Fender Stratocaster for Jazz?

[rmpmcdermott]

Most definitely. I mean, if you're looking for the specific 175 or L5 bebop style tones, then you'll have to do some dialing in. But lots of great jazzers play Strats these days. Wayne Krantz, Adam Rogers (when he's with Dice), Dean Brown and Scott Henderson to name a few.

[Cascantone]

Obviously some guitars work better than others, however there are fingers capable of getting a good sound from any piece of wood.

[DS71]

Arch top, Semi hollow, tele, strat, les paul.....Klein.
Martino used a Parker Fly for a while.

I'm using a Music Man at the moment.

[snoskier63]

I just ordered me a Fender Classic Series 50’s Strat, and I play through a Henriksen 110 for jazz, so time will tell. I’m sure on the neck pickup it will sound more than adequate, but I still love my archtops. Just another option is all.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Who needs one of them fancy trems?

[P.J.]

I suppose if it's a restaurant gig and they want a "look" you could have a problem. But if they are serious musicians, they should judge you on your merits.

I remember seeing a solo chord melody jazzer with my wife in Cape Cod and he was playing a 7 string Ibanez Steve Vai guitar. It initially looked kind of disconcerting but he sounded wonderful.

[pauln]

For the sake of all the Strat, Tele, and other solid body electric players thinking about using them for jazz, or for those who have already tried achieving poor results, here are some encouraging thought's from my observation and experience...

Look at judgement and evaluation of guitar tone for a moment. Unless one is intending to perform alone, evaluation of tone by playing the guitar alone is inadequate; when performing in a band on stage the critical thing to judge is how the guitar sounds out front within the mixture of the sounds of the other instruments... this should be pretty obvious. This means you can't judge based on playing the guitar itself. It also means you can't judge by the way the guitar sounds to you up on stage (more on this later). What matters is how it sounds out where the audience is hearing it within the whole sound of the band.

Now look at the way tone controls work on the guitar and on the amp, because they are different. On the guitar the tone controls only roll-off high frequencies; they cannot add high or low frequencies, they can only change the relative frequency balance by attenuating high frequencies. On the amp, the typical tone stack circuit cannot add high or middle or low frequencies; it can only attenuate high and/or low frequencies. It does this by inserting a gain stage of about +20dB from which to attenuate highs and/or lows... when you "turn up the treble control" what you are doing is attenuating the low frequencies, and when you "crank the bass" you are attenuating the high frequencies. If you have a "middle" control, that is serving as an insertion loss recovery control - it just raises the entire frequency curve without reshaping it.

At this point it is important to notice that frequencies are never added by either the guitar or amp tone controls; only the relative shape of the frequency curve may be changed. Frequencies attenuated by the guitar tone controls are not recovered by the amp's tone controls... they are labeled as if they are, and the circuit tries to present the resulting sound as if they are (by using the gain stage to restore the overall level), but they aren't. If you know this, then it is possible to avoid duplicate attempts to "add or subtract" tone that has been "subtracted or added" elsewhere; duplicate antagonistic tone crafting is one of the main sources of poor sound quality - inserting an additional stage of equalization between the guitar and amp is also a bad approach.

Virtually all guitarists don't know that their tone stack circuit is closest to "flat" when the tone controls for treble and bass are turned all the way down to their minimum settings, most assuming incorrectly that the "halfway" positions are the neutral flat settings.

Adding any over drive or distortion adds new high frequencies to the signal (this is the very definition of it), so if one is attempting to make the sound "fat" (meaning not express so much treble), this is counter productive - that which is added will then be needed to be reduced.

The "fattest" sound for jazz on a solid body will be to leave the guitar tones full up, turn the guitar volume down a bit, don't use any gain devices (including EQ) before the amp, plug into the -6dB input to reduce the signal level, set the treble and bass tones on the amp at full down minimum, set the middle control if there is one all the way up, and set the amp volume to the loudest level you will need (which may be surprisingly high with these other settings)... and then play gently and use picking firmness for dynamic control.

From standing on stage performing, the tone may sound to you to be kind of dull and thumpy. It is important to know that this is exactly how it should sound to you on stage, and not how it sounds out front, and it is good to verify this so you don't second guess yourself, crank the treble, and punish your audience. It takes about four performances to get comfortable learning to hear yourself if you have been used to the crispy treble leaning amp sound on stage, but it's well worth the effort because a primary fundamental evolution of a performing guitarist is learning how to hear and trust your "dull" stage tone when the amp is adjusted to the "non-punishing for the audience" quality performance setting.

[deke]

Yeah, but a) Stern only played the strat because his tele got stolen and b) his sound in those days was about as far away from a "jazz tone" as can be imagined. Not that there's anything wrong with that; I saw Stern with Miles twice, and it a was life-changing experience.

