There are all kinds of modifications you can make to the Fender Stratocaster in your life to have it just the way you like it. You can block off the vibrato, switch up the wiring, swap out the saddles in the vibrato. But Richard Fortus has identified two of the biggest changes that can be made to a Strat and he credits Jimi Hendrix with finding them.
In a recent interview with Total Guitar, in which the Guns N' Roses guitarist waxes lyrical about the influence of Aerosmith’s Joe Perry on his sound, Fortus says Leo Fender missed a trick when it came to the Strat – and it was Hendrix who was responsible for fixing it. By flipping the right-handed body upside down, thus reversing the angle of the bridge pickup, and reversing the headstock, Hendrix improved it.
This might have been an accidental discovery, owing to Hendrix needing to play a left-handed instrument, but Fortus says this changes everything. As for Perry? He was genius enough to notice exactly how Hendrix’s needs-must modification improved the Strat’s tone, and duly adopted a similar approach and flipping his Strat.
“I think it probably came from his love of Hendrix, but having a left-handed headstock, you’ve got more string length on low strings where you want it, which is probably why Hendrix had such a piano-like low-end,” said Fortus. “I think Joe figured out that if you have a left-handed headstock, it increases the tension on the low strings and the top strings are going to be easier to bend. A lot of the photos that you see of Joe, he’s using either a left-handed Strat or a left-handed neck.”
As a fan of Hendrix and Perry, it is not surprising that Fortus took this approach onboard back when he was designing his signature James Trussart Steel-O-Matic S-style, a guitar that we saw him play often with the Dead Daisies.
That gnarly beast duly features a reverse headstock and – crucially – the reverse angled bridge pickup as per Hendrix’s Strats.
Fortus told Total Guitar that “reversing that angle of the bridge pickup makes a big difference”, and it was one of the few things that could have been improved upon from the original design “I think Leo Fender sort of got it wrong, and Jimi Hendrix corrected it,” he continued. “It makes more sense.”
And you can hear what Fortus means when you watch footage of Perry playing with a flipped Strat with Aerosmith, like this 1978 performance of Walk This Way from the Texxas World Music Festival, in Dallas, TX.
When Fortus and Trussart began work on his signature guitar, they discussed these very same issues, what Fortus liked about the Stratocaster, and what he had learned from his experience with modding the Fender Telecaster.
Reversing the bridge pickup was one of the things that Fortus had explored with his Teles, and he effectively adopted the same approach as Hendrix and Perry for the Trussart.
“It gives me a lot more brightness on the low end,” he said. “More attack. The low end is tighter and thumpier, and so we did that on this guitar. We reversed the bridge pickup, and also up here I put a left-handed headstock on it so the tension is on the low strings, really where you want it.”
So, when all is said and done, is this the mod that your Strat needs? Well, not in all cases. Notably, Fortus did not even countenance this mod with his 1960 Strat, which has a slab rosewood ‘board a faded 3-Tone Sunburst finish and is just perfect as it is, thank you.
Speaking to MusicRadar in 2019, Fortus swore that his vintage unicorn’s tone was unmatched. ‘This guitar has the best-sounding Strat bridge pickup I’ve ever heard,” he said.
We would caution against rerouting the body to reverse the bridge pickup’s angle, not without the help of an experienced luthier. But flipping it? Swapping out the neck? The modular design of the Stratocaster lends itself to that sort of DIY endeavour, and the Fender site is there to cater for it, selling spare necks, both right and left-handed.
And with a reverse headstock neck, you wouldn't have to perform the setup adjustments that you would need to when affixing a left-handed neck to a right-handed body, or vice versa. It's certainly food for thought, or yet another rabbit hole to fall into in search of tone. Like we need another one...
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