History Of Fender Stratocaster Guitar

History Of Fender Stratocaster Guitar

The Fder Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of electric guitar designed betwe 1952 and 1954 by Leo Fder, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fder Musical Instrumts Corporation has continuously manufactured the Stratocaster since 1954. It is a double-cutaway guitar, with an extded top horn shape for balance. Along with the Gibson Les Paul, Gibson SG, and Fder Telecaster, it is one of the most-oft emulated electric guitar shapes.

Stratocaster and Strat are trademark terms belonging to Fder. Guitars that duplicate the Stratocaster by other manufacturers are sometimes called S-Type or ST-type guitars.

Fender

The guitar introduced into the popular market several features that were innovative for electric guitars in the mid-1950s. The distinctive body shape, which has become commonplace among electric guitars, was revolutionary for the time period, and for the first time a mass-market electric guitar did not significantly resemble earlier acoustic models. The double cutaway, elongated horns, and heavily contoured back were all designed for better balance and comfort to play while standing up and slung off the shoulder with a strap. The three-pickup design offered players increased versatility and choice in tone quality over earlier one- and two-pickup electric guitars, and a responsive and simplified vibrato arm integrated into the bridge plate, which marked a significant design improvemt over other vibrato systems, such as those manufactured by Bigsby. All of these design elemts were popularized and later became an industry standard due to the success of the Stratocaster. The Fder Stratocaster is one of the most iconic electric guitar models of all time.

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Over the years, countless variations of the Stratocaster have be made. The modular nature of the guitar, with its easily removable componts, left players and luthiers to perform numerous modifications to their own guitars, changing out pickups or necks to fit the needs of the player. Fder has released numerous models with differt pickup configurations and has made other small modifications to the electronics and componts of the base model, such as changing the initial 3-position selector switch to a standard 5-position selector switch, offering more tonal variety, as well as other small cosmetic changes to things like tuning pegs and types of woods used in various parts of the guitar. Various other companies have produced their own Strat-style bodies known as Superstrats.

The archetypal Stratocaster is a solid-body electric guitar with a contoured asymmetric double-cutaway body with an extded upper horn; the body is usually made from alder or ash. The neck is usually made from maple and attached to the body with screws (oft referred to as bolts) and has a distinctive headstock with six tuning pegs mounted inline along a single side; the fingerboard may be maple or another wood, e.g. rosewood, and has at least twty-one frets. The Stratocaster's body is front-routed for electronics, which are mounted in a plastic pickguard. Most Stratocasters have three single-coil pickups, a pickup selector switch, one volume control and two tone controls.

And the less common hardtail fixed bridge. Both types of bridge have six individually adjustable saddles whose height and intonation can be set indepdtly. Early models of the stratocaster came with a removable metal cover plate that fit over the bridge. The plate was purely cosmetic, and tded to get in the way of important playing techniques such as palm muting, so many players removed it. By the late 1970s, Fder stopped shipping guitars with the bridge cover plate, though some more modern reissue and custom shop models still have them.

The Black Strat

The innovative tremolo system is balanced by springs mounted in a rear cavity. The output jack is mounted in a recess in the front of the guitar body. Many differt colors have be available. The Stratocaster's scale lgth is 25.5 inches (648 mm).

There have be some minor changes to the design over the years and models with features that differ from the archetypical design. However, the esstial character of the design has remained constant.

The Stratocaster was the first Fder guitar to feature three pickups and a spring tsion vibrato system, as well as being the first Fder with a contoured body.

The Stratocaster Guitar Book

) differed from the flat, squared edge design of the Telecaster. The Stratocaster's double cutaways allowed players easier access to higher positions on the neck.

The design featured a solid, deeply contoured ash body, a 21-fret one-piece maple neck with black dot inlays, and Kluson SafeTi String

Post tuning machines. The color was originally a two-color, dark brown-to-gold yellow sunburst pattern, although custom color guitars were produced (An example is Eldon Shamblin's gold Stratocaster, dated June 1954).

