It's all about the belly cut
A big reason why the Stratocaster (such as the Blacktop HH model) is such a comfortable player is because of its contour cut in the rear of the body, known commonly as the belly cut.
The two most known electrics from Fender are the Stratocaster and the Telecaster. However, unless it's a non-standard model, the Strat will always have the belly cut in the rear of the body while the Tele won't.
Quick note before continuing: The cheapest Fender-branded Telecaster that does have a belly cut is the Modern Player. Obviously, the MP is a very non-standard Tele with its 3-pickup layout. Still a great guitar, though.
Is the belly cut exclusive to the Strat?
No. As far as I'm aware, only a traditional old-school Telecaster shape doesn't have the cut. All other traditional models (Jaguar, Jazzmaster, Mustang) have it.
Why does the belly cut matter so much on an electric?
Simply put, that contour cut prevents the back of the guitar from sticking your ribs.
Some players are totally okay with an electric that doesn't have a belly cut, such as a traditional Telecaster or Gibson Les Paul. But other players absolutely require that cut to be there or it's a total deal-breaker and they can't play the guitar comfortably.
What about big-body electrics that do not have a belly cut?
A big-body guitar, such as a hollow body like the Gretsch G5420T Electromatic, has bouts that are taller.
"Bouts?"
In guitar building, the lower bout is the rear of the guitar body while the upper bout is the front; this terminology comes originally from acoustic guitar construction.
The Gretsch, while not having a belly cut, has a body tall enough to where it shouldn't cut into your ribs, resulting in a comfortable playing instrument.
In other words, big-body guitars can get away without having belly cuts because they play more like acoustic instruments.
Does a belly cut on a solid-body electric instantly make it more comfortable to play?
On some guitars, yes, you will immediately notice the difference.
A guitar where you wouldn't think a belly cut would matter is on a V shape, such as the Jackson King V.
A few years back I did own a V shape. It wasn't a Jackson, but it did have a belly cut in the body, and yes it was a very comfortable player. When I tried a V shape without the belly cut, the body shape dug right into me and it just didn't feel right at all.
The general rule of thumb is this: A solid-body electric with the belly cut will feel more comfortable compared to one that doesn't have it...
...unless you play your guitar hanging low.
If you're the type of player that prefers to play standing with the guitar slung very low on the strap and well away from your stomach, a lack of belly cut in the body is a non-issue. But if the guitar is at stomach/rib cage level, you will most likely prefer a solid-body with the belly cut in the rear of the body.
An easy recording trick to make your songs sound huge
It can arguably be said that the best music is the kind that takes you to another place when you listen to it. For a song to do that, it has to be crafted in such a way that gives it a bit of a magical other-worldly feeling. Put simply, "make it big."
Does it take years of recording experience to do this? No. All you need to know is one thing.
My song Kiwi is something I recorded earlier this year. And I did purposely record it in a way that sounds big, as in cinematic.
What makes it sound the way it does?
Stereo separation
There's the left channel and right channel, but most people are too scared to pan instruments.
"Scared?"
Yes, scared. When recording, most people prefer to have everything centered smack dab in the middle where every instrument has equal volume on both the left and right side. While this is "safe," that kind of recording won't "take you anywhere," so to speak.
Spreading out instruments to the left and right increases a sense of space, and this can be done even if no reverb or delay is used.
How does one spread out sound the easy way?
The easy way is to do it after the song is recorded and not before.
Whether you use a standalone recorder like the ZOOM R8, Tascam DP-008EX or software, it's better to have all tracks laid down first before messing around with panning tracks.
In other words, the song should be finished first, and panning should be done later in post-production.
Is reverb and delay required to make something sound bigger?
No. Panning is a better and easier way to increase a sense of space.
Making reverb and delay sound good can be a challenge, but panning is stupidly easy. All it takes is turning a knob or moving a slider, whether physically or virtually in software.
Try it, and you'll probably like it
If you want to try it for yourself, record a simple song using two guitars, then pan one left and the other right. Pan a little or a lot, and use headphones when experimenting. You'll notice that much of the time, your song will sound a whole lot bigger when you stereo-separate the tracks.
And remember, you don't have to be a genius musician to make this work as it's just a sound production thing. Lay your tracks down (even if it's the same thing played twice,) pan the tracks away from each other, and have fun with it.
