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Dave Murray Strat Review - holy crap this is long - feel free to skip down to the pics!
Cross posted on TFF, so if this is old news for you, sorry...
Overall, I am very pleased with this guitar. It sounds and plays great. I’m on vacation, so I’ve got a limited rig - Pocket POD, my old Marshall Valvestate 1x10 and a MXR distortion pedal - not a star rig, but it gets the job done up here in the woods. I honestly think a Strat with humbuckers is one of the best melding of sounds out there - you get the brightness and pluck of the bolt on neck and the output and tone of the hum buckers which I think goes very well together.
I like the look of the guitar - this is where you’ll get the strong opinions, I guess. Yes, you don’t need the hum bucker rings - yes, maybe they look out of place against the white guard. But I like it. I like the black, chrome, cream, white look. Mostly because I’ve always liked the look of Dave’s guitar - so I’m partial. One thing that’s cool about it is that if you don’t like it, or want to go H-S-S or S-S-S, you can - just swap the pick guard. Other than the pick guard - it’s a regular strat (with big frets). Some folks have questioned the look of the guitar - but if you want something that looks like what Dave played - this is the one to have.
Pros
Overall, the guitar is pretty light - its not a feather, but its not a tank. I’d guess a sub-4 lb body - maybe a bit lighter in the neck - it balances very well and you don’t even know its on your shoulder. It rings out when played - very nice acoustic resonance - not bright or banjo-like at all.
The fretwork is very nice. The ends are trimmed and polished. They’re not rounded, but there’s no sharp edges on any of the frets. All of them seem level, crowned and well polished - very well polished. I haven’t noticed any high or low frets, and there’s a minimum of buzzing. I like big frets. These are nice meaty medium jumbos, though they feel like regular jumbos to me. Maybe a hair smaller than those on my Charvel Pro Mod. Maybe a bit lower.
The back of the neck is “satin” or slightly satin-y. Its not heavily sanded - there’s still a bit of gloss. Very playable - not sticky at all - you can tell the difference between the back of the neck and the fretboard which is glossy and has a little bit of sticky-ness to it (which has already diminished in the week I’ve been playing it - or I got used to it).
Overall, between the back of the neck and the frets - it’s a very playable neck - very fast and articulate. The 9.5” radius feels really good - and I’ve been playing much flatter boards lately, so… The neck shape is not chunky, but not thin - it’s a very very very soft V shape - you almost can’t tell it’s a V. The first time I played one, I didn’t think it was a V shape - but you can just barely feel it. Either way, its very comfortable. Just enough meat on it to get a good grip and leverage for some stretchy fingerings.
I’m also just syched to have a nitro strat neck - I can’t wait to wear the finish out naturally.
Electronics wise - its got the Dimarzio PAF in the neck and Super Distortion in the bridge. Both of which sound about how you would expect in an alder body. The bridge sound is tight and punchy with a lot of girth - low mids and bass, rounded highs - there’s no treble spikes and biting brightness. The bridge bucker sounds about the same as the Super Distortion in my Charvel ProMod (Floyd). The PAF neck is nice and clear - great for clean stuff and that round neck hummer sound. Fat, a bit flubby, but in a good way - lots of meaty chunk. The middle single coil is odd - it’s a Fender “Vintage Style” single coil. I don’t know what that is. I guess its just a generic single coil. Its odd to me because you don’t see other Strats with “Vintage Style” single coils - usually they’re named pickups - Texas Specials, Fat 50’s, 62’s, whatever. So I guess this is just what they had on the bench at the time. Anyway - its got a nice clucky middle position Strat sound - dial in a Bassman type sound and go for some classic rock.
I should point out that this guitar really has great sustain. It really vibrates and holds the note, letting you squeeze out the notes with some vibrato. Really nice. Big frets - light body - that’s the recipe in my book.
This is probably obvious to anyone who’s bought a new Strat recently, but the little spring that goes in the trem arm hole works great at putting tension on the bar and keeping it where you want it. I had previously used a spring from a ballpoint pen which worked OK. This works great - you just have to be careful to put it in a little baggie or something when you tear the guitar down - good luck on a darkened stage.
