Fender Statocaster, USA -vs- Mex. "Remember the Alamo&q

mrblanche · Jammin' Hot Joined: 28 Dec 2005 Posts: 117

I once took a French Composition class, and the professor complained all the time about a student who never put in paragraph breaks. He finally took to calling him Monsieur Pavee...Mr. Paving Stone! One big block of print.

1bassleft · Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2006 2:54 am Post subject:

, I like it. I'll remember it for a punctuationally-challenged chum of mine.

GitBoxKurt · Joined: 11 Jan 2006 Posts: 4

Sorry glw about too big a block without paragraphs...

and thank you to 1bassleft for your nice input back regarding my tuners on my Mexi Strat. Since they're not so likely to be any vintage, I won't be so hesitant to replace them then, but...

Regarding my tuners, I was reading about the difference tuners can make with tone, see "How to Make Your Electric Guitar Sound Great" by Dan Erlewine.
According to that book, the heavier the tuners, the 'darker' the tone tends to be, and the lighter the tuners, the more 'chimier' the tone.

I like the chimeyness of the tuners I have, but lack a ferrul on one, so likely will try replacing that (guitar's new to me, used), and if it tends to be a tuning hassle then, I'll replace the tuners, but will try to go with something light, so to keep the chimeyness it has.

Back to about the weight of tuners affecting the tone though,...Here are the weights of popular tuners, not necessarily strat, but for others too, Les Pauls, etc., too...

Grover Rotomatic 8.8 oz.
Schaller M-6 7.7 oz.
Gibson/Schaller M6 8.6 oz.
Kluson Deluxe 3-on-a-side, (plastic keystone knob) 4.8 oz.
New Kluson 6-in-line 5.9 oz.
Gotoh Kluson Locking Tuner 4.95 oz.
Old Kluson 6-in-line 5.0 oz.
Sperzel 5.4 oz.
Grover Imperial 10.3 oz.

Note, per that book by Dan Erlewine (which I'd recommend highly, named above): Lighter, brighter authentic tone was said to be the result of someone replacing their Les Paul tuners with new Kluson-style tuners, rather than the heavier Grover Rotomatics that someone else had replaced the originals with.

Seems the info is hinting at all guitars though, Strats included, the lighter the tuners, the lighter, brighter the sound, the heavier the tuner, the darker... so, depending on what sound is sought by the owner, hopefully the above weights of popular tuners and relative info I came across will be of help.

In replacing tuners, the height of the tuning post, and hole, can affect the string angle. Generally more angle seems desireable, but then again, that can affect whammy bar with the strings being possibly more apt to hang up on the nut, depending on what type nut.

I have some tuners (on another guitar) I'm thinking of replacing mine with, but think their lower post height would create too big a string angle from the nut, creating drag when whammying (standard mexi strat nut), so might just try to get a ferrul to replace my missing one, or perhaps replace the tuners with higher posts than what I happen to have, not sure what brand, but seems a light-weight to keep the chime.

Don't mean to be so verbose, sorry, but at least I paragraphed, okay glw? Thanks again much, 1bassleft, and others. Hope this info is useful to some of you. ~GitBoxKurt

GitBoxKurt · Joined: 11 Jan 2006 Posts: 4

To MrBlanche. Glad I paragraphed this 2nd submittal (so as to not be in the Monsieur Pavee...Mr. Paving Stone! category).

Yes, paragraphing, and condensing info can be challenging to some, and is certainly something I need to work on, but at least I know now of others' difficulty reading that 1st big block of text I sent. Sorry 'bout that.

Thanks for the reminder though, without getting nasty at me.

Harsh criticism usually isn't necessary, but gentle reminders or mention as you (and others did) is nice, and usually would get better results than jumping on someone's case, or name calling, so thanks for the civil mention, so I can try to improve and not be lumped into that Monsieur Pavee...Mr. Paving Stone category.

Happy playing.

mrblanche · Jammin' Hot Joined: 28 Dec 2005 Posts: 117

As a former English teacher, reading almost anything on the net is painful to me. I try not to get judgmental about it!

Paragraphing, and almost anything else requiring skill, is a matter of practice. That goes for guitar playing, writing, driving, or almost anything worth doing.

I have worked on several web sites, and it's a constant pain trying to get people to write as if it mattered. Which, by the way, it does. Almost all web sites and forums and BBS's have readers who are sight-challenged, and the programs they use deal very poorly with "non-standard" writing, capitalization, punctuation, spelling, etc. Imagine trying to read music in which every composer used his own rules for notes, timing, etc.

As to the tuners...I have a hard time imagining the weight of a tuner would have any effect on the the tone, but that would be something interesting to try to quantify in a scientific manner.

