This is a photo of Jamie playing a very beaten up Stratocaster HH whilst playing a gig at Brighton Concorde.
moreDuring this performance, from the 1:52 mark you can clearly see Moses playing a Fender Blacktop Stratocaster with a maple fretboard. He uses this guitar in most of his performances.
moreI bought my Blacktop Strat a few years ago when they were a fairly new item. Mine is sonic blue, which is gorgeous (as opposed to the black shown here). Originally it was set up absolutely horrendously, but since I have had it set up properly. To me the neck feels a bit dead and the pickups are slightly too dark and muddy for my tastes. However, I think it sounds fantastic and beefy when tuned a whole step down.
I've used this strat on several recordings and played this guitar live countless times. As soon as I picked it up I instantly bonded with the neck, perfect and strat. Right now this guitar is strung with 10-52 but I do feel it would be better with 11-56, but that may just be me. The pickups in this guitar are very hot, pushing the front end of my fender champ into a nice natural overdrive when I crank the clean volume knob. My only complaint with this guitar is that the sustain isn't great and the pickups have become slightly micro-phonic with there age. But if I was asked a simple question "Would you buy this guitar again" I would as it gives me the ability to play almost any genre and it suits my playing style just right.
This guitar has a single coil/humbucker combination in within two humbuckers. I will personally say it's my go-to guitar for anything.
This is my favourite guitar that I have ever played or owned. Again I want another one. Upgraded this with an Original Floyd Rose and a Dimarzio Super Distortion in the bridge with a Dimarzio Air Norton in the neck. White Scratch Plate to make it a little classier. The perfect guitar for me! The one I would grab in a fire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ1e1kBKkJ0
Cleans up pretty nicely and when properly set up, is a joy to play.
Before getting this guitar, I was expecting an Epiphone Pro Electric guitar, due its capability to split coils and get more versality during my playing. Then I went to the store and the clerk told me to try this one. After this, I loved the tone and how easy was to play this guitar through the maple neck.
Now, three years later, maybe I would change the bridge pick-up, because it is not bringing my derised output (unpaired with the neck pickup). It is still in great shape and looking, recently I did some tweaks to the coils and it sounds with more natural compression.
For single coils lovers, I must admit that the single coil sound is about a 60-65% compared to a ceramic single coil. As humbucker, it has its full sound.
Update: Recently I did a modification to the pickups' iron bars, having middle strings with the max height and the rest in a ladder way. It made to drastically change the sound which I was finding, so it feels and sounds more natural and acoustic. In this way, the split coils sounds more like a legit single coil. However, would be good trying some pickups from the market.
The explanation to modify the pickups iron bars is based on the magnetic induction.
The iron bars help the windings of the pickups to transport more electrical current, so them let to catch more acoustic waves from the sound generated by the strings. The height of the pickups amplifies the acoustic waves produced by the sound.
Those two factors determine how much natural or electrical sounds your guitar, aside the windings, the type of pickup and the iron bars between the windings.
If the iron bars are within the windings, more current is allowed, and the guitar will sound more electric. Also, if the pickups are close to the strings, a natural clipping will occurs, due to the amplifying effect also it will up the volume. So, my suggest is to test how much affects these factors in your guitars pickups but first measure the actual height, if something doesn't like you want, you can step back.
This guitar has a noticiable change on volume when a split-coil to humbucker change occurs. There are may comments about this on internet, in my opinion, I think the bridge humbucker has a lower output compared to the neck humbucker.
By adjusting the heights to have balanced outputs between both humbuckers, the output when is switched to split coil result affected having less characteristic sound (as intended as a single coil).
However, one purpose that I do with this guitar and due the unbalanced outputs because the different features between the split coils and the humbuckers, is to use the bridge humbucker for overdrive and distortions, the split coils for semi-acoustic sounds, both humbuckers for overdriven rhythms and the neck humbucker for soloing and riffs.
I have played a few gigs with this great axe.
I simply love it, no more words to say actually!
Blacktop humbuckers were too dull, so I gutted the guitar and put Seymour Duncan Phat Cats for a P90 style and it rips.
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