WEBVTT - How Fender Changed After the Acquisition 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:14.320 stuff works dot com. Here, Welcome to tech Stuff. I'm 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:17.640 your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with How 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:20.480 Stuff Works and I love all things tech, and today 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:24.439 we are continuing our story about Fender, and I spent 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:27.000 a lot of time in the last episode kind of 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:30.480 setting the foundation, leading all the way up to the 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:34.960 first solid body electric guitar that Fender ever released, the Esquire, 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:37.560 and then I hinted a little bit about the Telecaster, 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:40.840 the follow up to the Esquire, the first electric guitar 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:44.360 that Fender made that had two electric pickups, not just one. 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:47.000 We're gonna talk more about the Telecaster and of course 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:50.720 the Stratocaster, and then I'm going to just be frank 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.200 with you guys. I'm going to be speeding through kind 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:57.440 of the years after Fender was purchased by a major 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:02.360 media company up through to today. Uh, because it's kind 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:05.520 of a sad story in many ways, and also it 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:07.600 just gets to be one of those things. It's like 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:11.480 any tech company where I start feeling like all I'm 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:15.720 doing is listing off all the different variations of the 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:17.840 product they came out with, So like if I were 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:20.840 doing the Apple story and then they came out with 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:24.280 the Apple five like that gets tiring after a while. 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:27.080 So the same sort of thing holds true here, all right, 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.920 So talked about the Esquire guitar, the single pick up 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:36.200 electric guitar, and then the double pickup Esquire with a 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:41.399 trust rod became the Fender Broadcaster, but nine one that 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.520 had to change names and it became the Telecaster. So 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:48.000 the telecasters two pickups change things quite a bit, which 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:51.040 in the end means these guitars produce a different sound 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.280 than Esquire guitars do. Now note I did not say 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:58.480 they produce a better sound. It's different. I think both 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:02.880 guitars produce really good tones if they're paired with the 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.040 right amplifier and they have a good musician playing them. 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:09.359 But they are different. So why would you even include 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.119 two pickups instead of just one? Why would you have 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:15.480 one of those pickups near the bridge, you know, at 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.320 the base of the guitar's face, and another one near 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:22.320 the neck of the guitar where where the neck joins 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:24.760 the face of the body of the guitar. How does 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:27.440 that change the nature of the sound. Well, think of 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:31.680 how a guitar string is anchored right, So on one 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:34.720 end of a guitar string, you have the nut, that 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:37.320 is the end at the end of the neck, right 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:39.880 where you go where a string goes over the nut 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:42.840 and then it goes to the tuning pegs or the 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:45.359 respective tuning peg. On the other side, you have the 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.200 bridge on the body of the guitar, and those are 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:52.320 the two anchor points. Pickups react to string vibrations, so 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.360 if the pickup is close to an anchor point for 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:58.799 those strings, those strings are not moving with as much 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:03.320 variation as they would closer to the middle of the string. 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:06.080 You know, it's just if you the closer you are 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:09.400 to an anchor point, the less movement you're going to see. Overall, 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:13.320 the anchor points become what we call nodes, and the 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:17.160 points that have the greatest variation in movement, the points 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:21.120 where the string moves the most, not faster, still moving 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.520 at the same frequency, but it's it's covering more ground. 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:28.440 You might say those are anti noodes. So again the 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.040 frequency remains the same. Otherwise you would have a string 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:35.360 that's playing different notes along different links of it. Uh. 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:37.720 We'll get a little bit more into that with harmonics 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:41.760 in a second um. But harmonics are really complicated. In fact, 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.240 let's let's do it now, because I've already introduced the concept. 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:49.480 A vibrating string has harmonics or overtones. So if you 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:53.040 plug a string, the frequency you'll hear most prominently is 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.600 what we call the fundamental frequency of that string, and 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:00.880 as determined by factors like the strings eight or its 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:04.320 mass if you prefer, the tension that the string is under, 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.080 and how long the string is. But there are also 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:10.720 harmonics present. So for example, if you strum an open string, 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.200 meaning you're not you don't have your fingers under any 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:16.800 of the threats, You're just strumming an open tuned string. 