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Old 08-12-2020, 08:04 PM
414CE Koa 414CE Koa is offline
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Default For those who switch between Les Paul's and Strats

Hello All,

I hope you are well! I had a quick question that I thought I would run by you. Maybe I am just terrible at life and guitars which is quite possible, but does anyone else have a hard time switching between something like say a Les Paul and Fender's? The only Fender I have is a Telecaster which I love although it takes me a long time to acclimate to it when I try to play it (And the neck dives which drives me nuts) and I feel I would like to add a Strat to the stable. I have never owned one and in fact other than the Tele I don't own any single coil guitars. I have tried playing a few Strats at Guitar Center and for the life of me I can not figure out where to put my right hand. Every position seems uncomfortable between the middle pickup getting in the way or the volume knob getting in the way. Any tips or tricks I might be missing?

Danke!
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Old 08-12-2020, 11:22 PM
M Sarad M Sarad is offline
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Somehow I got used to a Strat after playing Gibsons forever. That middle pickup was always in the way.It still bugs me occasionally , but I keep on playing.
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Old 08-12-2020, 11:28 PM
pieterh pieterh is offline
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I don’t have an issue with the middle pickup on my Strat...

I have never been a huge fan of the Les Paul. It’s an awesome guitar and I can fully understand its popularity though all the years but it doesn’t sit right in my hands, I find it heavy and my Fenders just seem to feel more balanced for me (stress on the “for me”).

A couple of years ago I bought a 335 Studio which quickly became one of my favourite stage guitars (studio for the stage eh?). Although I was used to the Fender scale length I quickly got used to the slightly shorter Gibson scale and I have no problem switching between the two in the rehearsal studio or on stage.

Ergonomically I find the controls of the Strat quite good - the volume knob sits in just about the perfect spot for volume swells, the whammy bar is out of the way if I’m not using it and as I said above, I have never had an issue with the middle pup.

I have two Telecasters as well (well, one and a G&L ASAT). These are fantastic guitars but one understands why Leo added the cuts to the body to make the more comfortable Strat etc. The controls are what they are, simple but effective, and placement isn’t an issue - but placement on the Strat is better imho.
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Old 08-13-2020, 04:29 AM
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raysachs raysachs is offline
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I’ve been playing strats longer than anything and they feel perfectly normal to me. And I can pick up nearly anything and play it. I find Gibson types feel a little crowded above the 12th fret just because the shorter scale seems to be more apparent up there where the frets start getting pretty close together. But at the moment, I have a strat and SG and switch between them all the time without any problem.

-Ray
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Old 08-13-2020, 04:44 AM
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You've kind of introduced a lot of factors at once. I'll try to address them. I spent twenty-five years with a Les Paul as my only guitar before I added a Fender. Gibson scale guitars are still my home. When it came time to add the Fender I spent a couple of weeks only allowing myself to play the Fender. That kind of helped me adapt to the Fender scale.

The questions of playing space, not running into pickups, and single versus humbucker, can be addressed by one change: You can go with a dual humbucker strat-ish guitar. You won't get the 2 & 4 pickup sounds (quack and latex), but the himbuckers will give you the expected space to play in. You might look into a particular strat-ish guitar, the Ernie Ball Steve Lukather sig. They make a two-humbucker version of it. The Luke Sig also has a smaller headstock which reduce free string length. I'm not sure you are aware of this, but free string length from tailpiece to tuner determines the apparent tension in bends. The shorter the free string length the softer the feel of the string in a bend. There are lots of new Sterling Luke Sigs floating around as well. The Sterling version costs less than $100.



More on my website, HERE.

Bob
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Old 08-13-2020, 06:02 AM
414CE Koa 414CE Koa is offline
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Hmmm I was afraid if that. I guess I am just terrible at life and guitars haha. I will keep plugging away at it embarrassing myself at Guitar Centers until I can get the right one/feeling. Your responses did give me hope that one day maybe I'll get it!
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Old 08-13-2020, 06:22 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Womack View Post
You've kind of introduced a lot of factors at once. I'll try to address them. I spent twenty-five years with a Les Paul as my only guitar before I added a Fender. Gibson scale guitars are still my home. When it came time to add the Fender I spent a couple of weeks only allowing myself to play the Fender. That kind of helped me adapt to the Fender scale.

The questions of playing space, not running into pickups, and single versus humbucker, can be addressed by one change: You can go with a dual humbucker strat-ish guitar. You won't get the 2 & 4 pickup sounds (quack and latex), but the himbuckers will give you the expected space to play in. You might look into a particular strat-ish guitar, the Ernie Ball Steve Lukather sig. They make a two-humbucker version of it. The Luke Sig also has a smaller headstock which reduce free string length. I'm not sure you are aware of this, but free string length from tailpiece to tuner determines the apparent tension in bends. The shorter the free string length the softer the feel of the string in a bend. There are lots of new Sterling Luke Sigs floating around as well. The Sterling version costs less than $100.



