Reverse neck strats, SRV, Hendrix & Mick from That Pedal Show

Saddlepunk

When I went through my Hendrix worship phase I bought a left handed American strat, reversed the nut, restrung it and played it right handed - seemed to be a no brainer for any Hendrix wannabe to do. You're getting the whole experience (no pun intended) - reversed pickups, neck, tremolo, view when you look down etc. Why is there a market for ordinary strats with reverse necks, and why are some of them called Hendrix strats? Why did SRV play (I think I'm right in thinking) with a reverse tremolo only?

If you want to do what Hendrix did, then do it - turn your whole guitar - whether it be a Stratocaster, Flying V, SG or Guild 12 string -, upside down, not just the neck or trem.

Plectrum

Had Hendrix been satisfied with quality of left-handed Strats the I'[m sure he would have played one of them unmodified. And he would still have sounded like Jimi Hendrix. IMHO too much weight is placed on the trivial details of the guitar and not enough on the talent of the player.

peteri

SRV did the trem, because (from what I've read) he thought it would change the feel of the trem to let him copy Jimi more.

The upside headstock is to do with changing string length, which I always thought was clutching at straws to say the least!

JDE

I've found an upside down Strat trem to be borderline unplayable for me. Gets in the way, you can't cup the trem arm in your hand while picking, you can't use the arm with your little finger at all because your pick ends up being miles away from the strings. Let alone having all the knobs and switches up there. 

People do the reverse headstock thing presumably because they think it looks good. Not my bag, looks weird to me.

Modellista

JDE said:

I've found an upside down Strat trem to be borderline unplayable for me. Gets in the way, you can't cup the trem arm in your hand while picking, you can't use the arm with your little finger at all because your pick ends up being miles away from the strings. Let alone having all the knobs and switches up there. 

People do the reverse headstock thing presumably because they think it looks good. Not my bag, looks weird to me.

Ever since my first proper guitar, a Washburn N2, I've been a big fan of reverse headstocks.  I think they look really cool, but I know they're personal taste.  I guess there is a theory that the two Hendrixian changes, the opposite angle on the bridge pickup and the reverse headstock give some sort of magical tone.  It doesn't, although I have to agree that the reverse-angled bridge pickup makes a lot of sense to me - fattening up the thing strings and de-muddying the fat ones.  John Page seems to agree because his new Ashburn features a bridge pickup angled that way.  You'd think he'd know a thing or two about tone.

axisus

I love the look of reverse headstocks. I am not into the Hendrix connection at all though. At the end of the day, his method was pretty weird and counterintuitive for most people so I'm not surprised that most 'fans' don't go all the way with it.

JDE

Six in line tuners, on top of the headstock so you don't have to curl your wrist to tune is one of the best designed things ever. That said, I think a Les Paul with six-in-a-line would look awful. I think I just like seeing what I'm used to seeing. The reverse big 70's style headstock just looks bizarre to me. Like someone has tied a balloon to the end of the neck. 
The upside down pickup makes more sense to me. Well, more sense than having to rake your forearm over a trem arm, three knobs and a switch, and the jack lead which is now pointing straight up at you.

Saddlepunk

JDE said:

Six in line tuners, on top of the headstock so you don't have to curl your wrist to tune is one of the best designed things ever. 

Agreed, I found the upside down tuners very comfortable.

axisus said:

I love the look of reverse headstocks. 

Agreed, (except for the ones attached to Rob Chapman guitars. I'm being childish - but I think he's a tosser)!

lovestrat74

Plectrum said:

Had Hendrix been satisfied with quality of left-handed Strats the I'[m sure he would have played one of them unmodified. And he would still have sounded like Jimi Hendrix. IMHO too much weight is placed on the trivial details of the guitar and not enough on the talent of the player.

I saw an interview with Clapton and he said he "found" a left handed Strat (rockinghorse shit back in the day!) and bought it for Jimi. So I think it was because they were so rare that he played right handed guitars,  and it probably became the norm for him...

mburekenge

Don't forget the enormous and abnormally long limbs hendrix had. Said the vicar to the priest.


Made it easier to play a regular strat in that counter intuitive position. To be fair he sounded unbelievable on anything. 

Lozboy

I always thought the SRV reverse trem was because the store/luthier did not have a RH trem available at the time.I concluded that his thoughts would be to give it ago like Hendrix.There are advantages having a LH trem on RH guitar.

ICBM

There are some real differences, it's not just about the look.

The reverse headstock makes quite a big difference to the feel and bend range when bending strings or using the trem - it makes the top strings much stiffer and able to be bent further, and the low strings looser and less affected. I doubt it changes the tone much or at all when you aren't doing either of those things.

Likewise the reversed trem does feel different, even though the overall movement is the same because the block is solid and it doesn't matter which side the force is applied - it's just how it sits under your hand relative to where you normally play.

The reverse bridge pickup changes the sound of the bridge and the bridge/middle positions because the mix of harmonics on the strings is different, and the reversed stagger of the polepieces changes the string balance too.

That said, even with *all* that, someone who can play properly like Jimi will still sound more like him on a plain right-handed Strat played right-handed than someone who can't on a fully reversed Strat will.