Talk:Fender Stratocaster

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Hey Xhefri!

You ever come here, Jeff? This article seems like it could use some of your help, along with some links to your info. Darr247 (talk) 21:40, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

I think Xhefri's stuff is great, but it might fall foul of WP:RSSELF as far as Wikipedia is concerned. (If Xhefri has or were to publish magazine articles or book, that could be ideal.) My preference would be to treat Xhefri's stuff as a great resource for enthusiasts in its own right, additional to Wikipedia. The Parson's Cat (talk) 08:36, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Nitpicky bit about the 5 way selector switch

"The "quacky" tone of the middle and bridge pickups, popularized by players such as David Gilmour, Rory Gallagher, Mark Knopfler, Bob Dylan, Scott Thurston, Ronnie Wood, Eric Clapton and Robert Cray, can be obtained by using the pickup selector into positions 2 and 4." The 2 position combines the middle and the neck pickup, not the middle and bridge pickups. Both 2 and 4 are quacky, but this sentence makes it sound like both the 2 and 4 pickups are a combination of the middle and bridge pickups, which is inaccurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.114.198.184 (talk) 06:01, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

In Fender's current service diagrams, position one is 'bridge' and position five is 'neck'. However I see exactly what you mean about he ambiguity and I hope I've fixed this OK. The Parson's Cat (talk) 15:13, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

History

Why is there nothing about the history of how the guitar was designed? There's no mention of the feedback Fender got from Bill Carson, who the guitar was designed for. It does mention it at the article Bill Carson (musician) however. Who designed the shape? (Freddie Tavares). Very little facts here except for models and sales, etc.

This article is more like Fender ad copy.

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No mention of the "The Strat" model in the 80s with gold-plated hardware, color matched headstock, special wiring. 174.89.103.189 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 04:17, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Current Models needs subsections, revisions, reoganization

Maybe it's just me, but I found the "current models" section of the article jumbled and difficult to follow. Therefore, I added subsections based upon the names of the current strat models according to Fender.com without any alterations to the pre-existing text, and immediately major problems became apparent. Most striking was the fact that there were two paragraphs about the american special series which were separated by a paragraph about the vintage hot rod series. Also, the text switches a great deal between describing the past and the present, which leads to further confusion, in my opinion. Finally, the VG Strat is no longer a current model, so I created (an admittedly terrible) extra section to contain it. I don't presume to know the best way to resolve the section on the VG Strat, other than to either delete it, or list all of the other discontinued strat models along with it, neither of which seem optimal.

Obviously, the article is also missing any mention of the remaining current series, which are (according to Fender.com):

• Standard
• American Vintage
• Deluxe
• Classic
• Classic Player

Also, of course, the Artist Series, which appears later in the article as "Signature Models", which should probably be renamed to be consistent with Fender's current terminology.

I intend to continue to tweak this section (I'll probably rearrange the order of the sections as well - maybe all american first, then MIM - there's a couple different logical ways to organize it) if no one objects. Discussion is absolutely invited, as well.Bradford44 (talk) 15:20, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for starting reworking this part of the article! I have also struggled with those sections, partly because I'm concerned that some of it might fall into what Wikipedia isn't, particularly that Wikipedia generally isn't supposed to be a directory/catalogue, and attempting to have an exhaustive list of models would in my opinion fall into that category. While I don't have any great suggestions right now, I would welcome changes that attempt to reduce the amount of content so the readers can get an easy overview of the models. If they're curious about model details they can always visit Fender's website. Anyhow, thanks again for the initiative, great job! Nettrom (talk) 16:54, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the encouraging words, but reading over the current models again today, I see nothing but line after line of unsourced technical material which has no value whatsoever to the casual reader, so consequently I'm at a loss for the best course of action to proceed. I mean it's great (for example) that the "new for 2003" American Strat HSS came with a Diamondback humbucker and Tex-Mex single coils, but without any sources (or even wikilinks to those types of pickups), what possible value is anyone other than a fairly experienced and knowledgable guitarist going to get out of that content? You're exactly right that it's catalog material, but worse than that, it completely lacks context, i.e., what the heck is a Tex-Mex single coil and why should I care that the 2003 model has those instead of the pickups it used to have?