How come music instrument companies aren't traded on the stock market?
Fun fact: Most super-big musical instrument manufacturers are still run like mom-and-pop businesses.
There are very, very few companies who make musical instruments that are actually traded on the stock market. One of them is Yamaha. But then again, Yamaha obviously makes a lot more than just guitars. If you were expecting Fender Musical or Gibson to be there, nope. Both of those are privately held companies.
Back in 2012, Fender almost entered the stock market, but withdrew.
Fender's CEO:
"Current market conditions and concerns about economic conditions in Europe do not support completing an initial public offering at what we believe to be an appropriate valuation at this time," said Larry E. Thomas, Fender’s Chief Executive Officer, in a statement.
In plain English, that means Fender would have taken a bath and gone out of business in less than a year had they gone through with their IPO (that means Initial Public Offering in case you know nothing about the stock market.) Fender's valuation was all sorts of screwed up, and if you don't know what that means, trust me, you don't want to know.
Why does any company want to be publicly traded?
Simple answer. Cash. Gobs and gobs of cash. When a company goes public, that opens the door for piles and piles of money to come in that they otherwise didn't have before.
How come music instrument makers don't get into the publicly traded game?
There have been several guitar companies in the past aside from FMIC that tried to or did get into the stock market, but it's never worked.
Fender is actually a really good example of this. When the company was owned by CBS, they squeezed every last dime they could out of it, cut costs everywhere they could, bean-countered it to death and still couldn't turn a buck. CBS did not know guitars, so they cut it loose. And the reason for that is that CBS isn't a guitar company. They're a publicly traded broadcasting company. Big difference.
Ultimately, guitar companies are better off as mom-and-pop outfits. I don't think there's any way a guitar company could survive under the constant pressure of investors due to the fact so much freedom of operation is lost.
The stock market is vicious. It's a place that makes and breaks companies every day. And when a publicly traded company isn't performing in a way the stockholders like, the company gets dumped, dumped hard, and if investor confidence is lost, the company is dead as a doornail.
When a guitar company has a bad year, as a privately owned enterprise it can slow things down, regroup, plan things out, take the time necessary to get things going in the right direction and ease back into the swing of things at their pace.
As a publicly traded company, there's no time for that. A stock trading at 3 bucks can dive down to 10 cents and stay there if the investors feel the company is past its prime and ready to be buried. And believe me, they will bury it. It has nothing to do with the company but rather everything to do with money. Investors invest in companies that will make them money. When that company stops making them money, they dump the stock and just move on to another company; that's the way it is.
The only reason any guitar company survives and makes any money today is because they're not publicly traded. Guitar making is something that is an old-school craft, and every time a company has tried to fully corporatize it by going public, it ultimately fails.
Does it cost more to operate a guitar company privately? Yes. Is more legwork involved to make things profitable? No. Board room execs would tell you otherwise, but it isn't true.
What makes stuff sell that a guitar company makes are good leaders with good ideas. But if the leaders are nothing but crusty old dudes with white hair that are more than half deaf, that's pretty much a recipe for failure. Yeah, they know numbers, but that's all they know, because I guarantee they don't know anything about guitars or why they're cool in the first place.
Once the larger guitar makers go back to hiring real guys who play real guitars that have a better pulse on what guitar players actually like, then they'll get the forward business motion they're looking for.
The best easy electric guitar is a Kramer
The Kramer Baretta Special only comes in two colors. Black, and Vintage White. It is arguably the most basic and most easy electric made right now. Perfect for beginner guitar players as well as adults that want a guitar that has absolutely no frills and just works.
It is the ultra-simplicity of the Baretta Special that makes it great. One pickup, one volume control and nothing else. The only thing that makes it even remotely complicated is the fact it has a vibrato arm, which most people call a whammy bar. And to be honest, I wish the guitar didn't have that.
Why own a guitar so unbelievably simple?
There are several very cool things about owning an ultra-simple guitar.
1. You know what it can do.
There is no question as to what the Baretta Special is capable of, because you already know just by looking at it. One humbucking pickup and a 22-fret neck is all you have to work with.