G&G tweed case is very nice. Again - probably obvious to others. But I like it. I derive great pleasure from a nice tweed case.
I caught this before I bought it - looking at pictures: the volume knob is moved a bit away from the normal strat mounting location. Its down a little bit towards the switch. This is a nice touch - obviously its to clear the pickup mounting ring for the bridge pickup. I was actually checking out Dave’s original in some videos and noticed that he has the ring cut away around the knob. I think this is a decent alternative. Its just out of the way enough that I haven’t been bumping it but its still close enough to easily do volume swells with my pinky.
Cons
At first glance (in the store and at home) the finish looked flawless. Under some direct sunlight, theres very fine buffing wheel (I guess) scratches all over the body in the same direction. It kind of looks like they hit it with a coarse compound and didn’t go real fine. I’ll see what some hand polishing does for it. This isn’t too terrible IMO - but it was kind of a let-down. Maybe this is just par for the course with nitro? I don’t think so, but…
I noticed that a lot of the screws - pickguard, trem cover and switch screws - were not installed all the way in - they all needed a couple of turns.
Probably not a big deal, but the plastic film they put on the pick guard required me to tear down the guitar and loosen up the pickup screws (compounded by the hum bucker rings) in order to get it all off - and I still need to pull the Tone knobs to get the film out from under those. I understand why they put it on, but man it sucks.
Probably the worst thing I’ve got to complain about is the short screws they used to mount the hum buckers. Be very careful adjusting the pickup height - they need to be very high (close to the strings) - dropping them too far will cause the screw to come out of the hum bucker legs - this happened three times to me already before I left the bridge bucker really high (I usually like a little breathing room).
Now, the reason for this is that Fender routed the hum bucker spaces shallow - about the depth needed for a single coil - and did not routed out additional wood for regular length humbucker screws to fit in there. Instead, they just used shorter screws. Basically, you only have a couple of threads on the screws past the bottom of the leg. I think the problem is compounded because the screws can be turned by your hand as you play - just a word to the wise - be careful here.
Real nit-picky I would have preferred non-logo’d pickups, but even still, the Dimarzio logo is very discreet - just kind of impressed into the top of the bobbin. You can only see it in the right light at the right angle.
General Comments
I dig the three-way switch. It works fine in this application. I don’t really NEED the notched 2 & 4 position - I don’t use it much on a regular strat. That said, its still easy to get it into that position if you must have that sound. When in the 2 & 4 position, you’re getting full hum bucker plus the middle pickup in parallel. Its actually got decent “cluck.” You can pull off “Little Wing” and “Sultans of Swing” if you need to - obviously its not the same, but its close.
The nut is nicely cut, rounded and polished. I checked out some Highway 1’s and a Roadworn 60’s MIM in comparison - this one looks professional. Nice. Not without fail, though - I needed to put in some “Graphitall” lube to keep the B from hanging up when dropping the trem. No big deal, but I’ve gotten perfect tuning stability without the lube in the past on my MIJ 54 RI. Again, the string might have been hanging at the nut or the string retainer - it was pinging, which to me means the string slot was cramped. Nut lube is good to have anyway.
Other than the nut slots, the setup was nearly spot on. The trem was leaning too far forward when tuned to concert pitch - maybe they set it up slightly flat? Dunno. I added a couple turns to the spring claw. I get a step or a step and a half in pull up with it now. String height at the high E at 12th fret is about 1.5 mm based on sticking my Jazz III in there - it just clears the string. Big bends are no problem - 1.5 to 2 steps without fretting out. Intonation is spot on (as far as my ears go) and the guitar sounds “in-tune” on big chords.
So there you have it - I’m completely stoked with this guitar. Love it. Some of it is fan boy love, so account for that, but the rest is regular love. Plays great, sounds great, looks great. Now I can’t wait to get my Adrian Smith Jackson to complete my set!
The guitar...
Headstock...
here you can see the bridge hum fallen into the holw because the screw came out
shot of the body, strings loose
control route - you can see the shallow hum routes
electronics - notice, they had left the allen wrench included with dimarzio pickups stuck to the bottom of the Super Distortion (removed in this pic)
close up of the neck pickup
the neck
neckplate
Cross posted on TFF, so if this is old news for you, sorry...
