String-through-body vs. top load guitars

I mentioned recently in my strings article that I was going to talk about string tension differences between string-through-body and top loader guitars, and this is it.

First, some explanation on what I'm talking about.

What is a string-through-body electric guitar?

These are guitars like the Fender Stratocaster and Fender Telecaster where strings are installed from the back of the guitar that travel through the body, over the string saddles, over the neck, to the nut, and ends at tuner post.

What is a top loader electric guitar?

These are guitars like the Gibson Les Paul and Gibson SG where strings are installed all on top of the body. String installation starts at the tailpiece, then over the string saddles, over the neck, to the nut, and ends at the tuner post.

What are the main differences between the two other than string installation location?

Two things. Length of string used and break angle.

Compared to a top loader, about 3 to 4cm of extra string length is used on string-through-body guitars to get it through the body.

The break angle on string-through-body is sharp and has to be just to get through to the back of the guitar, whereas a top load guitar's break angle isn't sharp at all.

The general opinion is...

...top load guitars are easier to play compared to string-thru.

An example of this on the low-cost end of things is the Squier Bullet Telecaster vs. Squier Affinity Telecaster. Same guitar shape, same number of frets, same neck material, same scale length, same single string tree holding down the B and high E, same string saddle type. Heck, they both even have the same "wing" string tree style, meaning the headstock side break angle is also the same. As far as two like-to-like guitars are concerned, this is as close as it gets.

It is easier to play the Affinity. Why? Because the Affinity is a top-load while the Bullet is a string-thru.

What do I mean by "easier"?

The strings will be easier to bend on the top load guitar compared to string-thru.

Why is it easier?

Nobody can seem to agree on what exactly makes the strings feel less stiff to the player on top load compared to string-thru. This is something people have been discussing and debating on the internet for over a decade. And absolutely nobody has come up with a straight, simple answer.

Some say the shorter overall length of string on top load is what causes the looser feel. Others say the top load minimal break angle is what makes the difference. Others say it's both. And then there are those who say the difference in feel is all in your mind and that you're chasing after something that isn't there.

This is what I say: YES, there is string stiffness difference I can absolutely feel between top load and string-thru even on like-to-like guitars such as the Telecasters mentioned above. This is not something just in my head, and I've played enough guitars enough to where I genuinely feel a difference between the two systems. Top load has a string feel that is less stiff compared to string-thru.

Does this mean top load guitars are better than string-thru?

No, just different.

What you can take away from this is that when guitar shopping, if there is a particular guitar you like but wish it was just "a little looser" or "a little stiffer" in string feel, consider the string loading system. If you want to feel more stiffness in the string, go with a string-thru-body. If you would rather have less stiffness for easier string bending, go with a top load instead.

Cheap ways to try out top load for Fender shapes:

• Top load Strat: Squier Bullet Strat HT.
• Top load Tele: Squier Affinity Tele as noted above.
• Top load short scale: Squier Bullet Mustang HH.

The Affinity Tele is the one that catches most players off guard because they weren't aware you could get top loading Tele for so cheap, but yeah, there it is. Yes, it will feel different and the strings will be easier to bend. But you may really like it. Or you may not. You won't know until you try one.

That time I owned a Fender 60s Jazzmaster Lacquer

Enough time has passed to where I can talk about this guitar now.

I've gone into detail before about guitar buyer's remorse and that every dedicated guitar player at some point goes through it. Technically, I've gone through it twice, the first being with my '93 Fender American Stratocaster. This is the second one that I've never talked about until now, the 2016 Fender 60s Jazzmaster Lacquer.

This guitar was bought using what I call the full Fender experience. I ordered this guitar direct from Fender themselves. Didn't even use a guitar dealer. The total cost at the time with all shipping costs and tax included was a grand total of $1,069.99. Oh, yes. Big money was spent on this.

At the time this guitar was bought, only one Fender model was "more Jazzmaster" than this one, the '65 American Vintage (which would now be the Fender American Original '60s Jazzmaster). That one was too much. This one however was not a compromise, as it is the Jazzmaster most fans of this guitar dream of. It has all the American hardware and pickups, and there is full nitro treatment on both the body and neck. In person, this guitar is nothing short of absolutely gorgeous.

I'll explain the positives of the guitar first, then then negatives.

As I just said, this guitar is beautiful. The only color offered on this model is Surf Green, and if you ever wanted to know what a perfect Surf Green looks like, this is it. No picture on a computer screen does it proper justice. You have to see this with your eyes in person to appreciate it fully. Liquid-like color. Absolutely stunning.

The hardshell case that it comes with is also really cool. It's not tweed, but rather that classic black Tolex look with white stitching. Looks fantastic.

In that case, you get all the paperwork, booklets and so on.

Sound-wise, yes, this was a perfect sounding Jazzmaster. It had the exact tonal character of what a Jazzmaster is supposed to be.

The smell of a new nitro lacquered guitar is intoxicating.

And now the negatives.

That cool hardshell case? One of the latches was wonky. And the case isn't made in the USA either. It's made in Vietnam.

