NGD - My First Strat

jaytmon

Never owned a strat, always judged them as a bit too common (whilst secretly coveting the tones). Paid a visit to my local guitar shop to scrounge a box for posting a guitar recently sold. Despite it being a small shop in the back reaches of the land time forgot, he is a Fender dealer and does have some nice guitars in. 

There was one in particular that had impressed him which, after initially claiming to be ‘not really much of a strat man’ I tried acoustically and was very pleasantly surprised and impressed. Not just any old strat I thought. 

I handed it back before I got any silly ideas and made it to within a foot of the door before hearing the invitation: ‘you should hear it plugged in...’ Well go on then. I plugged in - through a new HRD - and after a couple of minutes playing, something unexpected happened. I experienced a real emotional response to the sound coming from the guitar/amp/my fingers. It was a rare special moment and when I stopped playing, all the acoustics were resonating in sympathetic acknowledgment that I should probably buy this guitar. Anyway to save going on, I ran away quickly, packed up the guitar I was selling and returned to the shop to buy the Eric Johnson Thinline Strat!





It just feels so natural to play - the neck profile feels so good in the hand and the flat (12”) radius fingerboard, which though I’m not used to, all adds up to real effortless playing. It is just a complete package that really spoke to me, and apparently there is a backlog on orders of these so I was quite lucky to get one. I’ll still never be able to play Cliffs of Dover though! 

Strangefan

That's lovely,, I think I'm an oddity as I really like the f hole. 

jaytmon

@Strangefan it certainly divides opinion! It adds a uniqueness to the guitar for sure, good to hear someone appreciates it. 

darthed1981

Nice strat is it very light?

mistercharlie

Strangefan said:

That's lovely,, I think I'm an oddity as I really like the f hole. 

Who doesn’t love a nice, deep f-hole?

mistercharlie

Beautiful Strat btw! Any idea what it weighs?

jaytmon

@darthed1981 ;@mistercharlie it feels really light. Just weighed it out of curiosity, and it comes in at 7lb 1oz / 3.2kg. 

sweepy

Welcome to the Club, before you know it they will seem to breed

jaytmon

Thanks @sweepy that explains how a mate has 5 of them, 4 the same ‘burst finish but one odd white one...hmmm

blueskunk

And what a Strat that is! Well done man

mistercharlie

jaytmon said:

@darthed1981 ;@mistercharlie it feels really light. Just weighed it out of curiosity, and it comes in at 7lb 1oz / 3.2kg. 

That is nice and light! Now I want one even more 

terada

Nice! I like that a lot, f hole included. nothing wrong with a good strat, such a comfortable guitar to play!

wesker123

mistercharlie said:

jaytmon said:

@darthed1981 ;@mistercharlie it feels really light. Just weighed it out of curiosity, and it comes in at 7lb 1oz / 3.2kg. 

That is nice and light! Now I want one even more 

Does it come in sunburst?

jaytmon

@wesker123 I believe there is a sunburst version, yes.

jaytmon

mistercharlie said:

jaytmon said:

@darthed1981 ;@mistercharlie it feels really light. Just weighed it out of curiosity, and it comes in at 7lb 1oz / 3.2kg. 

That is nice and light! Now I want one even more 

Especially with that nice, deep f-hole...

darthed1981

jaytmon said:

mistercharlie said:

jaytmon said:

@darthed1981 ;@mistercharlie it feels really light. Just weighed it out of curiosity, and it comes in at 7lb 1oz / 3.2kg. 

That is nice and light! Now I want one even more 

Especially with that nice, deep f-hole...

Disclaimer: f-holes are for acoustic purposes only and no body parts should be inserted in them.

robgilmo

That's a lovely guitar, the more I look at it the more I want one.
Does the F-Hole do anything for how it sounds?

jaytmon

@robgilmo I’m honestly not sure - you can hear a difference acoustically, but really without a/b’ing with a solid body with same configuration, it’s difficult to know. Plus I haven’t had the chance to play it extensively enough to get a good feel for the subtler nuances of tonal characteristics. Having said that, something a bit magic happened when I plugged it in and started playing....