Help me love my strat......

Hey guys and gals,
I have been playing for many years and I just can not bond with a strat.
I have gone thru maybe 10 strats in the last 20 years, I buy one and like it for about a month or two and just go back to my tele or les paul and then I end up selling the strat and in about a year later I go in heat for another strat.
Anyone else have this problem?
I like alot of music that the artist are using strats,but for some reason I just can not bond with a strat for any length of time. they start sounding not right to my ears or something...
Maybe I'am just not a strat kinda guy( but I keep trying) and can't admit it.
I'am by no means downing strats at all I want to love them but can't
I need help!!!!

Eno

I can sympathize with you somewhat. Always loved strats but once I got my Tele, they didn't sound as good for some reason. That was until I got a very early 1980's Fiesta Red ESP built Strat that the prior owner had swapped the electronics for USA Fender, put two push/pull pots in to split the neck and bridge together while the other gives the bridge a mid-boost tone knob. The middle pup has no tone pot wired. This strat gets every tone I can think of including a very realistic Tele sound. It is light weight (7.2lbs) Alder body and the fit and finish are amazing. I now have a Strat I will not get rid of.

Guess I am saying that you just have to find the right one? :confused:

I've got a '96 American Standard and a recent partscaster. When I plug in the '96, I wish I was playing my Tele or Les Paul instead. The partscaster--Warmoth, Klein S-5s, and Callaham--resonates acoustically and electrically unlike any of my other guitars. Maybe it's the sum of the parts or maybe it's that I sourced it, sprayed it and put it together. I don't know. All that said, if you keep going back to the Strat, there's probably one out there for you. On the other hand, nothing wrong with the Tele or Les Paul.

i am definitely just plain more comfortable playing my tele. that includes the overall picture: sound, feel, how it wears over my shoulder. it is the only guitar i have that lets me forget about playing it WHILE i'm playing it, so to speak. like when i'm singing and playing. and i was a strat man for awhile, only got my tele so i could play something different while i was modding my strat. but the tele sank it's hooks in me deep.

all that said, i do on occasion play one of my two strats, sometimes for kicks but usually to get a specific sound on a specific tune. one is stock (not for long), the other has a really hot set of humbuckers in it and makes a "shredder" type of sound.

so, i guess i'm in the camp that says ; if don't need a strat, don't bother. unless (like me) you just like having different guitars, then, why not ? : )

I have an easier time with gibsons than strats, but I found using duncans "tele" style bridge pick up for a strat made me love mine a little more, still sounds plenty strat like, but the bridge position i could never love until this pick up

Learn to love the wiggle stick!

listen to some SRV

Mess with it til you love it.
Put it somewhere for about 2 months.
Dig it out after said two months have passed, and fall in love.

Repeat as needed.

My strat is a partscaster with a fender sticker on it, as it were, and it's everything I want in a strat. Quack, glass, jangle, and the trem's been set up properly.
It was in and out of the luthier's for about 6 months before it stopped spitting necks and wires. Now that everything's sorted, I am juggling my SG, tele, and said strat just fine.

You could end up the same with the above suggestion.

I can totally relate. I have a beautiful minty 1996 strat plus; have had it for several years. Looks brand new. HQ axe. But I never "bonded" with it. It is by far the least played of my "gigworthy" guitars.

But just now, I have embarked on a "refurb" for that strat. Parts on the way. The full resale value will be retained (you never know when you might need to sell something) as I'm getting a whole new pickguard & the stock piece will be saved in storage. I'm wiring it up with a scheme I came up with in the 90's but never used. The "funk" strat. I'm hoping that this will kindle a love for me, with this nice but unloved axe.

Figure out what you don't like about strats and modify what you can so that you do.

All of my guitars have been heavily modded but in the end they sound and play like a dream.

Make sure you have a good base in the first place too though.

When I was in Ohio at GC I went through probably like 10 strats. I drove them crazy but I got a guitar that sounded "alive".

Like the Bonnie Raitt song. "You can't make your heart feel what it won't."

I feel the same way as the OP. I like Strats in other people's hands. I have a nice one. I just prefer other guitars, and the Strat just sits.

I'm definitely more of a Strat guy so I don't have this problem haha, my Tele is the one that usually sits idle (though it may need a new neck) and yeah I agree with ludashoeless.......listen to some SRV!

