The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

All I can say is:
Hendrix, Clapton, Beck, Vaughan, Sambora, Malmsteen, Cray, Shepherd, Blackmore, Mozart......

simply the most versatile guitar ever built !!

_________________
All vantage-branded guitars were lower-priced instruments aimed at the beginner-to-intermediate market. It has no interest to collectors and very little demand among players! (www.allexperts.com)

All of whom were prodigiously talented and would have made any guitar sound good!! Yngwie even endorsed APII at one stage....

No question the fundamental modular design is brilliant. It's popular and iconic, but so are the Tele and the LP. I view the Strat as the "truck" of guitars; hard working, reliable, tough...but you wouldn't take yer date to the Prom in one.

The other "issue" I have (he said, wandering off topic a bit) is that there is no one design spec that defines the sound of any of these guitars. There are so many variations on the basic configuration that my head spins: pups, bridges, controls, tuners...it's endless. So, who's Strat is better, Clapton's or Malmsteen's or SRV's???

Like Corsair says, I think it's down to the fundamental talent behind the guitar rather than the axe itself. These guys could make rubber bands on a board sound funky!

_________________
"A little song, a little dance. A little seltzer down your pants." -Chuckles the Clown
Guitars: https://legend.barryeames.com
Music/Pix/Videos: https://getback.barryeames.com

Agreed.

(just going one step further off topic) : in my first "band" we had guitar shape-sawed boards with rubber bands. We were 8 years old, and sang to the Glam Rock chart hits of the early seventies in front of a family&friends audience!
It didn't sound funky at all, as far as I can remember!!

And YES, I do believe that there IS a typical Strat sound, as long as we're talking 'bout 3 single coil strats. Whether it's clean a la Knopfler or bluesy a la SRV, you can always hear "that's a strat". Where I live we say: "it snaps."
(Wandering one step back to the topic): Tell me one production where you can say: Oh, it sounds like an Aria! ????

_________________
All vantage-branded guitars were lower-priced instruments aimed at the beginner-to-intermediate market. It has no interest to collectors and very little demand among players! (www.allexperts.com)

Since you've been gone - Alcatrazz??

I have no comment on Fender other than the price of Leos' working musicians guitars must make him spin in his grave....

The complete slo-hand method is this:

(1) Decide how much you're willing to pay.
(2) Make one low bid early in the auction just in case you forget or are unable to check back--you might get lucky.
(3) A couple minutes before the close of the auction, open two browsers; one on the "bid" page with (1) as the bid, the other on the auction page to "refresh" to see how much time is left.
(4) As it ticks down to final seconds, hit the "bid" button. If it's in range, it's yours (not enough time for auto-bidders or deluded deal-seekers to respond). If not, no big deal.

I don't do the 'Boink anymore, so I dub the "slo-hand method" the "Barry Method".
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

I'm not going to knock the Str@. It's a great guitar, but for my purposes the top jack plate & the volume knob are in the wrong places (I have a knock-off slightly modded with the knobs shifted away & mini-domes in place of the hats). I'd rather have a 3-p'up T any day. However, the "essential elements" of the Str@ were basically the same (CBS lack of quality control & pointless fiddling notwithstanding) until the endorsement craze in the 80s. The variances in tone of the basic SSS Str@ are more the result of amps & effects than the guitar (players notwithstanding).

The heavily-modded Str@ is a fairly recent thing in the history of F___er (the only "mods" I'm aware of before aftermarket parts were 3-way to 5-way switch swaps, Blackmore yanking out the middle pickup [basically a "T" with a stronger neck pickup & a weaker bridge pickup], & "ghost" pickups hidden away under the pickguard or in the trem cavity to cancel hum).

I've never cared much for LPs. I've seen some that were beauties to look at, but I'd rather play an SG.

To be fair, there's no real distinctive "MAT" sound because MIJ guitars got started as knock-offs, & the most significant innovation to the guitar since "the log", the BC'er, & the St@ has been putting a humbucker in a Str@.

If a chick can't dig me for the pragmatic dude I am, I can live without her. Shallow, high-maintenance women who are impressed by [& can be won over with] material things are T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

Wanna go to the prom with the guy who's stuck on himself & drives the PRS Dragon with a 10 top? Well, don't come to me after he's used you up & left you & your rug-rats for a younger chick 15 years down the road. By the time they figure out I could & can do things with my mongrel Str@ that he could never do with his PRS, it's too late.

Nice, Slo... nice!! About "the Barry" method, mine's about the same; works for me and like you, I'm well capable of setting a budget and walking away if the price goes over that.