82,446
edits
Stratocaster: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
no edit summary
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
| Line 5: | Line 5: | ||
So what is under the hood? The Stratocaster’s components are modularised and standardised for simple production-line manufacture and this has the happy advantage of easy maintenance later. Almost all of the replacements can be easily replaced or upgraded. Those that can’t easily be replaced — frets, for example — don’t ''need'' to be: It is cheaper just to replace a neck outright (though as the Strat has moved from mass-market product to high-end antique, that calculus has shifted somewhat. You can refret a stratocaster: it just normally costs more than buying a whole replacement neck. | So what is under the hood? The Stratocaster’s components are modularised and standardised for simple production-line manufacture and this has the happy advantage of easy maintenance later. Almost all of the replacements can be easily replaced or upgraded. Those that can’t easily be replaced — frets, for example — don’t ''need'' to be: It is cheaper just to replace a neck outright (though as the Strat has moved from mass-market product to high-end antique, that calculus has shifted somewhat. You can refret a stratocaster: it just normally costs more than buying a whole replacement neck. | ||
In any case there is manufacture — one set of design imperatives — and then maintenance and adjustment — | In any case there is ''manufacture'' — one set of design imperatives — and then maintenance and adjustment — a different set. On the Stratocaster, they are simpatico.<ref>Legal eagles: to bring this back to you, consider the design imperatives in ''[[negotiating]]'' a [[contract]], versus those of ''using that contract once completed''. See: [[purpose]]</ref>The stuff the player needs to be able to adjust “on the fly” — the tuning machines, pick-up selector, volume and tone controls and, of course, the tremolo bar — are intuitive, well-placed, and don’t get in the way — they are well “signified”, in design argot — and the utility of the instrument — its “affordances” — are uniformly excellent, and in many cases radical. For example, the offset cut-aways allowing access to the upper frets; the six-in-a-row tuning machines on the upper side of the headstock,<ref>Bigsby pioneered both the cutaway and the six-in-a-line tuners in 1948 on a guitar for Billy Bird, but it looks ''stupid''. the Stratocaster is just ''perfect''. | ||
[[File:Bigsby.png|150px|thumb|left|Bigsby ''Solid-body No. 2''. Pioneering? Yes. Cool? ''No''.]] | [[File:Bigsby.png|150px|thumb|left|Bigsby ''Solid-body No. 2''. Pioneering? Yes. Cool? ''No''.]] | ||
</ref> and the contoured body making the experience way more comfortable for your forearm resting on the guitar body, and at the same time taking out quite a lot of weight from the solid wooden body. The Stratocaster is appreciably — and a gigging musician will tell you, that is ''literally'' appreciated — lighter than its un-contoured forebear, the [[Telecaster]]. | </ref> and the contoured body making the experience way more comfortable for your forearm resting on the guitar body, and at the same time taking out quite a lot of weight from the solid wooden body. The Stratocaster is appreciably — and a gigging musician will tell you, that is ''literally'' appreciated — lighter than its un-contoured forebear, the [[Telecaster]]. | ||