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BIZARRE: Strats - What They Never Told You

“I always felt like Fender hit the sweet spot with those guitars. All my heroes – Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Knopfler, Buddy Guy – were playing them”: Philip Sayce on the greatest Strats, his tone secrets – and why he always has a Silver Sky in the mix

The tone gourmand talks new vs vintage Strats, hiring SRV's amp tech, and the guitar he calls Big Daddy

Guitar World

“I didn’t have a guitar, so he let me play this Strat that he got from Jimi’s old guitar tech. It was the best-playing guitar ever”: My Chemical Romance's Ray Toro was strictly a Les Paul man, until he got his hands on one of Jimi Hendrix's Strats

A guy named Jimmy gave him a guitar owned by Jimi, and it was a revelatory experience

Guitar World

“I thought, ‘That’s the guitar Mike Bloomfield played…’ I just had to buy it”: The mistake that led Robben Ford to buy his first great instrument –and how Miles Davis and Jeff Beck took him to the Strat

As Ford returns with Two Shades of Blue, the Californian guitar legend drops by for a video lesson and to talk all things guitar, from his adventures with big-box jazz models to Strats

Guitar World

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“The quality of guitars didn’t plummet overnight – some might argue that it remained high for at least a decade”: Fender CBS guitars get a bad rep – but what actually changed?

The CBS takeover of Fender was many things but it was not an overnight revolution. We track the key changes to its builds through the era

Guitar World

“You can do anything with a Stratocaster”: Joe Bonamassa explains how to make any Fender Strat the “Swiss army knife of guitars” – and unlock Gibson-like Angus Young tones in the process

The guitarist has detailed how to mimic infamous Les Paul and SG tones from the instrument, believing its versatility is unmatched

Guitar World

“People forget that in the ’80s, the Fender Strat was like having an old car and someone saying, ‘Why are you driving that piece of crap?’” Yngwie Malmsteen explains how he broke the mold for rock guitar – and brought the Strat in from the cold

After the one-two punch of Rising Force and Marching out, rock guitar was never the same again. Malmsteen takes us back to 1985 – a different world – to explain just what was going on

Guitar World

“The Strat was about as ‘out’ as you could get. If you didn’t have a Floyd Rose, it was like, ‘what are you doing?’”: In the eye of the Superstrat hurricane, Yngwie Malmsteen stayed true to the original

Though the ‘80s shred era seemingly left the standard Stratocaster for dead, the Swede’s neoclassical wizardry helped to, eventually, reverse the guitar’s fortunes

Guitar World

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“A lot of people are feeling the same way. They're like, ‘I’m covered with Superstrats and Strats, but I don't have an offset…’”: Misha Mansoor on the emergence of offsets in metal music – and why he should have seen it coming

The Periphery guitarist recently worked with Jackson to produce one of 2024's most talked-about custom builds – but he's not the first player to have dragged the offset into heavy territory over the past few years

Guitar World

“White Lion was on tour with Aerosmith, and I wanted to switch from Strats and see what Steinberger was all about…”: Vito Bratta on why he made the leap to his iconic ’88 Steinberger GM2T

The former White Lion axe-slinger on how a newfound love of the hi-tech – and a desire to stand apart from Eddie Van Halen –led to an all-new guitar that found its way onto the cover of Guitar World in 1989

Guitar World

“The coach of the Dallas Mavericks came up to me after the show and said, ‘What’s your dream guitar?’ I said a 1960 Fender Stratocaster. A few days later one showed up at my house”: Tyler Bryant on his remarkable Strat stories

He's one of the hottest young exponents of Texas blues. So of course he plays Strats…

Guitar World

“That was the one and only thing I found with Strats that I don’t like. I think they’re awful”: Yngwie Malmsteen reveals the one spec of certain Stratocasters he's not a fan of

While this feature might not work for him, Malmsteen admits other players make it “sound great”

Guitar World

“People think Seventies Fenders are bad, but that’s not correct”: Yngwie Malmsteen explains why players shouldn’t be quick to disregard early '70s-era CBS Strats

The Stratocaster’s CBS era may be remembered as one of the instrument's lowest points, but the Swedish virtuoso has pinpointed a key fact regarding the first decade of CBS's ownership of Fender

Guitar World

“The first time I saw a Martin, it was like an exotic creature”: Watch Eric Clapton run the rule over his Guitar Center exclusive signature acoustics

Check out the other models in a limited run that celebrates 25 years of Crossroads Guitar Festival – including signature Clapton Strats and a PRS Private Stock Carlos Santana

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