John

Sorry if a little off topic, but I saw Miles with Stern once and have to agree. It was early 1980s, Detroit jazz festival at the Ford Auditorium. In one of the Miles biographies, they actually mentioned this concert as being one of his best. Miles actually faced the audience, lifted his sun glasses, and smiled, and people went nuts! If you know Miles, that is a huge deal. The funny thing was is there was a constant stream of mainly older people walking out. I think they expected Miles from the 1960s or something. Instead they essentially played one continuous jam for over an hour. Again, if you know anything Miles it is he never stood still in what he played and wrote.

[jonh]

Great post, Pauln. Thanks, gives me some ideas.

Virtually all guitarists don't know that their tone stack circuit is closest to "flat" when the tone controls for treble and bass are turned all the way down to their minimum settings, most assuming incorrectly that the "halfway" positions are the neutral flat settings.

...or, in the case of the uncommon Baxandall tone stack, "flat" is when the tone controls are both set to "noon" straight up, yes? (I use a Traynor YGM 3).

Great thread, thanks to everyone who contributed. I was thinking of using my Strat or Tele on an upcoming big band gig, or even using the guitar I think of as my "hot rod," a Parker Nitefly, which plays like a dream.

-Jon

[rpjazzguitar]

Great post, Pauln. Thanks, gives me some ideas.


...or, in the case of the uncommon Baxandall tone stack, "flat" is when the tone controls are both set to "noon" straight up, yes? (I use a Traynor YGM 3).

Great thread, thanks to everyone who contributed. I was thinking of using my Strat or Tele on an upcoming big band gig, or even using the guitar I think of as my "hot rod," a Parker Nitefly, which plays like a dream.

-Jon

I like the sound of a single coil guitar for big band. Assuming there's a pianist, and there usually is, the guitar's frequency spectrum risks conflicting with the bassist, the pianist's left hand and the pianist's right hand.

To my ear, the usual problem with HB guitars, when there is one (maybe even more with an untamed HB archtop), is what I think of as a certain muddiness to chords played in the middle range of the guitar. You can avoid it, say, by playing all your voicings on the top four strings all the way up the neck, but that's not usually right for a classic big band. The single coil cuts the risk, I think. It can sit in the mix, seemingly by itself.

In fact, to my ear, even Freddie Green didn't produce a lot of energy in that low mid area -- although Basie's piano style was so beautifully sparse that it might not have mattered much. I think Freddie's guitar cut really well and sounded surprisingly crisp for a archtop played on the lower strings. But, Freddie didn't use a pickup.

I've played big band and octet gigs (and recorded two octet CDs, mostly with a Strat copy) and liked the sound.

[christianm77]

I like the sound of a single coil guitar for big band. Assuming there's a pianist, and there usually is, the guitar's frequency spectrum risks conflicting with the bassist, the pianist's left hand and the pianist's right hand.

To my ear, the usual problem with HB guitars, when there is one (maybe even more with an untamed HB archtop), is what I think of as a certain muddiness to chords played in the middle range of the guitar. You can avoid it, say, by playing all your voicings on the top four strings all the way up the neck, but that's not usually right for a classic big band. The single coil cuts the risk, I think. It can sit in the mix, seemingly by itself.

In fact, to my ear, even Freddie Green didn't produce a lot of energy in that low mid area -- although Basie's piano style was so beautifully sparse that it might not have mattered much. I think Freddie's guitar cut really well and sounded surprisingly crisp for a archtop played on the lower strings. But, Freddie didn't use a pickup.

I've played big band and octet gigs (and recorded two octet CDs, mostly with a Strat copy) and liked the sound.

Mostly FG was playing an acoustic box not an electric archtop. Also he mostly played the d string.

May have been miked but that’s it. Most modern big bands are too loud and diverse in their repertoire to make this practical.

If you want a better sound for a big band rhythm my advice is to roll off pretty much all the bass. You could use a tele or a strat but you’ll get a lot of shit for it lol. Maybe you have more enlightened band mates.

[Tal_175]

Virtually all guitarists don't know that their tone stack circuit is closest to "flat" when the tone controls for treble and bass are turned all the way down to their minimum settings, most assuming incorrectly that the "halfway" positions are the neutral flat settings.

I disagree with both assertions. Not only that a lot of people know (or think they know) that treble, bass down gives flat EQ, but it's also a common misconception.
It's true that if you check different amps in a tone stack calculator software, it'll show flat'ish eq with both bass and treble down. There are tons of videos/posts circulating online that wrongly conclude from that, that bass, treble down GIVES you flat EQ.
Tone stack is only one part of the equation. A lot of pickups give mid pushed signal, tone stack's scooped default is there to compensate for that (one of the reasons). But it doesn't end in the tone stack, later gain stages also change eq. Negative feedback accentuates bass and trebles. Big reason why blackface amps are scooped is not their tone stack, it's their heavy negative feedback use. There isn't whole a lot difference between Marshall tone stack and Fender tone stack eq's. Blackface tonestacks also ground a lot of the signal across the board which further increases the scooping affect of the negative feedback.
Low or no negative feedback is the biggest reason why tweed amps have more pronounced mids.
There are also huge differences between speakers and how they internally shape eq. Not to mention eq characteristics of the pickups.
So no, bass and treble down doesn't mean flat eq for all amp, speaker and pickup combinations. That's just an oversimplistic generalization of what tonestack software shows. Your ears will tell you, different amp/guitar/speaker combinations will give you vastly different results in the same EQ settings. It's doesn't make sense to think it could be any other way.