More on my website, HERE.

Bob
That would solve some of the OP's issues, but it raises the deeply philosophical question (akin to the tree falling in the forest if nobody's there to hear it) - is a strat with two humbuckers a strat? To me, it's not - a strat has a sound and it's not the sound of two humbuckers. but it really doesn't matter. It's just a matter of whether the guitar you're playing plays and sounds the way the player wants it to...

-Ray
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Old 08-13-2020, 06:29 AM
Steel and wood Steel and wood is offline
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I own a Fender Stratocaster and a Telecaster and each feels similarly comfortable to play. (Similar/same neck profile). I've never played a Fender guitar with a neck profile I didn't like. (Only occasion I played a Custom Shop Relic Telecaster in my local music shop that I took off the wall which unexpectantly had a neck the size of a baseball bat).

I hold my pick closer to the tip (with little tip showing) than most when I'm picking and I strum using the round corner of the pick with not a whole lot of the pick showing also, so the middle pickup on my Stratocaster never gets in the way. (Probably pick/strum between the middle and neck pickup when I think about it anyway). It's something I've never really thought about, but I get that the middle pickup on a Stratocaster could get in the way of some players who dig in with their picks or hold their picks closer to the top with a lot of their pick showing, which is not me.

I don't own a Les Paul (not interested) but I do own a Samick Greg Bennett Royale semi which I'm guessing has a Gibson Les Paul type neck, and no big deal.

Whatever you decide, good luck!

Last edited by Steel and wood; 08-13-2020 at 07:04 AM.
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Old 08-13-2020, 07:53 AM
Paleolith54 Paleolith54 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Womack View Post
You've kind of introduced a lot of factors at once. I'll try to address them. I spent twenty-five years with a Les Paul as my only guitar before I added a Fender. Gibson scale guitars are still my home. When it came time to add the Fender I spent a couple of weeks only allowing myself to play the Fender. That kind of helped me adapt to the Fender scale.

The questions of playing space, not running into pickups, and single versus humbucker, can be addressed by one change: You can go with a dual humbucker strat-ish guitar. You won't get the 2 & 4 pickup sounds (quack and latex), but the himbuckers will give you the expected space to play in. You might look into a particular strat-ish guitar, the Ernie Ball Steve Lukather sig. They make a two-humbucker version of it. The Luke Sig also has a smaller headstock which reduce free string length. I'm not sure you are aware of this, but free string length from tailpiece to tuner determines the apparent tension in bends. The shorter the free string length the softer the feel of the string in a bend. There are lots of new Sterling Luke Sigs floating around as well. The Sterling version costs less than $100.



More on my website, HERE.

Bob
I think Eric Johnson screws his middle pickup all the way down, so that's another option.
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Old 08-13-2020, 08:45 AM
FrankHudson FrankHudson is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 414CE Koa View Post
Hello All,

I hope you are well! I had a quick question that I thought I would run by you. Maybe I am just terrible at life and guitars which is quite possible, but does anyone else have a hard time switching between something like say a Les Paul and Fender's?

The only Fender I have is a Telecaster which I love although it takes me a long time to acclimate to it when I try to play it (And the neck dives which drives me nuts) and I feel I would like to add a Strat to the stable. I have never owned one and in fact other than the Tele I don't own any single coil guitars. I have tried playing a few Strats at Guitar Center and for the life of me I can not figure out where to put my right hand. Every position seems uncomfortable between the middle pickup getting in the way or the volume knob getting in the way. Any tips or tricks I might be missing?

Danke!
Switching between unlike electric guitars? Yes I suppose it could be a problem for some. I own a bunch of them and have for almost a couple of decades, so it's become natural to switch between guitars. If one wants to play different guitars and then finds that the switching is an issue, the way around that is to keep doing it and the problem may well go away.

Odd thing, but I've always thought of the Telecaster and the Les Paul as siblings (though the Les Paul Jr is even more so).It's not just that they were roughly contemporaneous responses to each other either. Some of my Teles have neck humbuckers, and a P90 pickup LP can fake the Telecaster sound as well as any.

Telecasters with neck drive are fairly rare. Odd that you have one. Must have an extremely light body. If you don't like that, don't even think of a SG type guitar (grin). The standard mitigation is a suede strap which grips the shoulder and keeps the headstock from pointing south like an upside down compass. Or you could always do a Bigsby bridge conversion (heavy metal equipment down by the heel = no neck dive).

As to playing comfort, experiences differ, but many feel that the Stratocaster is the most comfortable design for an electric ever, particularly when played while standing. So you are in a minority, but you're the first audience the guitar has to please so that's immaterial. I love the proximity of the volume knob on Teles and Strats for volume swells, but if gets in your way you could consider getting lower replacement knobs that fit the pot shafts. Something along the design of the Gibson "Speed Knob" would be lower profile.