Overall, I am very pleased with this guitar. It sounds and plays great. I’m on vacation, so I’ve got a limited rig - Pocket POD, my old Marshall Valvestate 1x10 and a MXR distortion pedal - not a star rig, but it gets the job done up here in the woods. I honestly think a Strat with humbuckers is one of the best melding of sounds out there - you get the brightness and pluck of the bolt on neck and the output and tone of the hum buckers which I think goes very well together.
I like the look of the guitar - this is where you’ll get the strong opinions, I guess. Yes, you don’t need the hum bucker rings - yes, maybe they look out of place against the white guard. But I like it. I like the black, chrome, cream, white look. Mostly because I’ve always liked the look of Dave’s guitar - so I’m partial. One thing that’s cool about it is that if you don’t like it, or want to go H-S-S or S-S-S, you can - just swap the pick guard. Other than the pick guard - it’s a regular strat (with big frets). Some folks have questioned the look of the guitar - but if you want something that looks like what Dave played - this is the one to have.
Pros
Overall, the guitar is pretty light - its not a feather, but its not a tank. I’d guess a sub-4 lb body - maybe a bit lighter in the neck - it balances very well and you don’t even know its on your shoulder. It rings out when played - very nice acoustic resonance - not bright or banjo-like at all.
The fretwork is very nice. The ends are trimmed and polished. They’re not rounded, but there’s no sharp edges on any of the frets. All of them seem level, crowned and well polished - very well polished. I haven’t noticed any high or low frets, and there’s a minimum of buzzing. I like big frets. These are nice meaty medium jumbos, though they feel like regular jumbos to me. Maybe a hair smaller than those on my Charvel Pro Mod. Maybe a bit lower.
The back of the neck is “satin” or slightly satin-y. Its not heavily sanded - there’s still a bit of gloss. Very playable - not sticky at all - you can tell the difference between the back of the neck and the fretboard which is glossy and has a little bit of sticky-ness to it (which has already diminished in the week I’ve been playing it - or I got used to it).
Overall, between the back of the neck and the frets - it’s a very playable neck - very fast and articulate. The 9.5” radius feels really good - and I’ve been playing much flatter boards lately, so… The neck shape is not chunky, but not thin - it’s a very very very soft V shape - you almost can’t tell it’s a V. The first time I played one, I didn’t think it was a V shape - but you can just barely feel it. Either way, its very comfortable. Just enough meat on it to get a good grip and leverage for some stretchy fingerings.
I’m also just syched to have a nitro strat neck - I can’t wait to wear the finish out naturally.
Electronics wise - its got the Dimarzio PAF in the neck and Super Distortion in the bridge. Both of which sound about how you would expect in an alder body. The bridge sound is tight and punchy with a lot of girth - low mids and bass, rounded highs - there’s no treble spikes and biting brightness. The bridge bucker sounds about the same as the Super Distortion in my Charvel ProMod (Floyd). The PAF neck is nice and clear - great for clean stuff and that round neck hummer sound. Fat, a bit flubby, but in a good way - lots of meaty chunk. The middle single coil is odd - it’s a Fender “Vintage Style” single coil. I don’t know what that is. I guess its just a generic single coil. Its odd to me because you don’t see other Strats with “Vintage Style” single coils - usually they’re named pickups - Texas Specials, Fat 50’s, 62’s, whatever. So I guess this is just what they had on the bench at the time. Anyway - its got a nice clucky middle position Strat sound - dial in a Bassman type sound and go for some classic rock.
I should point out that this guitar really has great sustain. It really vibrates and holds the note, letting you squeeze out the notes with some vibrato. Really nice. Big frets - light body - that’s the recipe in my book.
This is probably obvious to anyone who’s bought a new Strat recently, but the little spring that goes in the trem arm hole works great at putting tension on the bar and keeping it where you want it. I had previously used a spring from a ballpoint pen which worked OK. This works great - you just have to be careful to put it in a little baggie or something when you tear the guitar down - good luck on a darkened stage.