What pickup selection do you use the most? IOW, bridge, bridge/middle, middle, middle/neck, or neck? A simple question, but have you given them all a chance?
The reason I ask is that, like you, I really had a hard time with the strat for a long time. So much so that I laid it down for 15 years after I discovered humbuckers, lol.
I recently went back to the strat and gave it another shot. Where before I had used the bridge/middle selection almost exclusively(from the misguided idea that the lead guitarist, which is what I wanted to be, would have used the bridge the most. Hey, I was a beginner then), after several years experience as a player, I realized how foolish that was, and tried them all out. Either the guitar I have now is a better one, which I seriously doubt, or I found my place on the strat, but for me, the middle/neck or neck only combination pretty much sealed the deal for me. Lovely sound. Give them all a try before you give up.
You might also stop and think about your amp settings. Settings that will work for a tele or an LP may not be the best fit for the strat. See what fiddling around with the eq on your amp does for you.

I went thru several strats 7 or 8 years ago trying to bond with them and they just ended up sold...no matter what mods I did or what pickups I put in.
About 5 or 6 guitars, and I swear I tried over 20 pickup sets (buying and selling on eBay...)

I finally just admitted I'm not a strat player....for gigging.

Wrong layout, controls positioning, playing angles....and sounds. Too thin, too hollow, or too mushy. Never quite the sound I felt I needed at the time.
After all my experimenting and attempts I can now hear a typical strat being played in a band or on a recording and appreciate the sound of it, but I can also clearly imagine having that sound onstage and know it would feel wrong.

To play a strat you have to use it as it is and like it as it is. Otherwise forget it.

I do have a strat now though, among my 9 guitars. It's a Squier CV60s, and it's a nice little sofa noodler.
But that's all it is or ever will be. I'm not going to even try to use it in a band.

So just get one and put it on the wall, or in a corner, to look at.
Play it on the sofa or in the bedroom occasionally.
Take your LP or tele to the gig and leave the strat at home.
Noodle on it when you get home to help wind down.

I bought and sold a couple of Strats in the last couple of years that I grew tired of rather quickly. Then I hooked up with a Y2K Am Series with EMGs and Rosewood board with worn out frets. I had it re-fretted with 6105 SS wire, and it's turned out to be one of my favorite guitars! The range of tones from this thing is unbelievable. I LOVE my Strat!!! :)

Strats are my thing. It is painfully obvious they aren't yours. Stop trying to force it and stop buying 'em!

I had Warmoth make a a pickguard without the middle pickup, master volume and bridge tone. Sure, it's not a classic Strat but it works for me.

I get a Strat jonz every once in a while, and its a hell of a thing. It's that shape, the wide vibrato capabilities, that quack or sting. Hmmm, Red Fiesta would be nice right now! Damnit!!

I definitely prefer Strats to Teles. Teles are really cool but they just don't feel like home as much as the Strat.

Wire your Strat so that you can use both neck and bridge pickups at the same time, that might work for you.
You could wire it so that you could use all 3pickups in series also, that´s kind of cool :)

I was the same way. I kept creeping back into Strats only to lose the love and get rid of them. I finally came to realize that what I hated about Strats was the volume knob too close to the bridge. Once I went to a master tone/master volume, two pot configuration and bought myself a little more room near the bridge for my right hand, all was good with the world. I guess you got to figure out if it is a mechanical or tonal issue you have with the Strat and see if you can't adjust accordingly.

My complaint w/Strats has usually been the bridge pickup. Ice pick in the forehead, ouch. The Fralin blender pot mod solved the issue; put one in and a world of different pickup possibilities emerges. The blender and a combination of different pickups turned my 62 AVRI Strat into my favorite gigging guitar...

I have two strats. My favorite guitars.

Relic one yourself. Destroy something you really love, and you will bond with it.

Warning! Sarcasm alert!

(and she looks much nicer now that I'm done, this was taken at the hight of destruction)

Hi,
Try a set of Tex-Mex p/ups in a 2007 MIM-they sound terrific!

the contours make them uncomfortable for me, especially the belly cut, so that may be your problem more than the sounds it makes, but i don't like lp's either. maybe get a nashville tele or a strat thats a slab and you'll enjoy it better.