2. You know what it can't do.
Knowing what the guitar is incapable of is also a good thing. Since it has no neck-side pickup and no tone control, you are forced to come up with other ways to "soften" the sound, such as turning down the volume and/or adjusting EQ settings via pedal or amp.
The best part about knowing what the guitar can't do is that every thing it's incapable of doing is one less thing you have to worry about.
3. This is a guitar you can work on.
Let's say for the moment that for some simple tone control, you decide to install a linear taper 500K potentiometer for the volume control (this allows more treble to be cut off with only a small turn instead of a large turn, and works very well with a humbucker.)
How difficult would that be to install? Not difficult at all. Installation time is only a couple of minutes. If you're not-so good with a soldering iron, about 5 minutes.
Switching out the pickup is also dirt simple. And it's cheaper because you would only have to replace just one pickup.
The Baretta Special is so simple that you don't even need a wiring diagram. As long as you note where the signal and ground wires go, that's all you need to know.
4. Simplicity establishes a very nice comfort zone.
This is the part I'll talk about the most.
I own a Jazzmaster, and that's a complicated guitar. Most guitarists who have never played one get totally confused by the separate rhythm and lead circuit controls. I know every part of a Jazz, but I'll be the first to admit that it takes a certain kind of player to appreciate one.
The Baretta Special on the other hand is something all players can appreciate, regardless of skill level. There is something very endearing and almost romantic about a guitar that has almost nothing to it.
Over the decades, there have been several famous guitar players who play similar guitars, where they take an existing guitar and purposely simplify it. It's usually something that used to have two pickups where the neck-side pickup was removed, tone control removed (or left there but not wired,) and the setup ended up being exactly like the Baretta is.
There is never a switch to accidentally hit when playing on the Baretta because none exist. You will never bang your pick on a pickup by mistake because the neck-side area is totally open. Maintenance on this guitar is as simple as it gets. Upgrading parts is as simple as it gets. It just doesn't get any easier.
"Too simple for me."
A really basic axe sometimes is not the thing for everyone. However, if you like basic but not ultra-basic like the Baretta Special, the next best thing is the Squier Affinity Telecaster. Same price as the Baretta Special.
The weirdness and awesomeness of Fender Japan
In America, we sometimes see a few Fender Japan guitars make their way into guitar stores. Most of the time, it's for a signature model such as the Fender Mustang Kurt Cobain signature model; that's a Japan build 100%.
However, there are plenty of other Fender Japan models, such as the Telecaster TL69, that you will only find in specialty guitar shops, or online-only.
A lot of what Fender Japan makes are home runs. But then there are certain models that are weird for one reason or another.
Here are a few of them. Both the hits and the misses.
At first, this looks like a plain '52 reissue Telecaster, but it isn't. This is a 22-fret model. Most Fender purists would go nuts even looking at this thing, because it's not true to '52 specs because of that extra 22nd fret, but there it is, and it exists.
Hit or miss? I consider this a hit, even though I prefer 21-fret Fender guitars.
This Tele is based on a '62 profile. The B means bound body and the QT means Quilted Top. And yeah, it is in disgusting candy blue, which makes the guitar look toy-like.
Hit or miss? Definitely a miss. Thankfully, it's a short-run 2014-only model.
This is something Fender USA wouldn't dare release in America. Never in a million years. But Fender Japan has the balls to do it.
It's a Strat with '62 profile, HSS pickup layout, Floyd-Rose tremolo system and all-black hardware and plastics. Even the screws are black.
The headstock just says Fender and nothing else.
Also, there are only 2 knobs on this Strat and not the standard 3.
If Fender USA released this guitar in America, Fender purists would probably spit on it. That makes this guitar a hit. Anything that ticks off the purists is something I totally approve of.
This is one the purists would approve of because it has a coffee table look and has gold hardware all over it, with color-matched headstock.
"A" probably means "artist," the "ST" after that means "Stratocaster," the "G" means "gold," and KOA means koa wood (in this case an alder body with koa wood top,) and that's what makes this particular Strat a special model.
Hit or miss? I consider it a miss, but a lot of Strat players would consider it a hit because it's "pretty."
I'm actually surprised Fender USA doesn't import a bunch of these, because the country guitar players would go gaga over it.
The last Strat I'll show before moving on is to me the weirdest and most awesome of the bunch at the same time.
