looking to upgrade from stock. any recommendations?

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"I like the way he puts Yngwie J. Malmsteen on his album covers. You know,....so you don't confuse him with all the other Yngwie Malmsteens in the business"


2008 Fender MIM Stratocaster
2010 Epiphone Masterbilt
2009 Fender Super Champ XD

stock on what?

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

Go with Fender locking tuners!

i have fender locking tuners on my 09 strat. i love the way they work

Hi schafedog: I'm absolutely not trying to be difficult, but "why?" is the first question you have to answer. Once we know that we'll have a better idea where to point you.

Cheers - C

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good point ceri.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

Why?? is a good question. Personally, I've found that if you lock the strings properly when you put them on, locking tuners aren't necessary. This video will show you the method that I use: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9DD4XcW3Vw

This locks the string to itself and keeps it from slipping and if you use your tremolo, it will tend to stay in tune a little better.

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"It's about sound and sound alone. Looks are irrelevant. You can have the best-looking guitar on earth, but if the sound isn't there it is nothing more than a beautiful piece of trash. The sound it makes is the soul of any guitar."

There's no way around it, locking tuners are much easier to use.

Hi wrvond: some people are assuming that schafedog wants to go with locking tuners, which may indeed be the case. But we also get people here wanting to swap in vintage tuners, which would involve some different problems on a modern instrument.

And even if he's after locking machines there are different reasons people go for those. Ease of restringing is one, as you say. Other people think locking tuners will solve intonation issues. And sometimes they will help with that, but sometimes the real cause of pitch problems lies elsewhere, and that may in fact be what we need to address.

So we need more information from the OP before we get started.

Cheers - C

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WV in the house!

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

As others have said, locking tuners make restringing MUCH easier and quicker. However, if you secure the string to the tuner with 1 over and the rest under wraps after pulling thru the post, it is very secure and will probably not give you tuning problems.

I find locking tuners somewhat easier and faster but not a huge difference. With regular tuners I can change strings pretty quickly.

With that said, I do have locking tuners on my 2 Strats and have no tuning problems.

I also have regular non-locking tuners on my LP and all my acoustics and have no tuning problems.

Matter of personal choice and preference.

Jeff

Here's something to think about...BB King (not a Strat player, but a pretty good guitar player anyway!) has said that he restrings his own guitar (Lucille). When restringing, he winds the entire free end of the string onto the tuner post!

I like the Sperzel locking tuners on my 1999/2000 USA Strat, but have no real problems with stock tuners on my 1997 USA Strat or my 1992 MIM Strat. I think it just comes down to ease of restringing. But.....I don't use much tremolo....just some blues bends.

Hi Ceri,
You are absolutely correct, of course.
I got caught up in the direction the thread took. That's because I am ADOS (Attention Deficit Ooooo Shiney!)