The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of double-cutaway electric guitar designed between 1952 and 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, Rex Gallion, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has continuously manufactured the Stratocaster since 1954.
The guitar's distinctive body shape was revolutionary for the mid-1950s. The heavily contoured back was designed for better comfort while playing. The elongated top horn changes the balance when played standing up with a strap compared to the preceding model, the Fender Telecaster. While the original release of the Stratocaster included a vibrato system, Stratocasters without it ("hardtails") were added to the portfolio in March 1955. The modular nature of the guitar, with its easily removable components, enabled players and luthiers to perform numerous modifications to their own guitars, changing out pickups or necks to fit the needs of the player. All of these design elements were popularized and later became industry standards due to the success of the Stratocaster.
Many prominent rock musicians have been associated with the Stratocaster for use in studio recording and live performances, most notably Jimi Hendrix, David Gilmour, Eric Clapton, Buddy Holly, George Harrison, Mark Knopfler, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Johnson, John Frusciante, Kevin Parker, Yngwie Malmsteen and Jeff Beck.
The Fender Stratocaster is one of the most iconic electric guitar models of all time, and along with the Gibson Les Paul, Gibson SG, and Fender Telecaster, it is one of the most-often emulated electric guitar shapes. It is a patented design, and "Stratocaster" and "Strat" are Fender trademarks. Therefore, imitations by other manufacturers must be shaped slightly differently, and are sometimes called S-Type or ST-type guitars, while the term "Superstrat" typically refers to third-party Stratocaster look-alikes from the 1980s onwards with innovative features such as new types of bridges or pick-up configurations. Some of these features were subsequently also offered on Fender Stratocaster models or those made under the Fender-owned brand, Squier, and the Superstrat term is sometimes also applied to these Fender and Squier models.
The Stratocaster was named by Don Randall and the name inspired by the stratosphere.
Overall design The archetypal Stratocaster is a solid-body electric guitar with a contoured asymmetric double-cutaway body with an extended upper horn; the body is usually made from alder or ash. The neck is usually made from maple and attached to the body with screws, and has a distinctive headstock with six tuning pegs mounted inline along a single side; the fingerboard may be maple or another wood, e.g., rosewood, and has at least twenty-one frets. The Stratocaster's body is front-routed for electronics, which are mounted in a plastic pickguard. Most Stratocasters have three single-coil pickups, a pickup selector switch, one volume control and two tone controls. Bridges generally come in two designs: the more common pivoting "tremolo" bridges, and the less common "hardtail" fixed bridge. Both types of bridge have six individually adjustable saddles whose height and intonation can be set independently. Early models of the Stratocaster came with a removable metal cover plate that fit over the bridge. The plate tended to get in the way of important playing techniques such as palm muting, so many players removed it. By the late 1970s, Fender stopped shipping guitars with the bridge cover plate, though some more modern reissue and custom shop models still have them. The innovative tremolo system is balanced by springs mounted in a rear cavity. The output jack is mounted in a recess in the front of the guitar body. Many different colors have been available. The Stratocaster's scale length is .
Fender released countless variations of the Stratocaster over the years that differed in pickup configuration, types of wood, tuning pegs and modifications to the electronics.
History
1954–1984
The Stratocaster was the first Fender guitar to feature three pickups and a spring tension vibrato system, as well as being the first Fender with a contoured body. The Stratocaster's sleek, contoured body shape (officially referred to by Fender as the "Original Contour Body") differed from the flat, squared edge design of the Telecaster.
The first model offered for sale was the 1954 Fender Stratocaster. The design featured a solid, deeply contoured ash body, a 21-fret one-piece maple neck with black dot inlays, and Kluson SafeTi String post tuning machines. The color was originally a two-color, dark brown-to-golden yellow sunburst pattern, although custom color guitars were produced (An example is Eldon Shamblin's gold Stratocaster, dated June 1954).
In 1956, Fender began using alder for sunburst and most custom-color Stratocaster bodies. Ash needed grain filler and sanding blocks for contour sanding, though it was still used on translucent blonde instruments.
In 1957, the neck shape took a more "V-shaped" feel with deeper body carves on the guitar a noted feature.
In 1959, Fender introduced a thick Brazilian rosewood fretboard to the Stratocaster, now colloquially referred to as a "slab-board". This thicker board lasted until 1962, when the fretboard was made with a thinner 'veneer' of Brazilian Rosewood. Nearly all of the 1960s models of the Stratocaster had a rosewood fretboard, and maple fretboards would not be re-introduced in large numbers until 1970.
In 1960, the available custom colors were standardized with a paint chip chart, many of which were Duco automobile lacquer colors from DuPont available at an additional 5% cost. Inter-departmental DuPont support research provided a flexible basecoat for their wood applications.
A single-ply, eight-screw hole white pickguard (changed to an 11-hole three-ply in late 1959) held all electronic components except the recessed jack plate, facilitating assembly.
The 1963 Fender Stratocaster shows a change in design from the 1950s models including Clay Dot inlays, a 3 tone sunburst finish on an Alder body and Kluson tuners.