This is the Fender Japan Standard Stratocaster. And while it looks like a plain Strat, the closer you look, the more weird it gets.
At the pegboard, the Fender logo used is the one back from the 1990's, as in the silver with black outline version.
The plastics used are not aged white, but rather stark bright white.
The bridge is vintage 6-screw and not modern 2-point.
The neck is 21-fret and not 22.
The tuners are modern semi-squared and not vintage oval.
The body material is - get ready for this - basswood. Not alder. Not ash. Basswood.
So what we have here is a Strat that's a mish-mash of 60's and 90's, with a body material of the 2000's. And that's the Fender Japan Standard Strat.
Hit or miss? I consider it a hit because it is absolutely my preferred configuration of Stratocaster.
There are demos of this guitar on YouTube. It sounds great.
The supremely good stuff that Fender Japan makes
Just about everything Fender Japan makes is good, but for any one of the guitars below, they are the kind I'd be proud to own and spend extra for, and I'll explain why for each.
Fender Jazzmaster, based on a '66 profile. It is for all intents and purposes a reissue 1966 model. And it's built exactly the way it should be.
When the time comes that I upgrade to a Fender Jazzmaster, it will be a JM66, no question about it.
Fender Jaguar, based on '66 profile. Just as good as the Jazzmaster in a Jag flavor. Best reissue Jag money can buy.
I don't like natural finishes ordinarily, and I don't like Fender Mustangs either, but I absolutely LOVE this guitar. It is the first and only Fender Mustang I've seen where I can say yes, I would buy it in a second (provided I had the money for it.)
For a 1970's-look guitar, the MG77 absolutely nails it. Also comes in a black version, too.
Fender Japan ST62 in CYL finish
I don't know what "CYL" exactly means (Canary Yellow?), but I know what it looks like. That's Graffiti Yellow. I am very particular to certain yellows on Strats, and I'd love to own one in that color. Yes, I am saying I want it for the color alone.
A gold Strat is cool, but that's not what's special about it.
What makes is special is a scalloped fretboard. A rosewood scallop, no less. The maple board scallop version is the ST57/SC, but to see an actual real-deal Fender axe with a scalloped rosewood board? Unheard of, especially on a non-Malmsteen model. And Fender Japan makes it.
How come we almost never see these in America?
It basically all boils down to the fact that the American and Japanese guitar markets are polar opposites of each other. What sells well in America wouldn't in Japan, and what sells well in Japan wouldn't in America.
You'll note I said we almost never see these. Sometimes we do, because Fender Japan makes certain models that nobody else does.
Some like their Fender guitars more American while others like them more Asian
I'm not going to tell you that Fender Japan makes guitars better than Fender USA does, because with every guitar maker there are hits and misses.
Personally, I prefer Asian builds over American builds. All my favorite guitars over the years have been Asian-made.
Why do I prefer Asian-made guitars? Because I prefer Asian guitar character, which is part of the reason I'm into Squier guitars so much.
I cannot describe what Asian guitar character is. All I can say is that you know it when you feel it in your hands and hear it with your ears.
There are some players out there who absolutely do not like Asian guitar character whatsoever, and that's fine. A player who is used to Fender USA guitars will consider Fender Japan guitars to "feel weird" and "not sound right." I on the other hand consider Fender Japan guitars to feel great and sound correct.
In addition, I also consider Fender China (which is Fender Modern Player Series) to feel great and sound correct, because again, they have Asian guitar character to them. Not quite as on the mark as Fender Japan, but still very good and very deserved of the Fender name.
Now the reason I say all this is because if you decide to buy a guitar made by Fender Japan, yes it will be a Fender 100%. But it's a Japanese-made guitar.
For me, I am absolutely okay with that.
For you, you might not like it. It all depends what type of guitar character suits you best.
If you really like Asian guitar character, get a guitar from Fender Japan. If not, and you want to save a few bucks, get a guitar from Fender Mexico instead.
Or if you want Asian guitar character that's Fendery, cool and cheap, Squier is the only game in town. When you see stuff like the '72 Thinline Tele Semi-Hollow, that's the good stuff right there. Under $300 (at the time I write this) and ready to rock. That's what it's all about. Fender Japan is cool and all that, but wow... Squier's prices are incredible, and you get such a good guitar for the money.