All that said, I still intend to put time into improving the article, and I remain very open-minded for suggestions. Bradford44 (talk) 14:06, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

You bring up very good points, and it's things I have also struggled with when working on other guitar-related articles. In my case I ended up spending a fair amount of time reading through reviews from (fairly) established guitar magazines, particularly Guitar World, Guitar Player, Premier Guitar, and Guitarist as those can be efficiently searched through Google. I have also been quite strict when writing my articles, which means I might end up trimming a lot of content, sometimes to the dislike of other editors. For some things it might be appropriate to refer to a user manual from Fender.com (they have some PDFs available), for other things I tend to prefer third-party descriptions like the ones from the magazines. I'll try to spend some time digging for some sources over the week-end to help you out. Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 15:58, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Hey also is this list complete? For example the Richie Kotzen signature models are not on this list, nor the James Burton Telecaster — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.101.84.225 (talk) 11:33, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion. The article is looking a lot like a Fender company website promo piece. Please remove all the copy paste stuff from Fender website and please stop sourcing the article to Fender primary material. The article is pretty much a disaster, like a chatty blog. Just heaping information into it is a non starter and please do not start making lists of this and that. Wikipedia is not a list generator of things Fender or anything else. The article still needs cutting and proper sourcing. I took out a few un-sourced things, some tagged for many years. Earl King Jr. (talk) 03:27, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Ike Turner signature strat?

Should this be included in the Signature series section? Apparently it was limited edition made in 2004 and 100 were made. I don't know if this signature list includes limited editions. These can be found for sale on the internet from various dealers. I don't have full specs from a reliable source, but I know they're out there somewhereKaleeyed (talk) 13:49, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Initial design and subsequent developments

The Stratocaster's shape, called the "Comfort Contour Body" by Fender, ) differed from the Telecaster's slab-like design. The Stratocaster's double cutaways gave players easier access to higher positions on the neck, and the body's recessed "beer gut" concave curve on the upper back, and a gradual chamfer arm rest on the front, gave player's right arm rest, gave players a more comfortable guitar to play. The "dogleg" style headstock of the Startocasdters contrasted with the narrow headstock shape of the Telecaster.

The strings were anchored and the back side of the body through the pivot bridge, which had springs in a 'claw' attached to screws in the in the tremolo cavity of the guitar's underside. Early Stratocasters had floating five springs mounted under the bridge to anchor the bridge flat against the body when not in use. Players who removed two of the five bridge springs and adjust the claw screws found they could affect a 'floating bridge' which allowed the strings to be pulled by a tremolo arm ("whammy bar") in one direction for a higher pitch, or the other direction to lower pitch. Jeff Beck and Ike Turner are two notable players who have extensively used in their playing the Strat's floating tremolo. But other players, such as Eric Clapton, unhappy with the floating bridge's propensity to detune guitars, prohibited the bridge's movement with wood wedged between the bridge block and the inside cutout of the tremolo cavity to lock the bridge in a fixed position. (Luthier Gelazzo Fradua says that floating bridges can stay in tune through tuning techniques specific to a floating bridge.) Stratocasters called "hard-tails" forgo a floating bridge and tremelo bar, having instead a fixed bridge that cannot effect pitch change.

In its original form the Stratocaster featured three single coil pickups which could be separately activated with 3-way switch near the bridge. But guitarists discovered that different tonal qualities could be induced by leaving the selector switch between the bridge and middle pickup, or the neck and middle pickup, thereby activating two pickups at once. The popularity of this trick led to Fender producing a 5-way pickup selector (a standard feature since 1977) which had added fixed 2 and 4 positions for easier and more reliable in-between pickup selection.