1bassleft · Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 3:19 am Post subject:

Hi Kurt, sorry if you felt jumped on. You're very welcome in and don't be too thin-skinned about para-comments. People who leave their caps lock on get it in the neck in every forum I've seen Smile

. And I've got MrBlanche's quip in mind for a friend of mine whose emails and posts cause a grammar checker to smoke out in seconds. I get funny headaches from reading him.

Back to the topic, though, I'm often sceptical about these claims surrounding the minor components of a guitar (or amp, for that matter)and their amazing effect on tone. In order of importance I'd put tone factors as (ignoring human stuff)
Pickup electronics
Pickup placement
Body wood
String materials and construction
Neck and f/board wood
thru-neck, set-neck, bolt-on-neck, Cheborneck

then a hotch-potch of really minor things that may have a tone bearing (never tried 'em but I imagine SS frets are tangier than nickel "silver") or sustain improvements like a massive bridge. Then there are the barking theories like "fenders sound better with the truss adjuster at the heel rather than the headstock" and such like. Such claims are rarely backed up in a solid, scientific way.

I don't know if my point that the Mex tuners are not classic components caused offence, but it's a simple statement so I hope not. Apart from labour costs, the usual savings are made by costcutting in the components. The same goes for other countries and other brands. Some people do go to the trouble of replacing parts but (with the exception of the pups and pots, jack) it's mostly a matter of functionality rather than tone mystique. Grovers, Gotohs and (esp) Schallers are better-working tuners than the stock issue. Extra weight will have such a miniscule sound effect I wonder if this idea has been blind A/B'd?

lee_UK · Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 6:16 pm Post subject:

Have you noticed something.. every post,

on here, has lots and lots.

And lots of paragraphs in odd places.

Making,

Things very easy to read.....

Sometimes. Laughing

any chance of some nice big 22 point font sized letters for the spec wearers.

1bassleft · Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2006 3:29 am Post subject:

I'd written
a list
that's why, you
eedjit, Lee Laughing

Aah, I was tired out until I read that. Cracked me up

mrblanche · Jammin' Hot Joined: 28 Dec 2005 Posts: 117

I expressed an opinion up above about the effect of tuners on the tone of an electric guitar. Mind you, it's just opinion, so now I'm really going to step in it.

It has been said that when it comes to comparing building guitars to building ships, the solid-body electric guitar is the ship-building equivalent of a dugout canoe. If so, I guess that would make the National 3-Cone Resonator the fully-rigged clipper ship.

Some say that essentially, if your soldi-body electric guitar is stiff enough to hold its tune, nothing much on it affects the tone, other than the pickups and the pots, which can have some effect. Others wax poetic on the relative merits of various woods, glues, finishes, even shapes and electrical cavities.

So...is there anyone who has ever scientifically quantified all this with oscilloscopes, etc., or are we all sitting around (metaphorically) discussing whether a wine is "presumptiuous" or "oakey?"

1bassleft · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 3:38 am Post subject:

Blanche, not only would I tend to lean more to what you're saying than the opposite (I do draw the line at plywood, but of course ply guitars come with lousy electrics), but so would a very decent builder like John Kavanagh. I 'phoned him once when I was thinking of making my own bass (job # 4352) and I said something dumbish like "I'll probably go for swamp ash, because the early Fenders..."

He kindof cut in and said I might as well choose a wood for ease of finishing (which swamp ash does not score highly on) because, in his opinion, it didn't matter. As a scientist, I'm keen on proper measurements rather than blah. I do know a guy who had the run of his physics lab and Dewar flasks so he checked out the effect of cryogenically cooling valves/tubes. To paraphrase a British comedy show, "Computer said no" - much as I suspected it would.

On TBL bass forum, a lot of typing was generated over Monster cable/George L/Canare/makes no difference. You had the physicists saying "capacitance blah impedance blah frequency cutoff 58kHz blah only dogs notice blah" and some players "enhanced mids blah fuller bass blah really cuts through blah"

Then a psychologist (whatever happened to dumb bass players?) stepped in that it's a well-known that people who fork out a lot of dosh for something will "hear" the sonic improvement because they're damned well not going to let themselves realize that they've just blown money on nothing. So you get the $500 mahogany hifi knobs and $200 AC cable (both true). You also get the true story of the pesky A+R man who wouldn't stay out of the band's studio for their debut album. So the engineers and producer assigned him four unused channels. He spent days pushing faders and tweaking eq shouting "Oh yeah, baby, that's it - that's it".

Said psycho had carried out an experiment with local musicians who all swore by cable x and had them play through various cables on a blind test. The number who correctly identified their lead was nothing more than statistical chance. The thread died almost immediately.

Still, I have to say that, if nothing else, the thru-neck mahogany perhaps encourages me to play differently to the bolt on alder. It just (bad science alert Exclamation

) feels different.

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