It's already been mentioned that you can lower the middle pickup. Some players make less use of that one, so it's an easy fix. I use it a fair amount, so I like to keep in in balance with the others, but I see a lot of Strats where the pickups are closer to the strings than I keep mine. If you lower all three pickups you generally get lower volume (so, turn the amp up, that's what the loud knob is for!) but you also get a little more clarity.

Folks have already started to recommend other two pickup guitars. If you hanker for a Fender feel and a yet variety from your Tele you could consider the guitars that Leo Fender considered an advance from the Stratocaster (the marketplace eventually disagreed with him, but again, you're not "The Marketplace, you're you). These two later 50s designs: the Jaguar and the Jazzmaster are two single-coil pickup guitars, and they work well sitting or standing. The regular Jaguar takes some adjusting in setup as well as by the player, due to the 50s style designed to move bridge and the short scale and shallow neck angle, so I'll skip that for now, though the Johnny Marr signature model addresses those concerns. The Jazzmaster has a vary nice lower cost Squier J Mascis signature model. To my mind it needs no mods. Two pickups (the J Mascis' model's are a bit more P90-ish than the original Jazzmasters pickups, but the P90 sound is a great valid sound) and if the volume knob's in the way, even with space between the the two pickups to pick, you can go with lower profile knobs.

The Jazzmaster is still considered an off the beaten track oddball, but the range of players and sounds they obtain is as great as for any guitar model: avant-noise, punky fuzz, surf, indie jangle, even jazz. The only genre that isn't represented is blues (the original bridges and shallow bridge/neck angle didn't cotton to string bending) but the J Mascis model has no limitations in that regard.
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Old 08-13-2020, 10:14 AM
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Just offering options...

Oh, and the tree falling in the forest thing has changed over time. When I was in recording in school back in the jurrastic period (1980) the answer was "Yes," because the definition of sound was simply "compressions and rarifactions of air."

Once Schrödinger's paradox in quantum mechanics (Schrödinger's Cat) became popular that definition changed to require a listener, ie. Webster's current: "mechanical radiant energy that is transmitted by longitudinal pressure waves in a material medium (such as air) and is the objective cause of hearing."

However, in my opinion, the joke is on Schrödinger because by this application of his paradox one can't really tell whether it makes a sound or not unless one is there to hear it! So how can one demand a listener in the definition when the presence of the listener may alter the results of the experiment?

Think on...

Bob
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Old 08-13-2020, 01:45 PM
Dru Edwards Dru Edwards is offline
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Have you tried adjusting the height of your strap so that your right hand feels comfortable? It's possible you need to raise it a little higher ... doesn't look as cool as a lowly slung guitar but may make it more playable.
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Old 08-13-2020, 01:54 PM
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If you can’t get comfortable with a Stratocaster, try out a few Jazzmasters. You can get one anywhere from $299 and up to the sky from there. They are supremely comfortable playing seated, and run around 7.5 to 8.0lbs. So not too much guitar to handle.
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Old 08-15-2020, 07:46 AM
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Dear OP, perhaps less thinking and more playing will change things ? Call me an old fuddy duddy but honestly back in the stone age and (maybe it was just me) BUT it seems as if thinking about the specifications and logistics of what switching guitars meant, was not even in the conscious picture.

Honestly I understand that all the specifics factor into how a guitar feels and sounds BUT Way back when we just picked up the guitar (acoustic or electric) and played and did not think about any of things that seem to occupy the situation now days.

Honestly I never even knew or cared about specific nut or neck width numbers, scale lengths, OR even style of guitar. I could of course visually see the difference but never thought about the fact that it was a drednought or concert or jumbo, never thought whether it was an LP or Fender style . Honestly it was just either an acoustic or an electric, and just grab em and play .......just some thoughts
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Old 08-15-2020, 08:03 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Womack View Post
Just offering options...

Oh, and the tree falling in the forest thing has changed over time. When I was in recording in school back in the jurrastic period (1980) the answer was "Yes," because the definition of sound was simply "compressions and rarifactions of air."

Once Schrödinger's paradox in quantum mechanics (Schrödinger's Cat) became popular that definition changed to require a listener, ie. Webster's current: "mechanical radiant energy that is transmitted by longitudinal pressure waves in a material medium (such as air) and is the objective cause of hearing."

However, in my opinion, the joke is on Schrödinger because by this application of his paradox one can't really tell whether it makes a sound or not unless one is there to hear it! So how can one demand a listener in the definition when the presence of the listener may alter the results of the experiment?

Think on...

Bob
I never much liked cats anyway. They mess up my breathing - I've always been convinced they were trying to kill me.

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