Locking the case was of course possible, but required some fidgeting to get the key to work correctly.

I could not get used to the fact the neck has to be taken off the guitar to adjust the truss rod. While I didn't have to adjust it much, the fact you have to disconnect a neck yourself on a guitar you paid over $1,000 for will freak you out every time you do it.

The lacquer on the neck, while looking awesome, irritated my fret hand. I couldn't play this thing for more than 20 minutes before skin irritation set in to where I had to put the guitar down.

After a few months, I stopped playing this guitar regularly and only took it out once every few months.

In 2018, I traded it out. I had no regrets about this since I could hardly play it.

Now again, this is the guitar most Jazzmaster players dream about. Full vintage style build, lacquered, 7.25" fingerboard radius, vintage style frets, American pickups, real rosewood fingerboard (it was made before the switch to pau ferro), full case with case candy, the works. This guitar was built just like Fender used to do it in the '60s...

...and I couldn't even play the thing for extended periods of time.

Yes, it had the look. Yes, it had the sound. But the electronics were so-so at best, and the lacquer finishing on the neck felt terrible after 20 minutes of play.

Yes, I understand nitro eventually wears off. It's not worth it.

What most guitar players want, myself included, is a guitar neck with a smooth, unfinished-like wood feel to it.

With nitro, the way to get that unfinished feel is to play the hell out of the thing until the finish literally wears off.

Not only do I not have the patience for that, but I wasn't about to put myself in harm's way just to get a neck that felt correct either. The skin irritation simply isn't worth it.

For me as well as many other guitar players, it's just better to go with a satin urethane finished neck. That finish is the closest thing you can get to an unfinished-like wood feel. My Ibanez GAX30 or AX120 guitars both have this neck finish. Dirt cheap Squier Bullet guitars have this neck finish. All mid tier Fender Player models have it. All Fender American Professional models have it. All Fender American Elite models have it. And there are many other guitars that have the back of the neck finished with satin urethane. There's a reason for that. It works and feels great to the fret hand with no skin irritation.

Does semi-gloss satin urethane look as good as high gloss urethane or nitro? Nope. Never has and never will. That's fine by me because what matters is my playing comfort first and always. The finish that feels right the first time, does not feel sticky, and only requires the most basic of cleaning to keep it feeling great is satin urethane.

5 things I learned

1. Nitro looks great but feels awful.
2. Taking apart the guitar just to adjust the truss rod... no.
3. "Vintage-correct" looks cool but modern guitars are much easier to deal with.
4. The only hard case worth owning is a flight case if you want something that works right. Otherwise, just use an inexpensive padded gig bag.
5. Satin urethane neck finishing, while not looking as nice, always feels better.

Fender Powercaster has a secret weapon

The Powercaster does have a secret weapon, but it's unknown at this point whether this will get people to actually buy it.

Before I say what that secret weapon is, yeah, the Powercaster is a mishmash of a bunch of different Fender designs. Jazzmaster, Jaguar and Stratocaster for the most part - but the body is totally new, or at least appears to be.

I do like the fact the neck is roasted maple. This actually works really nicely with the pau ferro fingerboard, gives this guitar a nice overall appearance that separates it from other models, and gives Powercaster its own true identity in the Fender lineup.

Okay, on to that secret weapon.

The Powercaster has a 24.75" scale length. Yes, like a Gibson. That's the secret weapon for this guitar that nobody is talking about, but should. That shorter scale length makes a huge impact on how the guitar feels in the positive direction. However, there are two things working against this guitar even with that oh-so nice shorter scale length.

First is price. The price is dangerously close to American models yet does not come with a hardshell case. Only a gig bag. And it's not made in the USA either. Mexico build.

Second is the Fender Atomic Humbucking bridge pickup. This is well known to be a "rock" pickup, meaning you're not going to get any traditional Fender tones out of the Powercaster whatsoever. The MP-90 neck pickup is good, this I know. But that bridge pickup is only good for rock and basically nothing else.

What would I change?

I would swap out that Atomic for a Fender Wide Range Humbucker, and ditch those crappy Jazz Bass knobs for Telecaster metal knobs with knurled sides.

The Wide Range does two things. It's much more civilized than the Atomic, and the chrome cover with Fender logo on it just looks cool.

The Telecaster metal knobs are far superior to the Jazz Bass knobs in every way. They feel better, are much nicer to the touch and very easy to adjust. And they would match up better with the Powercaster's bridge and tailpiece besides that.

Will the Powercaster be a hit?

It's nice that Fender released something truly new and different.

It's also nice that yes, there is something in a shorter 24.75" scale version that a lot of players will very much like.

Ultimately, what will make or break this guitar will be the Atomic pickup. Having that shorter 24.75" scale is great on a Fender, but the sound is what matters first.

Hopefully, the Atomic is voiced right for the Powercaster. I've only heard a few quick demos of this guitar since it's so new at the time of this writing. Said honestly, what I have heard did not sound that great. But maybe in the hands of the right players it can sound really good. Time will tell.

On switching back to D'Addario strings

My change of guitars also marks a return to D'Addario strings.

