Fender stratocaster

[sytharnia]

not only that but the tone of the guitar changes straight away ,comes alive .....basically its balls drop


bending strings on std pitch is brutal!


in the 80s they also had active pick ups , thats what zak wylde uses on his gats.
be pretty wicked if RR had actives, thered be some crazy harmonics and feedback

I gotta disagree with all of these .... I have never heard a guitar "come alive" when tuning down. For me its the exact opposite, it loses bite..yes its heavier but I have always hated the sound

bending a 25.5 scale guitar isn't brutal at all ..... you need to play more to strengthen your fingers

randy wouldn't have gone near active pick ups .... the one dimensional sound is so boring

[friday]

when the strat is unplugged and dropped 1/2 step the body resonates a whole lot more . its 3/4" longer than a gibson + thats alot of tension in that distance .

EVH SRV Hendrix malmsteen Iommi blackmore page Beck wouldnt be the same with out that 1/2 step tune , they certainly wouldnt bend the same

[barossadude]

For a nice live Strat sound - check out "Memoirs Of A Madman". there is live footage of Joe Holmes playing with the Ozzman & Im pretty impressed with the sound he is getting out his Strat playing Perry Mason - 'coz Zakk recorded that using drop D tuning on his bullseye Les Paul. (bashing the EMGs can be another thread lol) Then again, with footage on you-tube with Joe playing I Don't Know - the strat doesn't have that Les Paul bite.
Being a LP player I wouldn't know how to get a thicker/ heaver sound from a Strat for a live scenario. Distortion pedal turned up all the way to 11 perhaps?

[Paul Wolfe]

bending strings on std pitch is brutal!

Hmmm... I've been playing in standard pitch since 1980 and haven't ever had an issue with bending. I use 10's, by the way.

I have never heard a guitar "come alive" when tuning down. For me its the exact opposite, it loses bite..yes its heavier but I have always hated the sound

I was thinking the same thing. To me, coming alive means more clarity, which doesn't come from the bass end.

BFriday[/b], you are definitely entitled to your point of view on this subject, I simply don't see it the way you do. EVH tuned down because Dave couldn't hit the high notes. I'm pretty sure he'd sound like EVH regardless of 1/2 step tuning or not.

RR, SRV, EVH and Hendrix all have strong fingers from years of playing. Their bending is a result of time spent on the instrument. Randy never tuned down until the last year of his life and played for 19 years.

I'm sure Randy played Strats in lessons with his students as he'd trade guitars with them, but as to preference, we can only guess. Seeing as how he loved his Les Paul, I'd assume he preferred that type of guitar over any other.

[friday]

I dont mean a live gat , Im talking unplugged pieces of wood with scale lengths .

1/2 step strat ,the body resonates alot more , it comes alive , dont mean bass or clarity. theres no amp!

Ive got maple neck + gold lace + 10s = thats NEVER gonna sound heavy but it certainly feels better, the chunk of wood itself, and I dont like putting it back to std
LP has alot meat and cavities Id assume it resonates a whole lot

when 1/2 down , std tuning is at 1st fret but that 1st fret is scaled at 24" = 0.75" less than a gibson therefore less tension for the same note

I never knew tribute was from different shows until read on this site . the tuning on tribute changes thats whats got me about that record . also reel to reel tech has always used speed to manipulate recordings .
songs thruogh out 50 ,60s and 70s are sped up to fit the single or LP to fit radio time .
3 first bob marley records were sped up , he sounds like a ten yr old .
slap a finger against the turn table and his real voice steps in and the band tunes down, same thing for alot of rock n roll LPs

with tribute Ive tuned to 1 song and then the rest of the songs change , Ive always wondered if it was guitar change or recording tech to fit songs on LP ($ end of day money folk dont care).
I hear dives so assume its the V , now that I know its a collection of shows thats another angle.

[dannyahansen]

fender = 25.5" and gibson =24.75" ....... RR flying Vs are built to his spec using fender scale and tremolo so Id assume he practiced on fender before the Vs came into being . (He couldve used a gibson V with bigsby)

the 2 diff scale necks feel different so obviously it was a choice he made , the black V mightve been same .

imo he wanted to stay away from strat shape as all guitar slingers were using strats because of EVH

on the album cover the black gaurd strat is next to the Vs so it was carried around and its not the harold strat

http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/t ... y-rhoads-1 = this shows p dot being made .

the ovation is a nylon string classical , I dont think its the gat in the pic of RR in mirror (least I cant see ). the ovation headstock has unique shape

The polkadot V had a danelctro neck, so it was whatever scale that neck was originally made as. The PDV was also a 21 fret neck, so it may have originally been from a Tele-style guitar.

Randy's main guitar from '75 on was the Gibson Les Paul which he loved. Where did you get the info on the scale length of his Jacksons?

Not doubting, just curious.

PDV was 25" scale length.

