Category: Electric

last week i got lucky. my friend lent me his Fender Stratocaster Highway One and it was my valuable moment of learning guitar characteristics. stratocaster has my respect because of its tone originality and how many songs made with this guitar, also how far the guitar players has become legends with this guitar existence. you can easily find names, let’s say yngwie malmsteen, richie sambora, eric clapton and many more use the stratocaster as their main guitar, or using stratocaster as their tool of exploration (see a Frankenstrat)you might be one of them. a stratocaster lover. i can’t say I’m in it, but actually right now I’m still trying to get which series that suits me. and i got a milestone to start with, a Fender Stratocaster Highway One USA made, year 2002 i guess. here are the pics (it’s relic!) :

what i got from this guitar so far? well, i can’t say i’m in love with this one. it was about againsts my guitar playing style. the volume knob is TOO close so everytime i pick the strings, i accidentally touched it and made the volume knob turned the level down often. it happened to the switch too. for me it’s just made my playing become so unnatural. i need sometimes to get used to this guitar, the neck radius, the super jumbo frets, yes.. i need more time to get the best of it.

i read some articles on guitar blogs and find out that there isn’t so much love for Fender Stratocaster Highway One (this is the earlier products. the latest has big headstock and some users said that the new one is the upgraded one and it rocks with comfortable handling). one thing that doesn’t change is its tone, a glassy tone is stratocaster and i think Fender Stratocaster Highway One has a lot of it.

surely some real stratocaster can define this guitar in big details and i had my time. now it’s the time to take this guitar back to its owner. 😀 it was a great time in exploring and learning though. still wondering which stratocaster is best for my playing.. what do you think?

while famous frankentele is Steve Morse‘s, the Frankenstrat is Eddie Van Halen’s creation. The name itself comes from the combination of Frankenstein name and Stratocaster, a famous Fender guitar model. for your information it is a american national treasure, “Frankenstrat” copy can be found at Washington D.C.’s American History Museum.

The Frankenstrat is Van Halen’s effort in combining the Fender appearance with classic Gibson guitar tonality. It was Gibson PAF humbucking bridge pickup, Floyd Rose tremolo and chrome hardware installed on ash Stratocaster body, maple neck and fretboard. Eddie painted it several times, and the now famous color combination is red body with white and black stripes.

the Frankenstrat

what he did is a heavy-modification. The Frankenstrat neck was continually being changed over times. and The first bridge was ’58 Fender tremolo then he changed it to Floyd Rose bridges. The placement of the 1971 quarter was a spontaneous addition when it was recruited to keep the Floyd Rose bridge flush on the body. even he took truck reflectors and put them at the rear of the body just for his fun moments, so is an eye hook to secure the straps.

now, is this scary enough for your Halloween?

here i share guitarworldvideos about van halen’s frankenstrat, a deep intimacy of van halen’s interview about it (go here for fender stratocaster highway one review)