If You Love Fender Stratocaster Guitars Check Out These 10 Facts

If You Love Fender Stratocaster Guitars Check Out These 10 Facts

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There is no getting away from it, the Fender Stratocaster has undoubtably played an important role in helping to shape music throughout the years. There have been a number of famous guitarists opting for the Stratocaster as their instrument of choice including: Jimi Hendrix, Hank Marvin, Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan and many others.

Below are 10 facts about these world changing guitars:

1. The Stratocaster was designed by Leo Fender, Freddie Tavares and George Fullerton in 1954.

2. The seriously contoured double-cutaway body was constructed from Ash until the middle of 1956 when Alder had become the timber of choice for the body. Alder continues to be used to this day.

3. The original 1954 version featured a one-piece maple neck with 21 frets. Inlays were black dots.

4. The guitar originally was supplied furnished with Kluson machine heads. These were regularly changed for other designs over time as guitarists often have certain machine heads they can't live without.

5. The guitar pickups selector switch was originally a 2-position style which luckily was up graded to a 5-position type in 1977. This granted much greater versatility deciding on pickup combinations and tones.

6. The volume from the Stratocaster pickups is controlled with a solitary master volume knob.

7. The three single-coil pickups placed in the guitar had been originally identical in style and design. 1977 saw the roll-out of the RWRP (reverse wound reverse polarity) center pickup, which when linked with either the neck or the bridge pickup could operate in hum-cancelling mode. This went some way to making the sometimes noisy pickups quieter, and helped the guitars compete with the quieter humbucking pickups provided with Gibson electric guitars. Gibson have been and still are great competitors of Fender.

8. The guitar was constructed employing a rosewood fretboard as standard between the years of 1959 to 1967.

9. 1965 saw CBS take over the Fender brand and for many, this became the beginning of many years of poorer quality instruments. The company eventually upped their game however, many supporters had been lost along the way.

10. In 1982 an inexpensive version of the guitar began production in Japan under the 'Squier' brand. This was for many a good way of buying a Fender guitar minus the higher, United States built price.

So there are my 10 interesting facts about these amazing guitars. No matter whether a Stratocaster is your guitar of choice, there's no denying the astonishing influence that this Fifties guitar has had on the music business.

I'm confident this guitar intends to stay around for a while yet.

About the Author:
The author has been playing both electric and acoustic guitars for many years and enjoys many different genres of music. He is also a keen guitar builder and highly recommends Tub Guitar Pickups for excellent replacement Strat pickups. A first class upgrade for any Stratocaster.



Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com


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