I think the Jackson's were 25.5" probably because that is what Grover preferred. Not sure Randy was really savvy enough to know the difference in scale length beyond just that "this one feels different over my Les Paul". I recall for years in reading articles that he thought his Les Paul as a '64.

In the end we will probably never know, and it really doesn't matter. There are things I like about both scale lengths and things I don't like.

[dannyahansen]

I dont mean a live gat ,

Gat = guitar?

If so, would it not be a guit?

[dannyahansen]

I dont mean a live gat , Im talking unplugged pieces of wood with scale lengths .

1/2 step strat ,the body resonates alot more , it comes alive , dont mean bass or clarity. theres no amp!

Not sure this is true. This is coming from some one that has played on both for years form standard tuning down to a whole step down. I am of the opinion that what ever your guitar is it sounds the best, to my ears, at std tuning. Something happens when you tune it down and I am in the process of finding out exactly what is changing. I am wondering if a new pick up could be designed to compensate.

Ive got maple neck + gold lace + 10s = thats NEVER gonna sound heavy but it certainly feels better, the chunk of wood itself, and I dont like putting it back to std
LP has alot meat and cavities Id assume it resonates a whole lot

Define heavy?

when 1/2 down , std tuning is at 1st fret but that 1st fret is scaled at 24" = 0.75" less than a gibson therefore less tension for the same note

But no one has yet substantiated that more or less tension is a good or bad thing. About the only thing I can tell is that one is easier to play in one sense and harder in another.

I never knew tribute was from different shows until read on this site . the tuning on tribute changes thats whats got me about that record . also reel to reel tech has always used speed to manipulate recordings .
songs thruogh out 50 ,60s and 70s are sped up to fit the single or LP to fit radio time .
3 first bob marley records were sped up , he sounds like a ten yr old .
slap a finger against the turn table and his real voice steps in and the band tunes down, same thing for alot of rock n roll LPs

with tribute Ive tuned to 1 song and then the rest of the songs change , Ive always wondered if it was guitar change or recording tech to fit songs on LP $ end of day money folk dont care.

What we have is that most of Tribute is from the Cleveland show. Randy's solo is from Montreal and GBTR and NBM is from, what is believed to be, the South Hampton show from 1980.

I hear dives so assume its the V , now that I know its a collection of shows thats another angle.

No you can't assume that. When you hear the harmonics on "I Don't Know" and they go out of pitch is Randy using a V on that song?

Ill give you a hint it is his Les Paul.

Randy, for the most part, used the same guitars for the same songs from show to show. He did change a few guitars as he acquired more. E.g.,So in 1981 he used the Les Paul on "I Don't Know". In 1982 when he got his new Jackson he used that on "I Don't Know".

[Paul Wolfe]

I've heard Randy in a lesson play some amazing dives by bending his Les Paul neck... sounds almost like a floyd. Randy abused that instrument!

[mojopin70]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I remember Randy saying in an interview that he liked strat guitars but didn't used them live because they didn't sound fat enough.

Sure i think he had a strat with single coils, i have two strats one H SS and one with 3 seymour duncans . I think Van halen had the right idea , even Ritchie Blackmore got fed up of the single coil sound i think he was experimenting with qtr pounder seymour duncans ( or something similar) around the mid to late 70s i wonder why Randy didnt just mod his strat though...its the most versatile of instruments .

[frank]

Positive Randy didn't own any strat's. He so much as told me he didn't like the sound, although he did compliment mine. He was classy that way.

[friday]

.......I thought Gat was universal ??? its here and in OZ

theres the black face strat on the tribute album cover which is why I started thread partly then theres white face 1 from QR.

EVH plays those wolf gang things again I think theyre 25.5 , diff singers been thru VH but the basic platform and 1/2 step remained

I dont know if this is a zak site but he did well covering RR but his basic sound got to be painful to me , waaayyy too much pinches etc
the thing that intersets me about zak is his country thing , not talking about acoustics or ballads but hes into country bends and refers back to band of gypsies which is also a record kirk hamett goes on about.
theres some good ho down type songs on there.
Im into country guitar dare I say !

Ive tried neck bending ....screw that ! no bend is worth that much

modern day slackers go for big strings and of course mesa boogies , thats not the slack Im on about just that 1/2 step

playing 24.75 for a while then shifting to 25.5 is noticable . listening to tribute last night and just listening to tuning of each song and now knowing diff concerts ,theres no knowing if songs recording is sped up

Ive never seen tribute tab book and then thats some ones interpretation ...... probably wolf

[Paul Wolfe]

for reference, here's the photo from Tribute

I always hated the fact that in a "tribute" to Randy they put in a backwards shot of his most famous guitars looking like they're leftys...

[dannyahansen]

.......I thought Gat was universal ???

Rofl, I never even heard the term until you showed up. Oh well.

[dannyahansen]

I always hated the fact that in a "tribute" to Randy they put in a backwards shot of his most famous guitars looking like they're leftys...

That always drove me nuts too.