G&G tweed case is very nice. Again - probably obvious to others. But I like it. I derive great pleasure from a nice tweed case.
I caught this before I bought it - looking at pictures: the volume knob is moved a bit away from the normal strat mounting location. Its down a little bit towards the switch. This is a nice touch - obviously its to clear the pickup mounting ring for the bridge pickup. I was actually checking out Dave’s original in some videos and noticed that he has the ring cut away around the knob. I think this is a decent alternative. Its just out of the way enough that I haven’t been bumping it but its still close enough to easily do volume swells with my pinky.
Cons
At first glance (in the store and at home) the finish looked flawless. Under some direct sunlight, theres very fine buffing wheel (I guess) scratches all over the body in the same direction. It kind of looks like they hit it with a coarse compound and didn’t go real fine. I’ll see what some hand polishing does for it. This isn’t too terrible IMO - but it was kind of a let-down. Maybe this is just par for the course with nitro? I don’t think so, but…
I noticed that a lot of the screws - pickguard, trem cover and switch screws - were not installed all the way in - they all needed a couple of turns.
Probably not a big deal, but the plastic film they put on the pick guard required me to tear down the guitar and loosen up the pickup screws (compounded by the hum bucker rings) in order to get it all off - and I still need to pull the Tone knobs to get the film out from under those. I understand why they put it on, but man it sucks.
Probably the worst thing I’ve got to complain about is the short screws they used to mount the hum buckers. Be very careful adjusting the pickup height - they need to be very high (close to the strings) - dropping them too far will cause the screw to come out of the hum bucker legs - this happened three times to me already before I left the bridge bucker really high (I usually like a little breathing room).
Now, the reason for this is that Fender routed the hum bucker spaces shallow - about the depth needed for a single coil - and did not routed out additional wood for regular length humbucker screws to fit in there. Instead, they just used shorter screws. Basically, you only have a couple of threads on the screws past the bottom of the leg. I think the problem is compounded because the screws can be turned by your hand as you play - just a word to the wise - be careful here.
Real nit-picky I would have preferred non-logo’d pickups, but even still, the Dimarzio logo is very discreet - just kind of impressed into the top of the bobbin. You can only see it in the right light at the right angle.
General Comments
I dig the three-way switch. It works fine in this application. I don’t really NEED the notched 2 & 4 position - I don’t use it much on a regular strat. That said, its still easy to get it into that position if you must have that sound. When in the 2 & 4 position, you’re getting full hum bucker plus the middle pickup in parallel. Its actually got decent “cluck.” You can pull off “Little Wing” and “Sultans of Swing” if you need to - obviously its not the same, but its close.
The nut is nicely cut, rounded and polished. I checked out some Highway 1’s and a Roadworn 60’s MIM in comparison - this one looks professional. Nice. Not without fail, though - I needed to put in some “Graphitall” lube to keep the B from hanging up when dropping the trem. No big deal, but I’ve gotten perfect tuning stability without the lube in the past on my MIJ 54 RI. Again, the string might have been hanging at the nut or the string retainer - it was pinging, which to me means the string slot was cramped. Nut lube is good to have anyway.
Other than the nut slots, the setup was nearly spot on. The trem was leaning too far forward when tuned to concert pitch - maybe they set it up slightly flat? Dunno. I added a couple turns to the spring claw. I get a step or a step and a half in pull up with it now. String height at the high E at 12th fret is about 1.5 mm based on sticking my Jazz III in there - it just clears the string. Big bends are no problem - 1.5 to 2 steps without fretting out. Intonation is spot on (as far as my ears go) and the guitar sounds “in-tune” on big chords.
So there you have it - I’m completely stoked with this guitar. Love it. Some of it is fan boy love, so account for that, but the rest is regular love. Plays great, sounds great, looks great. Now I can’t wait to get my Adrian Smith Jackson to complete my set!
The guitar...
Headstock...
here you can see the bridge hum fallen into the holw because the screw came out
shot of the body, strings loose
control route - you can see the shallow hum routes
electronics - notice, they had left the allen wrench included with dimarzio pickups stuck to the bottom of the Super Distortion (removed in this pic)
close up of the neck pickup
the neck
neckplate
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