[Greentone]

Yep, a negative feedback loop will extend the bass and the treble frequencies, relative to no negative feedback loop. Some of my Polytones have a NFB loop switch on the back panel. (It's not marked as such, but that's what it does. I think it's called "Room EQ.")

You can hear the effect that switching in or out the NFB loop has.

Many of the old Fender Tweed amps did not use the NFB loop, and they sound more mid-range emphasized, compared to the 60s blackface designs. It's the BF Fenders that give us all of the scooped reference points.

[Tal_175]

To my ear, the usual problem with HB guitars, when there is one (maybe even more with an untamed HB archtop), is what I think of as a certain muddiness to chords played in the middle range of the guitar. You can avoid it, say, by playing all your voicings on the top four strings all the way up the neck, but that's not usually right for a classic big band. The single coil cuts the risk, I think. It can sit in the mix, seemingly by itself.

Does your HB guitar have a bridge pickup? If so have you tried using the middle position and adjusting the balance to 40% neck, 60% bridge?
Another alternative is to use a pedal to lower the low mids and add presence. That makes the muddy mid congestion go away.

[JGinNJ]

If a strat fits your sound concept and blends with the band, fine. I don't think it would work for me, personally. I had an Ibanez Blazer, Strat copy for a while. Easy to play, but I always found the pickups too "hot", and didn't like it ergonomically for my right hand. I got rid of it and didn't even own a solid-body for several years, until I picked up a cheap Tele copy.

It can get close, sound wise, but I need a more acoustic quality. I brought my Tele to a big band rehearsal once, and on that night, I was the entire rhythm section- the band leader asked me to give it more of the Freddie Green chunk-chunk sound, percussive feel since there was no drummer. It didn't really cut it, maybe if I was better with my modeling amp's settings.

Hey, maybe if enough jazz players decide a strat/tele/LesPaul is the way to go, the bottom will fall out of the collectible archtop market, and I can get a deal on a Super 400 or somesuch.

[pauln]

I disagree with both assertions. Not only that a lot of people know (or think they know) that treble, bass down gives flat EQ, but it's also a common misconception.
It's true that if you check different amps in a tone stack calculator software, it'll show flat'ish eq with both bass and treble down. There are tons of videos/posts circulating online that wrongly conclude from that, that bass, treble down GIVES you flat EQ.
Tone stack is only one part of the equation. A lot of pickups give mid pushed signal, tone stack's scooped default is there to compensate for that (one of the reasons). But it doesn't end in the tone stack, later gain stages also change eq. Negative feedback accentuates bass and trebles. Big reason why blackface amps are scooped is not their tone stack, it's their heavy negative feedback use. There isn't whole a lot difference between Marshall tone stack and Fender tone stack eq's. Blackface tonestacks also ground a lot of the signal across the board which further increases the scooping affect of the negative feedback.
Low or no negative feedback is the biggest reason why tweed amps have more pronounced mids.
There are also huge differences between speakers and how they internally shape eq. Not to mention eq characteristics of the pickups.
So no, bass and treble down doesn't mean flat eq for all amp, speaker and pickup combinations. That's just an oversimplistic generalization of what tonestack software shows. Your ears will tell you, different amp/guitar/speaker combinations will give you vastly different results in the same EQ settings. It's doesn't make sense to think it could be any other way.

I wrote, "...their tone stack circuit is closest to "flat" when the tone controls for treble and bass are turned all the way down...", not that the resulting sound out of the whole amp was necessarily flat. Anyone who has played a guitar through a hifi system set to flat knows that the resulting sound is horrible; my point was about setting the tone stack circuit itself closest to "self flat".

[KirkP]

...
But it doesn't end in the tone stack, later gain stages also change eq. Negative feedback accentuates bass and trebles. Big reason why blackface amps are scooped is not their tone stack, it's their heavy negative feedback use.

I doubt that’s correct. Negative feedback improves the linearity of an amplifier, which if anything would make the frequency response a little flatter. At least that’s true if you aren’t driving the amp into clipping where the assumptions that go into negative feedback design may start to fall apart. I think the reason some people prefer little global negative feedback is they like the sound of that nonlinearity and/or don’t like how a negative feedback amplifier responds to clipping.

