibanez guy but wanted a Strat this time. I got a I believe 2010 MIM Strat Blue with rosewood board. The stock pups were replaced with Tex Mex pups just a couple weeks after buying it, I like how they sound over the stock ones and they weren't expensive. The guitar feels real good and plays very nice. I tried a few American ones and didn't really feel or notice enough difference to warrant spending the extra 600 dollars or so to get one so went with MIM. Hope to learn more about fender strats here as I'm pretty excited about it, I have learned a lot already about some of the differences in set up compared to my Ibanez, both are guitars yes, but way different in many ways.

Welcome.

I too have a MIM Standard Strat (2009 model) that I have made many mods to. I also have an Ibanez guitar that I won in the recent "12 Days of Ibanez" contest just before Christmas. It is a GRGA32 in black. Here is a link to it:

http://www.ibanez.com/ElectricGuitars/model-GRGA32

I play Blues as opposed to hard rock/metal, so I made a number of changes to the Ibanez; new GFS Recotron pickups, locking tuners, bridge, all new CTS pots and CRL switch, etc. This is what it looks like now:



My Strat has Fender SCN pickups, locking Schaller tuners, GFS steel trem block (the trem is decked and blocked with a machined aluminum block), , CTS pots, CRL switch, and more. It stil looks basically stock:



You will find that the MIM Strats are a great platform for making mods. I am a systems engineer by profession and just love to tinker. I am probably a better guitar technician than I am a guitar player.

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Bill

Welcome tpdoff !

Guitars are like women..they may be the same but they sure are different!

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-T

"You can't spend what you ain't got, you can't lose what you ain't never had" ~ McKinley Morganfield

Welcome

I know a lot of guys here have other make guitars like you do. How about some pictures of the new strat?

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2002 mim Telecaster
Jimmie Vaughan Stratocaster
Mexican HSS Stratocaster
6 non-fender guitars
2 kids (not for sale)
1 wife (uh....no comment)

Should I upgrade the Pots? I left the originals in there, it sounds good to me, I think the rest of it is fine, except maybe the tuners I might do later but for now they work. Pics, sure let me get some taken and I will post them, most forums won't let you post pics till you been there while,

Hey bluesky636, Nice guitars, my Ibanez cost a bit more then my Fender, it's a 2009 RG1550 Prestige phantom blue with Dimarizo Evolutions pups in it. I love them both just in different ways. I play the Fender more right now, but the new hasn't worn off yet

Can't figure out how to post pics, HELP!!

I think the stock pots on a MIM are CTS but I couldn't tell because of the ground wires soldered to the backs. They are full size pots though, which is good. The switch is a cheap switch. It may be a CRL but if it is, it is not the same one used on the American built Strats. I replaced everything when I replaced the stock pickups with the Fender SCN pickups. I also installed the Greasebucket tone circuit on the tone pots. I run a tone pot on the bridge and neck pickups, with the middle wide open. All my guitars are (once again) wired in the 50's vintage style. I also use Mil-Spec Switchcraft phone jacks in all my guitars as they are better built than even the one's Fender uses. I just like to tinker when you get right down to it.

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Bill

You need to upload your photos to a photo website (I use Webshots). Then you just copy the image link from the photo site and paste it into your forum post.

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Bill

Thanks. Your Ibanez is nice. I prefer cheap guitars. The one on the left is a "Lyon by Washburn" that I picked up for $55 at a local guitar show. I then spent $150 on it upgrading pickups, tuners, and all the electronics. Plays and sounds great now. The Yamaha bass on the right was given to me (For free!) by my next door neighbor. He said he could never keep it in tune. After new strings, a complete setup (I do all my own), new pickups, pots, and jack (of course) it plays and sounds really sweet (he also gave me a small Crate bass practice amp for free).

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Bill

Welcome to the forum tpdoff,the Tex-Mex pickups are just deadly,I have them on my '10 Jimmie Vaughn and they are simply great and give a full tone that can vary from bright and trebley to dark and bluesy.To my ears they sound much like a good set of L-series pickups.

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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.

OK, trying a photo upload here.

http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo ... 4837RrmGwu
Trying another one. all three of my guitars. the Ibanez, and 2 Fender's.

http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo ... 4837RrmGwu

Well I can't get to post the picture on here, just the link. Well here it is again.

Photo posting in one easy lesson (the "Cliff Notes version")......

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=52777

HTH

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY