Once again, I found a Fender Standard (MIM) Strat for a good price and snapped it up. As with the first MIM Strat I got, this guitar has a super comfortable neck and plays really well. The frets are medium sized, as opposed to the jumbo frets on my main home made strat. The pickups aren’t bad at all. They definitely have that Strat snap to them, but they are less full sounding and weaker than the Kinmans that I have in the neck and middle position of my main guitar. That makes sense though.
As of right now I use this guitar for recording, and it’s my back up for gigging. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to hold on to this one or not.
Somebody locally was selling this guitar for a good price. It was very used. A veteran of the weekend warrior scene. This guitar sounded great and played great. Easily as good as my American strat. The neck is identical in size and feel. I ended up parting this guitar out (even though I hate that) because the frets were so worn. A fret job would have cost about the same as I paid for the guitar, so I didn’t think it was worth it. I probably would have done it if it were a combination I liked better, but the body had dulled to a less than attractive metallic red color.
I got the Powerhouse Strat used because it looked cool. One of my favorite colors – Candy Apple Red. This guitar wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. It was like new when I got it. Fret ends were very sharp, the sounds were ok. The Powerhouse electronics use a battery and allow you to go from standard single coil sounds to thicker, more humbucker-like sounds. I was going to gut the electronics and put in something I liked better, but I decided it just wasn’t worth it and sold it again.
My first shot at getting a replacement for my Peavey Triumph. I found an HRD (40 watt 1×12) for a great price locally and jumped on it. I gigged with it (alternating with the Peavey) for about a year before finally selling it to the singer in my band. I still see and hear the amp regularly.
My take on the Hot Rod Deluxe: It’s a nice amp, with a pretty good clean sound. I liked the clean sound better than the Peavey at low to mid volumes. Reverb sounded good to me, but I’m not a big user. The drive and more drive channels were all but useless to me. It was nearly impossible for me to get a good sound out of them. That was ok. I tried the amp with a number of preamps and overdrives. Fulldrive Fulltone II, Chandler Tube Driver, Tech 21 GT2…Those guys did a fine job of dirtying up the HRD.
The two problems I found were 1) when you need a “little more” clean volume, it’s just not there. At outdoor gigs and louder indoor jobs where things get cranking a little more than they probably should – the clean sound went out the window. The dirtier sound wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t the strong point of the amp either. Not like an old cranked deluxe reverb or anything. The second problem 2) was that overall the amp does not seem very well built. It may just be me, but my peavey (only about 10 more watts) outweights the Fender by a *lot*. Part of it is the big honking speaker magnet, but it’s also a much more solid cabinet, and what appears to be more solid components. I can’t tell you how many times the tubes in the HRD loosened up on the way to the job. I never had that happen with any other amp. To this day the singer will fire the HRD up at a gig and every so often it wacks out. It’s almost always a loose tube. Quick shut it down re-seat them all and fire it back up. There hasn’t been anthing seriously wrong, just my feeling that something could go wrong at any moment. I’m way too paranoid for that!
Update! – While loading out from a gig, this amp took a hellacious tumble down a flight of concrete stairs. It was a terrible sight. The remarkable thing is that other than some minor bumps and bruises, the amp performed perfectly. No problems whatsoever. Unbelievable. I was sure a fall like that would destroy this amp, but it did no serious damage at all. High marks for that. To this day the tubes still seem to loosen up on their own though.
I finally bought one of my dream guitars – and a very reasonable one at that. I had always wanted a Strat strictly from an appearance standpoint – either Candy Apple Red with a Maple finger board, or Natural Ash with a Maple fingerboard. Maybe it’s just me, but the newer Candy Apple Strats don’t seem to have the same vibrant color I remember. And the older ones are insanely priced. Strat prices definitely suffered (and continue to suffer to a degree) from the vintage craze of a few years back. Anyway, I found a great used natural ash strat.
I love Strats for much the same reason I liked the old VW Beetle – they’re basic and parts are readily available and easy to replace. And they’re nearly indestructable! What a deal. The problem for me is that they are way overpriced for what you get – especially if you buy the name brand: “Fender”. Of course, I wanted a Fender American Strat. I wanted to have the “real” thing, after all.
Strats are very comfortable to play – the 25.5″ scale and neck shape work well together. The particular model I got had the two-point trem, but it was blocked with a rosewood block ala Eric Clapton (from what I read at least). I removed the block at one point and set up the trem, but I ended up blocking it again. I’ve really gotten away from using the trem.
There are a few weaknesses in Strats in my mind: Pickups are a biggie. Stock strats just aren’t that flexible. I know, I know, they’ve been used for all sorts of music, but I wasn’t able to get my sound out of it. And the original pickups are noisy. Yes, that’s to be expected, but I had been completely spoiled by humbuckers over the years – they’re dead quiet. First thing I did was get a set of Kinman pickups, which were purported to be among the best. They are outstanding. Huge difference from the originals. I opted for the AvN Blues set, which is a bit hotter than stock. Sound great, completely noiseless.
Still…something was missing…It’s that darned bridge pickup. I just couldn’t get it to really “dig in” like I needed to on a solo. I could plug in my Les Paul or my Carvin and, wow, there it was! But not on the strat. And I really was hoping to make the strat my one-size-fits-all guitar. Soo…First I popped in a tele pickup in the bridge. Not so great by itself (not as good as a real tele), but wait…if I re-wire the switch to get that neck-bridge combination..yes! That’s nice! But still not it. Sooo…swap the bridge for a Seymour Duncan Little ’59. Crap. Sounded awful. Something wrong with the pickup? Maybe. I didn’t care to try that type again. Swapped for a Hot Rails…not bad. Not as rich and full sounding as I’d like, but it certainly is hot. And it drives the amp pretty well. Still not like the Carvin or Les Paul, but much better than before. So, that’s what I stuck with.
My favorite mod that I did on the strat (and have done on every strat I’ve owned since) is to swap the standard 5-way switch for a “mega switch” from Stew-Mac. I wire is so the following pickup combinations are available: Neck, Neck-Middle, Neck-Bridge, Middle-Bridge, Bridge. That has become my favorite Strat switching scheme, and the neck-bridge combo is probably my most used position. Sorta tele-ish, sorta Gretsch-ish, some jangle with some fullness. Real nice even with the Hot Rails in there. And the Hot Rails lets me get into that Richie Sambora/EVH territory a little when needed too. Bonus.
Probably what I love most about Strat-type guitars is that everything is removable. Shim the neck? No problem! Adjust the bridge? Ok! Adjust the truss rod? No problem! New pickups? Easy. New pots and a switch? Sure! I have no fear! Set necks…well…I’ll swap electronics and tuners, but I’m not so certain about adjusting the neck and all properly. My own paranoia.
Eventually I decided that I liked my home assembled strat better than the “real deal” Fender American. I returned the American to it’s original state – original pickups and switching and I sold it. The nice thing about the name brands is that they hold their value – and sometimes even increase over time. I know my home made won’t, but I had to do in favor of the guitar I thought played and sounded better.