Players known for often using the 2 and four pickup potions include David Gilmour, Rory Gallagher, Mark Knopfler, Scott Thurston, Eric Clapton and Robert Cray. The neck and middle pickups are typically wired to separate tone controls that have a shared tone capacitor which allows players to roll off the higher frequencies. To maintain its inherent brightness, the bridge pickup has no tone control slanted closer towards the bridge on the high strings for a more trebly sound. Another technique to diminish higher frequencies on all pickups is to lower the Strat's volume control below its peak.

Fender placed the volume and tone control knobs on the Stratocaster to enable ready access of players' picking hand. In certain recent editions of Stratocasters, an additional tone control is dedicated to the neck pickup, and another tone control is for both the middle and bridge pickups. On Fender's Eric Clapton Stratocaster, for instance, and other select guitars from their Artist Series models - such as the Buddy Guy signature model, one knob is for a presence circuit which cuts or boosts treble and bass frequencies on all pickups, while a second control knob can actively boost the midrange frequencies up to 25dB (12dB on certain models) for a fatter humbucker-like sound. On these models, as well as on the majority of Stratocasters, a single volume knob controls the level on all three pickups.

The three pickups were originally identical in construction, including output specifications. But the popularity of combining pickups in parallel combinations preceded Fender's introduction a reverse-wound, reverse-polarity middle pickup having a magnetic polarity contrary to the neck and bridge pickups. The middle pickup has a wire wound in the reverse direction around the bobbin compared to the other neck and bridge pickups. This caused a hum-canceling effect with this configuration (removing hum induced by poorly shielded, medium to high output AC devices) in positions 2 and 4 on the selector switch. A similar method of using two pickups to cancel hum had long been used by Fender, notably to their Precision Bass. Currently, Fenders with more than one single-coil pickup (most notably the Stratocaster, Telecaster and Jazz Bass) use hum-canceling pickup configurations.

As a courtesy, I'm going to wait one more day, at least, before moving the new text in. Please comment.The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous (talk) 18:54, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

References

DuPont paint redundancy

The DuPont paint for 5% more is repeated twice in the article - therefore it's redundant. ICE77 (talk) 06:50, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Noticed it's mentioned in the lead section, which seems misplaced. If I have some time over the weekend I might have a go at rewriting the lead section to more properly summarise the content. Should be more important to have it mention why the guitar is important, some of its influence in music and instrument manufacturing, etc... Feel free to beat me to the editing though, and thanks for the good work you've done so far! Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 14:40, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

What happened to the signature models section?

There are a bunch of links that link to a Fender Stratocaster#Signature models but there is no section on the page. I propose we bring it back. 106.68.213.89 (talk) 06:18, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Squier is not Fender, & other problems

For the moment, I've blanked the section that runs on at length about Squier Stratocasters, rather than (read the headline) Fender Stratocasters. Discussion ought to be properly put under Squier.

Most of the article reads as a mix of OR and fanboy POV. Even at that, there are gross oversights scattered about, for instance that the primary Design developments section gives no information about the development of the design. If I were to mark up all the claims and "real facts" that are pasted in without substantiation, the tags would double the article's bytes. Overall, it's a very poor piece.
Weeb Dingle (talk) 00:14, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

A previous post above (unsigned/undated, roughly 2011-2013) says it quite well, and bears repeating:

Why is there nothing about the history of how the guitar was designed? There's no mention of the feedback Fender got from Bill Carson, who the guitar was designed for. It does mention it at the article Bill Carson (musician) however. Who designed the shape? (Freddie Tavares). Very little facts here except for models and sales, etc.