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:22.799 The second harmonic is an octave higher than whatever note 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.280 the string is playing. So if you're playing a G 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:30.800 note on an open G string, then the second harmonic 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.840 is G, but it's the octave higher than what the 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:40.320 open string is. That harmonic represents the funnel mental frequency 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:42.719 you would have heard if you held down the G 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:45.799 string halfway down its length and then played it again, 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.640 you would then have that higher octave G. So we 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:53.880 perceive all of these harmonics as a single note when 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:57.359 it's played on a string like this, the higher the harmonic, 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:02.120 the lower the amplitude is amplitude being volume. So that's 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:04.440 one of the reasons why we don't perceive this as 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:06.960 a bunch of different notes all played at once. We 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.600 have a fundamental frequency that's played at twice the amplitude 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:15.640 of the second harmonic. So those harmonics shape the tone 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:21.440 or timbre of a note, but they don't uh determine 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:25.800 the actual frequency. So positioning a pickup near the neck 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:31.200 of a guitar emphasizes certain harmonics more than others because 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:32.839 if you look at those harmonics, they all look like 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.240 little sign waves, and the points where the sign waves 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:38.839 cross over the center part those are your nodes. That's 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:41.960 where the string is not really moving at those locations. 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:45.760 And then the peaks and valleys those are the anti 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.560 noodes where the string is moving the most. So by 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:51.920 positioning your pickup at a different point along the guitar, 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:56.440 you are putting it underneath certain areas that might be 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:59.840 nodes for one harmonic or anti noodes for another harmonic. 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.800 That means those harmonics will either be suppressed in the 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:07.760 case of nodes, or enhanced or at least passed through 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:10.520 in the case of anti noodes, and this is what 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.719 shapes those sounds. And it means that if you have 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:16.240 two pickups on your guitar and there are you know, 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:19.080 two very different locations where you're going to have a 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:23.600 different sample of harmonics, Switching between those pickups is going 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.320 to produce a very different sound, even if you're playing 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:29.280 the exact same note, or maybe it's not very different, 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.320 it is different, and again also depends upon the quality 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:36.480 of the amplifier you've plugged the guitar into. So uh, 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:39.880 there are a lot of things that determine the qualities 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:41.440 of this sound, and a lot of that has to 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:45.360 do with build quality. Now, I would love to go 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:49.640 into a full explanation of harmonics and physics, but frankly 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.560 it's beyond me. I mean, if I'm being honest, I 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:57.520 can grasp the basic concepts behind harmonics, but I've never 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:02.080 really taken any classes in acoustics. I haven't really studied 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:05.960 harmonics in uh in a deep way. I've very kind 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:09.120 of a cursory way. So it quickly gets away from 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:13.160 me after that. And and there's some subtleties there that 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:15.400 are in both in physics and in music theory which 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:18.480 are very closely related, and I am not an expert 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:22.000 in either. So rather than bolm my way through there 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:25.400 and make terrible mistakes along the way and and really 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.360 discourage all the musicians out there, I'm just going to 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:32.240 admit this is the point where my my knowledge ends. 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.120 I get it up to there. But the important thing 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:37.520 to remember for electric guitars is that the location of 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:40.800 the pickup means the magnets will detect certain harmonics more 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:43.600 than they would others, and that shapes the quality of 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:45.960 the sound we hear. So we still hear them as 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:49.040 single notes for each string, but the timbre of that 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:51.600 note will change based upon which harmonics are coming through 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:55.040 and which ones are not because of the pickups location. Now, 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:59.360 your standard telecaster has a three position switch, and if 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:01.560 you listen to my last episode, you know that the 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:05.280 Esquire the single pickup. It was a single coil pickup 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:08.240 and it only had one of them, also had a 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:11.960 three position switch. But the telecaster is different. The original 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:16.640 telecaster switch had three positions that did different, very different things. 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:20.400 The first position would let you choose both the bridge 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:24.920 pickup and the neck pickup together in parallel to send 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:28.160 a signal out to the rest of the guitar being 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:30.360 the volume knob and the tone knob, and then the 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:36.960 output jack. The second and third position, uh, we're for 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:41.400 the neck pickup alone. So there was no position that 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.240 would let you play just the bridge pickup. For the 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:47.719 original telecaster, if you had in position one, it was 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:50.040 the bridge pickup and the neck pickup. If you had 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:52.400 in position two or three, it was just the neck pickup. 