Blackface amps definitely do have an extremely mid-scooped tone stack. That’s what country, surf and rock players were asking for and that’s what Leo gave them. Some other sections of the Fender amp may effect frequency response. E.g., some Fender amps have a higher value capacitor between the preamp and PI for more bass. But I think the tone stack is primarily responsible for the scooped response.

I do agree that part of the purpose of that scooped response was to counteract the mid-frequency peaks in magnetic pickups. But the other reason was to cut through a loud band.

[Tal_175]

I doubt that’s correct. Negative feedback improves the linearity of an amplifier, which if anything would make the frequency response a little flatter.

The scooping effect of negative feedback is quite well known. I'm sure you can find out all about it with a quick search. In the mean time, you think Fender's are scooped. Here is a comparison with Vox (and Marshall). It's ironic that Vox's are known for their upper mids. That's around where they are most scooped. The difference is Vox amps (AC's) do not use negative feedback.
Also note that Marshall tone stack is also scooped (though turns out not as much as I stated above perhaps). Yet Marshall's are hardly known for their mid scoop. Mid scoop in tone stacks is pretty standard. As I said the effect of the tone stack is a just one small part of the overall EQ.

[Cunamara]

Search for "stratocaster jazz tone" on YouTube and you'll find a bunch of stuff- some good, some not so good. This one gets a pretty good sound with a Strat and a Polytone:

And there's forum member rpguitar:

[shredmiyagi]

Honestly I’d make the investment in a $300-400 used Ibanez Artcore that plays well, have it be your 2nd guitar, and call it a day.

I think it’s perfectly fine using a Strat for jazz but here are a few reasons why you might reconsider:

- I like the tone of the trem floating, but minor tuning adjustments aren’t fun with a floater.

- Nice to have a little acoustic volume (from the hollow body) on the quieter gigs.

- There is a roundness to a hollow body that the Strat won’t have. Much easier to make single notes sing, but chords especially have a full eq while retaining clarity. Some straight ahead situations, esp. with a quiet bass player and light drummer, things might sound thin if a Strat is expected to comp / replace piano. Strat is great for busy mixes or funkier comping, but if it’s a quartet with trumpet or sax and lots of medium/slow-tempo swing, no pianist... I haven’t been happy with Tele/Strat single coils covering that base. On the other hand it’s nice to really work on all your lower register voicings.

That said, I don’t think it matters. Chords, ideas, feel and lines speak for themselves even if you play an Ibanez Jem.

[Tal_175]

Search for "stratocaster jazz tone" on YouTube and you'll find a bunch of stuff- some good, some not so good. This one gets a pretty good sound with a Strat and a Polytone:

And there's forum member rpguitar:

Great playing (in the second video). However in both of the videos, strat tone is still a bit too thin and bright for solo playing for my taste. At least 12 gauge flats and some pedal support to fatten the mids is required for single note lines IMO. Chord work doesn't need fat mids, just the pickups do fine.
Strat is particularly good for more modern sounds. Even for chord melodies a la Ted Greene. Chord tones ring out, nice and clear sustain.

[Bach5G]

I’ve found Fender Vintage Noiseless pickups do the job pretty well (they are humbuckers after all).

[Greentone]

Get some strings on your Stratocaster! If you put TI Swing Flats...at least 11-50...and you will have no problem with a nice, round tone on the neck pickup.

I've done this for years. If I am gigging in a situation in which I don't want to scuff up an archtop, either the Telecaster or the Stratocaster gets the nod. BIG strings make all of the difference.

[rmpmcdermott]

Get some strings on your Stratocaster! If you put TI Swing Flats...at least 11-50...and you will have no problem with a nice, round tone on the neck pickup.

I've done this for years. If I am gigging in a situation in which I don't want to scuff up an archtop, either the Telecaster or the Stratocaster gets the nod. BIG strings make all of the difference.

I use TI Swing Flats 11-50 on my Melancon Pro Artist (S-style guitar) and it sounds phenomenal on the neck pickup. Beautiful, thick, clear tone that works great for jazz. I always keep at least one Strat-style guitar outfitted with TI flats. The Melancon seems to take them better than my G&L Legacy or my Fender AVRI.

[Tal_175]

It's true that too much overdrive increases the brightness and cutting tone and goes against having a fat tone. But a little bit overdrive I think helps to get a fatter, warmer tone. Especially if you're playing though a solid state amp. Do others find that too?
I think the reason for that is, fat tone has both fundamental and good amount of overtones in it. When you have a lot of overdrive, you emphasize the overtones at the expense of the fundamental. That's why it sounds bright and cutting. But when you have just a small bit of overdrive, then you aren't sacrificing the fundamental but adding some more overtones to get a bigger sound. The tone also gets more lively because overtone content changes in response to your dynamics. Adds to the complexity of the sound.