Weeb Dingle (talk) 07:12, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Does Rex Gallion deserve any credit for the body shape?
Weeb Dingle (talk) 17:40, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

And yet another fanboyism: the lede claims the Strat "was invented in 1954" which seems unlikely as that's the year it was commercially released. How about someone clarify the date of the initial design, and maybe as well the beginning of production?
Weeb Dingle (talk) 17:00, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to merge. The Parson's Cat (talk) 10:28, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

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I propose that Fender Strat Plus be merged into Fender Stratocaster. At the moment, the content of Fender Strat Plus is poorly sourced. Once the content in the Fender Strat Plus article has been cut back to what is verifiable, I think that it can easily be explained in the context of Fender Stratocaster, and the Fender Stratocaster article is of a reasonable size that the merging of Fender Strat Plus will not cause any problems as far as article size or undue weight is concerned. The Parson's Cat (talk) 10:58, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

the Design stuff

(Mostly a note to myself, but anyone can have at it.) The Design developments section needs overhaul. First, it sails off in a few clear directions that can readily be broken up, then better addressed on merits. For starters, there's a bunch about the Fender floating tremolo (esp. springs).
Weeb Dingle (talk) 19:18, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

I've had a brief look - to me, it felt that while there was lots of detail, we were missing an overview describing what a Stratocaster actually is. I've had a first attempt, but I'm sure it can be enhanced. The Parson's Cat (talk) 08:29, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Removal of Floyd Rose from infobox - what's best do do here?

@Meclazine: Thanks for your recent edits to

Removed reference to Floyd Rose as a bridge type. Stratocasters never came stock with these, and 0.001% of custom orders would have them.

I wonder if this is correct, please? Fender currently sells some production models like this - there's a current Player Stratocaster HSS Floyd Rose at [1] and I recall many similar models over the years. Wheeler (2000) does make references to models with Floyd Roses in the American Special line c.2000 in The Stratocaster Chronicles, p.246.

Would you be happy for the Floyd Rose to be reinstated? Alternatively, given that both the Player and American Professional lines use two-pivot systems now, please we could just leave the reference to the original six-screw tremolo, remove the hardtail, and simply say 'and others'. What do you think, please. The Parson's Cat (talk) 15:02, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

@Parsonscat: Thanks for that. The number of Fender Stratocasters with Kahler modified tremolo systems would need to be mentioned. If you want to talk about Floyd Rose Tremolo systems, you would be better off paying attention to the guitars that are better known for having them: Kramer, Ibanez, Charvel, ESP, Jackson and Floyd Rose guitars. Gibson Les Paul's had them installed in the late 1970's and early 1980's, but predominantly as an after-market alteration. Both the Gibson Les Paul and Fender Stratocaster do have a special edition with the Floyd Rose installed, but the numbers in relation to total production are negligible, certainly not enough to mention this as a normal setup on the main Fender Stratocaster page. Hardtail, 2 and 6 screw tremolo bridge attachments occupy 99.99% of the Fender Stratocasters produced. Meclazine (talk) 21:24, 9 August 2020 (UTC) Meclazine (talk)

Thanks for that. I am a bit wary of unsourced statistics - that's why I picked up in this from the edit history. My suggestion - currently in the infobox - is the 'six screw bridge' + others. Hope that works for everyone. It seems compact and avoids WP:UNDUE.

Incidentally, I would be interested in verifiable data on Fender's production levels over the years. I imagine that they are making more guitars now than ever, so an apparent 'fringe' model introduced in the 1990s could by now be quite significant compared to the now-rare hardtails - but I don't have hard facts to test that hypothesis. The Parson's Cat (talk) 08:48, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

To add to article

Basic information to add to this article: where the name comes from. Is it related to the word "stratosphere"? 173.88.246.138 (talk) 04:27, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Leo Fender named it after Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, which too made its debut in 1954. 130.233.201.38 (talk) 12:57, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

What the dubious source actually said was that the word "stratospheric" was in common use at the time. No direct link was made between the Fortress and the guitar. 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:AEA8 (talk) 02:58, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

La Marquise (guitar)

Why is there a redirect from there to here, but then there's no "Marquise" mentioned in the article at all? --BjKa (talk) 12:18, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

The link target has since been corrected to another article that also does not mention the guitar. 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:AEA8 (talk) 03:03, 16 July 2024 (UTC)