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.160 Um And the difference between positions two and three for 0:08:56.240 --> 0:09:01.319 the neck pickup had to do with extra capacity. The 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:05.160 neck pickup had a chrome cover on it, and this 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:09.400 sapped some of the capacitants from the circuitry, and it 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:12.959 meant that you lost some bass when you switched to 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.240 the regular position. To going to position three would add 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:18.560 an extra capacitance, so you get a little more base 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:21.480 in the sound that you would play, So the actual 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.880 quality of the sound would change. But again there was 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:27.080 no way to have just the bridge pickup in the 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:30.840 original nineteen fifty one Fender Telecaster. The nineteen fifty two 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.840 model change this so that you had one bridge pickup 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:38.360 selection and then two different neck pickup selections, but there 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:41.280 was no setting that would let you use both pickups together. 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:44.600 So the only big difference there was that instead of 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:47.840 having position one the bridge and neck, position one was 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.480 just the bridge. Otherwise it was pretty much the same 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:54.920 as the original telecaster. The different positions allow some harmons 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:57.200 to come through to the signal or prevent those harmonics, 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:00.079 depending upon the specific harmonics in which pickup you're going with, 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:02.520 and that would change the quality of the sound. Uh. 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.120 You get a very twangy sound typically with a telecaster, 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.520 at least if you're playing it without the volume turned 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:11.560 all the way up. You know, the more volume you 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:15.080 crank up on the guitar when you're sending it out 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:17.600 to the amplifier, the more distortion you're going to get. 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:20.200 So if you're if you're careful with that volume knob, 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.199 you can get that nice twangy telecaster sound, the very 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:27.640 very signature sound for the telecaster. The telecaster also had 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:31.320 knobs for volume and for tone, and the telecaster, by 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:34.480 the way, sold for one nine dollars and fifty cents 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:39.319 in nine, so that's like a thousand and eight dollars 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:42.480 or so in today's money, so again not unheard of 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:47.880 for Fender electric guitars. By this time, Fender was spending 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:51.040 his hours Leo Fender, the man was spending his hours 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:54.480 tinkering and tweaking electronics, which I suspect is what made 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:56.960 him the most happy about his job, since that's what 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:58.640 he was doing all the way up till the day 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:03.920 he died. He handed off management, like day to day 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:07.280 management of Fender to a guy named George Fullerton in 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.520 Fullerton had been a machinist at Lockeyed Aircraft before he 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:15.839 joined Fender, and like Leo Fender himself, Fullerton made significant 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:20.080 contributions that made the telecaster possible. Fender continued to work 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:23.880 on new designs. He actually worked on a design that 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:27.800 led to the first electric bass guitar, called the Precision Base. 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:31.199 Before the introduction of the Precision Base in nineteen fifty one, 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:34.400 bands were depending upon the upright double bass to provide 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:39.080 those notes. This is an enormous upright stringed musical instruments, huge, 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:44.600 very cumbersome and bulky, and like the guitar, it was 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:47.880 facing the problem of the fact that it did not 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.520 produce as much volume as some of the other instruments 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:53.560 in these big bands, so it was becoming hard to 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:56.439 hear it, and it was on the danger of becoming 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:59.320 obsolete because if you can't hear any notes that are 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:03.520 being played, why lug this enormous thing around. Bender decided 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:06.120 to try and do for the double bass what he 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:09.880 had done for the guitar. The precision bass was the result. 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:14.600 It's in a guitar form factor. So you know you've 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:17.840 seen electric bass guitars. They look like regular guitars, except 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:21.920 they have four strings, not six strings. Your standard guitar 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:26.440 has six strings. And the precision bass had some other 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:28.600 elements to it that made it look more like a 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:31.840 guitar and less like an upright bass. It had frets 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:34.520 on the neck of the guitar. The double bass doesn't 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:39.360 have frets, So you still change the notes on a 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:41.760 double bass by pressing down on a on a string 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.280 at a certain point around the neck, but you didn't 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.160 have frets to guide that or to really cut off 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:49.920 the notes. This is why he called it a precision bass, 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:53.800 because the freds made it easy to create precise notes, 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.760 not approximations. That did change the quality of the bass 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:00.480 notes a musician would produce, and not just because of 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:03.760 that precision. The electrical nature had a different sound to it, 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:06.160 but that sound would become one of the most important 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:10.280 components in modern music across tons of genres from country 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:15.319 to rock to punk to funk music, and literally contributed 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:19.280 to changes in music and rhythm, creating opportunities for musicians 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:22.959 to explore new sounds. The precision base of today has 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:27.160 a split single coil pickup, so the wiring is split 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.480 in two, so you have the top two strings for 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:35.000 