Do you love electric guitars?

Picked up this one (hasn't arrived yet):



I know it's a bit rock and roll (especially in red) but I'd been looking for a Strat Plus for ages and they'd been going for silly money (approaching £600)on ebay. This one only went for £450 (including p&p)!

Matt.

 

A propper Fender I assume?

They humbuckers ?


GTM

 

Indeed it is a proper USA Fender - a Strat Plus (which they don't make anymore but which were considered to be one of the finest) - Schaller tuners, Wilkonson trem and roller nut. The pickups are Fender Lace Sensors - single coils but with a decent output and little or no hum - not a fan of humbuckers on a Strat to be honest - a bridge humbucker can sound good but means you can't get that 'position 4' out of phase twangy Knopfler sound that I'm rather fond of.

Matt.

 

Hi Matt.

It looks like a nice guitar.

I used to have a Strat Plus (in white, with a maple neck).

I particularly used to appreciate the Schaller tuners - I've never found locking tuners that I liked as much. The design of the nut is really good too.

If you find you want a bit more lead-oomph you can always exchange the bridge lace sensor for a red lace sensor, which has a higher output.

Soundwise, I found it very similar to a normal strat, but better for noise/hum rejection.

The locking strap seemed like a great idea too.

Hope you really enjoy it.

Chris

 

Strat is 50yrs old this year (according to Top Gear on Sunday )

 

Well it has arrived and it looks and feels wonderful and acoustically it sounds great (always a good test of an electric is how it sounds unamplified - a decent one should be quite loud acoustically).

So what am I going to plug it into? Well, literally 5 minutes before the guitar arrived a brand spanking new Gibson Goldtone valve amp was delivered! It's a GA15RV - been after one of these for ages but they are very thin on the ground - as well as operating as a 15 watt (which will be very loud) you can switch it to triode operation which drops the output down to 6 watts - very useful when you want to get the magic of overdriving the power amp valves at a house friendly volume. Very retro looking - see below



The best bit is that there is a guitar shop in London (Peter Cooks) that have got a whole batch of Goldtones in at silly prices - apparently they're being discontinued - for example - the GA15RV I bought retails at £899 - Peter Cooks are selling them for £350!! They have the whole Goldtone range including bigger 30watt 2x12 and 1x10+1x12 combos plus a head and a cab - all at ridiculous reductions and these amps are the business so if any of you fancy a top end guitar valve amp you know where to go.

Matt.