To summarize, the specific features in the evolution of the Fender Stratocaster between 1954 and 1979 included:
Neck/fretboard
1954–1959, one piece maple necks (including fretboard); 1959–1962, thick Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra) fretboard known as a "slab-board"; 1962–1966, thin Brazilian rosewood fretboard known as a "veneer-board"; 1966–1969, Indian rosewood or optional separate laminated "maple cap" fretboards; Pickup selector 1954–1977, three way pickup selector switch; 1977–present, five way pickup selector switch. Tuners 1954–1967, Kluson tuners; 1967–1982, Fender "F" Tuners Back plate 1954–1971, 4 bolt back plate at neck joint; 1971–1981, 3 bolt back plate with MicroTilt neck tilt or angle adjuster and "Bullet" truss rod nut; Logo and headstock 1954–1964, Spaghetti logo on the headstock; 1964–1967, gold "transition" logo on the headstock with small writing of the word "Stratocaster"; 1965–1981, headstock enlarged on the treble side, now matching the Jazzmaster and Jaguar 1968–1982, black CBS logo with larger printed "STRATOCASTER" on the headstock;
Leo Fender made very few alterations to the basic design of the Fender Stratocaster (and the Telecaster for that matter) up until 1965 when the company was sold to CBS Instruments. For example, the bridge cover on the Fender Stratocaster was often taken off by players and either disposed or kept in the case. Despite full knowledge of this, Leo Fender always provided the new Fender guitars with a bridge cover to prevent corrosion on the bridge parts.
After 1965, the Fender company, under the control of CBS Instruments, saw a drop in sales of the Fender Stratocaster to customers. The Fender Jazzmaster had been promoted as the flagship guitar in the Fender line. As such, the resurgence of the Fender Stratocaster is credited to the arrival of Jimi Hendrix in the late 1960s. His remarkable playing style and musical prowess led to a dramatic increase in sales and thrust the Stratocaster into musical history as the premier electric guitar. As they followed Jimi Hendrix's popularity on TV, CBS asked for the word Stratocaster on the headstock be made larger so that people could read the model name easily.
Between the years 1954 and 1979, nearly a quarter of the Fender Stratocasters manufactured were made in a single year, in 1979. The increased 1970s production levels saw a gradual departure from the high quality instruments of the 1960s and the introduction of Japanese manufacturers into the market.
The Stratocaster features three single coil pickups, with the output originally selected by a 3-way switch. Guitarists soon discovered that by positioning the switch in between the first and second position, both the bridge and middle pickups could be selected, and similarly, the middle and neck pickups could be selected between the 2nd and 3rd position. When two pickups are selected simultaneously, they are wired in parallel which leads to a slight drop in output as slightly more current is allowed to pass to the ground. In newer guitars, since the middle pickup is almost always wired in reverse (and with its magnets having opposite polarity, this combination also being referred to as RWRP), the intermediate positions create a spaced humbucking pair, which significantly reduces 50/60 cycle hum. Fender introduced a five-way selector in 1977, making such pickup combinations more stable.
The "quacky" or "doinky" tone of the bridge and middle pickups in parallel, popularized by players such as Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, David Gilmour, Rory Gallagher, Mark Knopfler, Bob Dylan, Eric Johnson, Nile Rodgers, George Harrison, Scott Thurston, Ronnie Wood, John Mayer, Ed King, Robert Cray, can be obtained by using the pickup selector in position 2; similarly the middle and neck pickups in parallel can be obtained in position 4.
This setting's characteristic tone is not caused by any electronic phenomenon—early Stratocasters used identical pickups for all positions. This "in between" tone is caused by phase cancellation due to the physical position of the pickups along the vibrating string. The neck and middle pickups are each wired to a tone control that incorporates a single, shared tone capacitor, whereas the bridge pickup, which is slanted towards the high strings for a more trebly sound, has no tone control for maximum brightness.
On many modern Stratocasters, the first tone control affects the neck pickup; the second tone control affects the middle and bridge pickups; on some Artist Series models (e.g. Buddy Guy signature guitar), the first tone control is a presence circuit that cuts or boosts treble and bass frequencies, affecting all the pickups; the second tone control is an active midrange booster that boosts the midrange frequencies up to 25dB (12dB on certain models) to produce a fatter humbucker-like sound.
Dick Dale was a prominent Stratocaster player who also collaborated with Leo Fender in developing the Fender Showman amplifier. In the early 1960s, the instrument was also championed by Hank Marvin, guitarist for the Shadows, a band that originally backed Cliff Richard and then produced instrumentals of its own. In December 1964, George Harrison and John Lennon acquired Stratocasters and used them for "Help!", and onwards. The double unison guitar solo on "Nowhere Man", was played by Harrison and Lennon on their new Stratocasters.
After Jimi Hendrix started using the Stratocaster, Eric Clapton started using it as well, on famous songs such as ”Layla”, “Wonderful Tonight” and ”Cocaine”, playing his famous 2-tone sunburst with maple fretboard Stratocaster Brownie and his famous black Strat made from multiple ‘50s Stratocasters Blackie.