Fender

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In 1956, Fder began using alder for sunburst and most custom-color Stratocaster bodies. Ash needed grain filler and sanding blocks for contour sanding, though it was still used on transluct blonde instrumts.

In 1959, Fder introduced a thick Brazilian rosewood fretboard to the Stratocaster, now colloquially referred to as a slab-board. This thicker board lasted until 1962, wh the fretboard was made with a thinner 'veer' of Brazilian Rosewood. Nearly all of the 1960s models of the Stratocaster had a rosewood fretboard, and maple fretboards would not be re-introduced in large numbers until 1970.

In 1960, the available custom colors were standardized with a paint chip chart, many of which were Duco automobile lacquer colors from DuPont available at an additional 5% cost. Inter-departmtal DuPont support research provided a flexible basecoat for their wood applications.

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A single-ply, eight-screw hole white pickguard (changed to an 11-hole three-ply in late 1959) held all electronic componts except the recessed jack plate, facilitating assembly.

Shows an advancemt in design from the 1950s models including a 'veer' Brazilian rosewood board with Clay Dot inlays, a 3 tone sunburst finish on an Alder body and Kluson tuners.

The

(Left): Late 1950s Stratocaster with alder body and three-tone sunburst finish; (right): 1970s Stratocaster with large CBS headstock, bullet truss rod and die-cast bridge.

Fender Stratocaster: A Design Icon At 60

Despite being credited with invting the most popular electric guitar in history, Leo Fder made very few alterations to the basic design of the Fder Stratocaster (and the Telecaster for that matter) up until 1965 wh the company was sold to CBS Instrumts. For example, the bridge cover on the Fder Stratocaster was oft tak off by players and either disposed or kept in the case. Despite full knowledge of this, Leo Fder always provided the new Fder guitars with a bridge cover to prevt corrosion on the bridge parts.

After 1965, the Fder company, under the control of CBS Instrumts, saw a drop in sales of the Fder Stratocaster to customers. The Fder Jazzmaster had be promoted as the flagship guitar in the Fder line.

As such, the resurgce of the Fder Stratocaster is credited to the arrival of Jimi Hdrix in the late 1960s. His remarkable playing style and musical prowess led to a dramatic increase in sales and thrust the Stratocaster into musical history as the premier electric guitar. As they followed Jimi Hdrix's popularity on TV, CBS asked for the word Stratocaster on the headstock be made larger so that people could read the model name easily.

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Betwe the years 1954 and 1979, nearly a quarter of the Fder Stratocasters manufactured were made in a single year, in 1979. The increased 1970s production levels saw a gradual departure from the high quality instrumts of the 1960s and the introduction of Japanese manufacturers into the market.

The

Original Stratocasters were manufactured with five vibrato springs (three in late 1953 prototypes) attached to a milled inertia block and anchored to the back of the body. The novel mechanism pivots on a fulcrum design with a six screw bridge plate, allowing the whole set-up to float while transferring the strings ergy directly into the body. Though advertised as Tremolo (a change in volume amplitude), vibrato is the correct term for pitch variation. In the floating position, players can move the bridge-mounted vibrato tremolo arm up or down to modulate the pitch of the notes being played. Hank Marvin,

As string gauges have changed, players have experimted with the number of springs (oft four though Hdrix used five). As the average gauge has decreased over the years, modern Stratocasters are equipped with three springs as a stock option in order to counteract the reduced string tsion. While the floating bridge has unique advantages for wavering pitch upwards (like Jeff Beck), the functionality of the floating has be widely accepted, yet disputed by some musicians. Leo Fder insisted it leave the factory floating (raised up in the back) while designer Freddie Tavares preferred it tighted flush for full bridge plate/body contact resonance. As the bridge floats, the instrumt has a tdcy to go out of tune during double-stop string bds. Many Stratocaster players opt to tight the springs (or ev increase the number of springs used) so that the bridge is firmly anchored against the guitar body: in this configuration, the vibrato arm can still be used to slack the strings and therefore lower the pitch, but it cannot be used to raise the pitch (a configuration sometimes referred to as dive-only).

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Some players, such as Ronnie Wood, feel that the floating bridge has an excessive

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