1984 Fender USA "two knob" Strat - video with good

[mcphoto]

Here's a new vid I did for . I bought it new in 84, and it's a very nice American made guitar. I've put a ton of info on the 83-84s on this blog post - if you're a Strat geek, check it out. Supposedly dark days for Fender, but it's quite a nice guitar, and very unique.

Click here for the vid at . (this isn't a commercial post, though I may eBay this eventually - I'm really eyeing it with mods in mind, and it seems wrong to mod something this strange and original, y'know?)

A couple pics, too:





Enjoy - MC

[VintAxe]

Another fine quality video mcphoto, great work

Yeah, these two knob Strats don't get nearly the love of the Smith Strat but I'm sure the main difference is electronics. Thanks for sharing what your two knob is capable of accomplishing.

[mcphoto]

Thanks man -

Regarding the failure of the 83's in the market - Dan Smith himself stated in a lengthy interview that "...if we'd gotten the tremolo right, the '83 would still be the Standard Strat today".



I've got five electric guitars as of this morning - only one, a cheap Strat, has more than one tone knob - dual tone knobs isn't something I've ever really missed. The pickups in the 83-84's are decent - they capture a fairly complex & articulated sound, and the beefier weight that most owners report for those years (including the "elite" models) gives the pups even more to work with (though I'd certainly like to hear my axe with some Kinmans or Antiquities!) My 84 is the most "solid" feeling guitar of any non-gibson I've owned and has that "well built" feeling you get from a 70's Les Paul or SG. It's kinda hard to define, but play a couple other guitars and pick up the Strat, and you suddenly think "wow, I'm playing a grown-up guitar now".

Smith's take on the Freeflyte bridge was that it went to production too fast; the baseplate attaches to the mechanism along a knife-edge that transfers tone well, but with only string tension holding things together, he felt the parts slid around to much (I've never had trouble with mine, even in some crazy whammy periods of my playing). It's also hard to setup (off comes the strings and pickguard), it has a smaller block, and it just doesn't deliver as much of that subtle "spring reverb" sound a Strat should have.

That's the biggest problem with owning these today - if that Trem breaks (and they do, the main mechanical part is cast and known to crack) there are no parts around to fix it. I emailed the Skyway guy but never heard back, and have yet to find a workable replacement - routing the back for a modern trem is out of the question, as there's not enough wood with the deeper pickup rout. Supposedly you can mount one of the big & clunky locking-style trems, but man, who wants to mess with the locking nut these days?

Anyway - still looking, though I may eBay this one eventually - I have mixed feelings about modding a guitar that's this pristine after a quarter century... we'll see.

[hansmoust]

[frankpaush]

... isn't a bad guitar even a bad one when it's old ?
When those strats came to the shops here, I quitted looking for "Fender" for a while, instead switching to Squier .... some years later I was abled to get a GoldGold from the same period, which was much more like what I was awaiting. It was not the two knobs, I really hated the plug in the pickguard, I had seen enough broken plastic surrounding a plug hole before ....

Nevertheless, your video is nice.