One of the hardest guitars to play..

If Joe Satriani gets to play my Yamaha acoustic guitar, then he will immediatly know which is the hardest guitar to play.

I really do not get what he means by 'most difficult'. Maybe he had too mucho of beer. :roll:

it's got a longer scale fretboard than most guitars, so shredders don't use them much, but it's not really a huge deal. srv used really thick strings, though (13s, i believe) so his guitars were notoriously difficult to play.

I don't think he means Stratocasters are hard to play but more the way he had it set up .....

I think the point is as Jason said he used 13 on his guitar
he played with really heavy strings. And he strung it with high action

Either of the 2 above would make it difficult to play BUT put them together and it would be harder again...

Keith

a lot of things can make a guitar difficult to play.
heavy gauge strings because they would be harder to bend. that's easy.
but what about neck radius. the shallow radius makes for harder bends.
jumbo frets and a C shape radius makes bends easier.

maybe the person is mis quoted. I find strats the easiest guitars to play, but I find SRV's playing the hardest to play.

There's more to the beginning of that Satch quote which was apparently cut off:

"The guy had a guitar with huge strings that were very far off the neck. Any normal mere mortal would struggle just to play a couple of chords on his guitars, but there's wisdom to that because that's what he needed to do to get his personality through that piece of wood with wire all over it and into the amps to come out. He was just a screamer all the times, really amazing. As a guitar player, he had an incredible signature tone... " and then it continues as in the link above.

So it appears to be about SRV's setup and string gauge, but the broader context could be a reference to "Super Strat" guitars that evolved from the original Strat design, supposedly to make them more suitable to fast shred-type playing. Differences might include different body contours and deeper cutaways, more bridge stability (Floyd Rose trems vs. standard strat design), flatter fingerboard, etc. Arguably these could make the guitars easier to play for certain genres.

As said above, it's about the way he set his strat up. [rant] On a side-note, IMHO there's way too much talk about his thick strings. Who gives a crap about what gauge of strings he used, it always strikes me as weird that people need 'physical proof' like this when they talk about their hero. Originality has nothing to do with string gauge, type of guitar or even tuning. It's about how you use what you've got, even though that's far harder to talk about.[/rant]

I read in somewhere that Stevie played with guages as high as 18! They ended up being to much for his fingers, and he slowly worked his way back to 13's

I would like to know the exact action at 12th fret of the Strat SRV played. Is it like more than 2.5 mm ?

Uh ... anybody remember that SRV also dropped his tuning? That lowered the tension, makes a heavy gauge a lot easier to play... maybe not so easy as 9s on a LP or Jackson shred machine, but definitely easier than the implied barbed wire. As for the 'high off the fingerboard' part, that usually improves the native tone of the guitar and allows one to play more aggressively. I think we are talking about a different instrument to achieve different ends. Bringing up the guitar as a challenge to talent is ridiculous, esp when SRV could have chosen differntly. It worked for him.

In general, Fenders -- and other 25.5 in scale guitars -- are considered a bit more difficult to play if set up with the same gauge and tuning as shorter scale guitars. Many (me included) believe this difference in feel leads to a different playing style that comes through in the music. It's sometimes expressed as the player 'fighting with the guitar' or 'wrestling the music out of it.' It's considered a positive, and seems -- at least in the player's mind -- to be part of the struggle and emotion of making the music.

it's got a longer scale fretboard than most guitars, so shredders don't use them much, but it's not really a huge deal. srv used really thick strings, though (13s, i believe) so his guitars were notoriously difficult to play.
I think Satriani said that because he can't play his style on them as easily as other "shred compatible" guitars.

I think it can go the other way; give SRV an Ibanez or Jackson with a super thin neck and tiny strings and I bet he would have thought it difficult to get that milky tone that he got.

Hmm, interesting thread here. I have two strats. One is tuned to 440 the other is a half step down. I use tens. The one that is tuned to 440 is just right (for me) as far as tension goes. The other that is a half-step down, well I'm going to put heavier gauge strings on. I also set my action a little high on both. The heavier guage strings and higher action give me a bolder, warmer tone that I like. I cannot play nines very well because I have gotten used to heavier strings and I like to beat the crap out of my strings when playing down and dirty. I also like to be a little underneath adjacent strings when bending. There are some anatomical things at work. I don't have danty little hands with a subtle touch.

As for SRV, think about it. Look at the size of his fingers, they look like clubs on the ends of his meat hook sized hands. And as for shredding (and I really don't fully grab its definition), I had a jazz instructor who's set up looked like aircraft cable strung thirty feet off the fretboard but he could articulate more notes in a single bar faster than I could comprehend. His picks he fashioned from broken pieces of thick plexi-glass.

Its all just my sorry opinion.

Back when I started to play (the stone age) heavy gage strings were the norm. My Ric 330 I got in 1971 came with 13's but was very easy to play and was set up with very low action. When EB super slinkys came out they were called "sissy strings". You can get a fuller tone with them, I'm thinking about setting up my Squier 51 with 13's :idea:

I've always liked the tone of heavy strings tuned down 1/2 step, and the older the better too :)

I've always liked the tone of heavy strings tuned down 1/2 step, and the older the better too :)

Good old Amon Amarth baby.