Over the years, I've tried many different brands of electric guitar strings. Everything from Fender to DR to Dunlop to GHS to Rotosound to Dean Markley to Darco to Ernie Ball and more. Heck, I even tried Alice brand once.

However, the string that has always been around ever since I started playing guitar was the D'Addario XL. After not using them in a really long time, I've gone back to it being my main string.

Why did I switch back after not using them for so long?

My #1 complaint about D'Addario strings was that they always felt too tight at standard pitch. The wound strings have a hex core which does add in string tension, and the plain strings always had a more taut feeling to them.

GHS Guitar Boomers, which use a round core on the wound strings and not hex, did have a slightly looser feel to them, and that's why it was my string of choice...

...but then I started playing Ibanez guitars.

On the Telecaster with its 25.5" scale length, the Boomers were great. No complaints whatsoever. But when I installed a set on my Ibanez with its 24.7" scale, it wasn't the same. Both the feel and tone were different to the point where it bothered me.

I figured I'd try a 9-42 set of D'Addario XL strings again, did so, and for the first time ever, they finally felt and sounded right. Going from a 25.5" to 24.7" scale length guitar loosened up the string tension at standard pitch enough to where I could now use them.

Was the scale length the key to everything?

Mostly.

The looser tension helped out a lot. But what also helped out are two other things. Fretboard radius and going back to a top-loader guitar.

The fretboard radius on my Ibanez AX guitars is 12-inch. This does not affect string tension but does affect how much I can lower the strings to the fretboard. The flatter 12-inch radius does allow me to set strings closer to the board compared to the 9.5-inch. This means I don't have to press as much on the strings to fret notes and chords.

When it comes to top-loader vs. string-thru, this is where things get weird.

In my experience, top-loader guitars have less string tension compared to string-thru-body, even on guitars of the same scale length. They shouldn't, but my fingers tell me otherwise. I may and probably will write a full article on this later, as it is worth talking about.

Try everything, even if that means trying different guitars

If you experience wrist strain or the strings you use just don't feel right, try different strings. Use whatever is available and accessible to you. If that means going through $50 worth of strings to find that one string set that really works well for you, do it. It is money well spent.

And if after that you still don't get the right feel, switch guitars. But don't think that buying an expensive guitar gets you something better. That rarely works. Pay more attention to things like scale length and guitar body style first. Once you find something that works for you in cheap form, then you can go for a more expensive model and know you'll enjoy it.

For example, the Ibanez AR725 is basically a very ritzy edition of the AX120 I own. It is good to know that since I get along so well with the AX120, the AR725 would be an enjoyable instrument to play and the money wouldn't be wasted.

Yes, Ibanez can surf

It seems that whenever I get a new guitar (or two in this case), I just have to do a surf song as a rite of passage to properly break it in, so I made a video.

Hurricane is a song I wrote back when I lived in Florida. At that time, I was in 100% Jazzmaster mode since that was my main axe, and it was that guitar which originally compelled me to learn surf rock. But even though I'm now Jazzmaster-less, the surf bug never left me. I still very much enjoy playing it.

I wanted to put together something that showcased both the GAX30 and AX120 guitars I own at the same time, and was happy to learn that yes, the Ibanez can surf.

Which is the better guitar for surf?

In the video, you'll notice I used the AX120 (the blue one) for the lower notes and chords and the GAX30 (the white one) for the higher notes. That was intentional. The GAX30 rings out the higher notes better with its Ibanez Infinity series pickups. The AX120 with its Classic Elite pickups rings out the lower notes better because it has a lower output and greater treble response.

If I absolutely had to choose between the two, the AX120 would be the better guitar for surf rock just because the vast majority of surf is played at the first 5 frets. This is not to say the GAX30 can't surf (it obviously can), but were I forced to pick just one, the AX120 would be it.

Processing

This time around I used my Line 6 Spider V 60 for all guitar sounds. I used a custom preset since the Spider does not come with a surf sound out-of-the-box that I'm aware of.

Was the preset difficult to create? No, it was fairly easy. I created it back when I still had Telecasters, but did have to modify it to be voiced properly for my Ibanez guitars.

Whether using multi-effects amp modeling like the Spider V 60 or traditional pedals, it is true that you have to shape your tone to the guitar that is plugged in at the time. I went from a low-output, trebly Telecaster with single-coil pickups to a not-as-trebly higher output Ibanez with humbuckers. I had to change almost every one of my custom presets to suit the AX120 sound as it is distinctively different from the Telecaster.

Is the humbucker pickup output too high on the Ibanez AX?

I can happily report that the pickup output isn't overblown on the Ibanez AX. This was a worry for me originally, because I wasn't sure whether or not Ibanez decided to voice the guitar "for metal". Thankfully, they didn't. Instead, they smartly went for a more civilized approach and voiced it more like a Gibson SG - and that's not a bad thing. Not at all...

...and that above all else is why the Ibanez can surf. Ultimately, getting surf tone all depends on how the pickups are voiced. A low-to-moderate output is needed with decent treble response, and the Ibanez has it - especially on the AX120.