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You dig?

I hope this doesn't start a war but IMO, it stops when a full sized HB goes into the bridge position. YMMV.

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You dig?

Agreed, the bridge pickup on a Strat is good as gold.

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1984 Squier Contemporary Stratocaster
1986 Peavey Envoy 110
1967 Kingston Acoustic

+1

Absolute unequivocal blasphemy!

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

I think it's about the same time a 32 Ford coupe with a Corvette engine stops being a Ford.

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OK, I'll hum a little bit, got it now?

I sometimes think that we get bogged down with identity and forget about what makes a great instrument.




I agree it doesn't matter when we're playing it, but it does become very relevent when selling or reselling the instrument. The neck is the serialized part of the instrument which allows you to verify the guitars provenance. Personally I don't like when someone swaps one Fender neck for another onto a Fender body. It may look the same, but it's not the same guitar anymore. If Fender serialized all parts of every new guitar to match each other (meaning the tremolo, pickups, body, etc, would bear the same serial number as on the headstock), like gun manufacturers do,then it would be critical to keep all the parts matching to maintain the instruments value, however, since they do not it doesn't really matter. Like Martian already stated as long as the body and neck are Fender, then it's still a Fender no matter what other parts it wears, but the purist will demand that it only wears parts that bear the Fender logo or were sold in packaging that bore the Fender logo.

Great response. But what about the people who build guitars on a budget and just scrape together parts? That's what I did with my Tele. It's still a Fender because I used legit Fender parts. It was hell though. I need to have an actual budget plan for my next build, rather than a lucky impulse bid on eBay.

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1984 Squier Contemporary Stratocaster
1986 Peavey Envoy 110
1967 Kingston Acoustic

Yeah I would go with that also if the Body or Neck is not Fender.
I like to use all Fender Parts on my Customised stuff only thing not Fender
is My Dimarzios otherwise every single part is Fender

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https://www.facebook.com/groups/fenderguitarandamp/

When you put a Tele body on it. Then it becomes a Tele with three pickups.

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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."

I dont think that a humbucker makes a strat not a strat since they sell strats with humbuckers. Thats personal preference. Alot of people say oh its a partscaster if you wrenched it up, is that thier way of sayin I cant wrench on my own guitar so I look down on those who can? Its your stratocaster if thats what it is. I DO agree with the common sense statement it affects it only when you sell or trade. Otherwise if Eddie Van Halen taught us anything its make it your own. And if you wanna copy his name and call it Frankinstrat, go ahead.

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https://www.facebook.com/groups/fenderguitarandamp/

I Would like add if you have a vintage strat please leave it stock lol. I spend more time trying to help people restore old ones that have been modified.

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https://www.facebook.com/groups/fenderguitarandamp/

So true. I bought my first real Strat last week (no pics yet, so technically it didn't happen), and I made sure of two things:

1. Three single coils
2. Maple fretboard

Out of curiousity did you also go for 21 frets 6 screw tremolo and vintage tuners? Those are the things I disliked most about my 76 I got when I was 16. Now that I am 47 and on my 4th Strat and still playin metal, Im glad we came a long way baby. I want to keep the strat alive in modern metal.

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This topic is up to so much debate. I have 2 Fender Stratocasters. Both of which have humbuckers on them. One I replaced the single coil bridge for a Dimarzio Super Distortion. All other parts replaced on this guitar are Fender parts. The other is a stock American Standard HSS. So according to some neither is a pure Fender Stratocaster. I concede that neither is a Traditional Fender Stratocaster, both are Fender Stratocasters. Since there is not a piece of my guitars you cannot buy on a stock guitar, they are to me Fender Stratocasters.

IMHO you have to change out either the neck or body with a non-Fender part to classify it as anything other than a Fender. The guts were designed to be replaceable as needed. It does not preclude it from being a Stratocaster though.

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RK

2007 Fender Highway 1
2012 American Deluxe
2015 MIM Dave Murray HHH
2010 Fender Blacktop
1987 Fender Avalon Acoustic
2012 Marshall DSL 15 watt head

I'm not sure. I got the American Special in CAR. To be honest, those sorts of things aren't terribly important to me. There's not a lot of neck profiles that I don't like (very thin like Wizards/etc. are the only ones I dislike), 21 vs 22 frets isn't a concern, tuners even less, and ditto for 2 vs 6 for the trem. For the latter, I'm just happy it's not a PITA to restring, like my Bigsby guitar. When it comes down to it, I'm just not that picky. If it works, and if it's comfortable, that's fine with me.

My concerns were basically:

- Do the pickups sound good (I was quite pleasantly surprised by the Texas Specials)?
- Does the neck feels good?
- Is the fretboard maple?
- Do I like the colour?