the base sharing one half of this single coil pickup 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:37.480 and the bottom two strings sharing the other half, and 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:41.880 they're offset. The two halves of the coil pickup are 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:45.840 offset from each other, a coined offender. This creates quote, 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:52.040 big beefy sound, more tonal versatility, and balanced output across 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.880 each string end quote. Bass strings are of a much 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.800 heavier gauge than regular guitar strings, and I imagine they 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:02.120 disrupt the magnetic feel to pick up more dramatically than 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:06.240 the strings of their guitar cousins. So this split pickup 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:08.760 is probably to help account for that, or to to 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:13.280 accommodate that. And music was changing around this time, so 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:19.280 in the thirties and forties, popular music span genres like blues, jazz, gospel, 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:24.160 big band music, folk music, African American influences in music 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:26.880 were really growing at this time, and black musicians were 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:31.600 synthesizing African musical traditions with musical instruments that could trace 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:35.600 their ancestry back to Europe. This music, which in its 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:39.800 early days really shaped jazz and swing and blues, uh, 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:44.400 we're later adopted for, or maybe we should say it 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:49.360 was appropriated by white musicians. Uh, and they began to 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:52.120 take those same sort of techniques and apply them to 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:57.160 music for their audiences. Um. So goes the long history 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:00.480 of popular music in the United States, and the styles 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:04.360 were evolving, with new techniques shaping the sound, giving rise 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:07.640 to newer genres like rhythm and blues and then rock 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:10.840 and roll. Electric guitars and bass guitars would end up 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.000 playing a pivotal role in those genres, and so while 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:18.760 Fender Leo Fender was largely focused on accommodating musicians who 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:22.320 worked in in the genre of Western swing as his 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:25.000 target audience, he would find out his guitars would soon 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:29.000 become the foundation for entirely new movements and music. The 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:33.160 telecaster and some esquires were a part of that, but 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:36.640 the real game changer would be Fender's next electric guitar, 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:39.840 the strato Caster, which I'll tell you more about in 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:43.120 just a second, but first let's take a quick break 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:53.040 to thank our sponsor, not before I get to the 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:56.800 strat which is what we call the stratocaster. I feel 0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:58.720 like a poser saying that. I guess I am a 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:02.160 poser saying that, but it gets tiring saying it's stratecaster 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:05.080 and Telecaster over and over. It was in the early 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:08.520 nineteen fifties when Fender was offering the Telecaster that things 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:13.080 turned sour with the Radiotel company. That was the company 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:16.280 that that Fender had been using to distribute his guitars. 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:20.560 He felt Radiotel was focusing on the lap steel guitars 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.640 at the expense of the Telecaster and the Esquire. You know, 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.760 those were the Spanish style guitars, and Fender was feeling 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:32.200 like the company wasn't taking him seriously with those models. 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:35.320 And there was even a point where Fender the company 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:39.480 was forced to reimburse dealers who had bought Esquire and 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:43.120 Telecaster guitars, only to discover that those guitars were full 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:46.440 of termites. Had turned out that Radiotel had stored the 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:49.720 solid body guitars in a garage and hadn't really taken 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.280 good care of them before shipping them out, so Fender 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.840 was forced to write off about five hundred guitars. Because 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:59.080 of that, Leo Fender made the decision to end the 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.320 agreement with Radio Hotel, and in nineteen fifty three he 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:07.639 created a new distribution company called Fender Sales. Donald Randall, 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.240 the salesman who had come from Radio Hotel, would head 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:13.359 up that distribution company, and other Radio Hotel salespeople and 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.199 executives actually came over as well. So I guess the 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:19.199 guys that came over must not have been any of 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:21.600 the ones that had anything to do with that bug situation. 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:24.480 All right, Now, let's get to the stratocaster. In the 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:27.480 world of modern music, I would say there are two 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:32.240 guitars general guitar models that tend to rise to the 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:34.520 top of the heap when you're talking about the musical 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:38.919 instruments that defined rock and roll, and they are the 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:43.040 Gibson Les Paul and the Fender Strato Caster. The two 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:46.359 guitars are very different, both in circuitry and the sounds 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:48.560 they produce. And again I'm not going to tell you 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:52.040 which one is better. I don't believe either one is 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:55.400 better than the other. They're different and they make very 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:57.720 different sounds, and I love the music that both of 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:01.000 them can create. It all to pends upon the effect 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:03.639 you want. The differences in sound come down to a 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:06.879 few factors, and they depend on more than just the 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:08.879 electric pickups, although that is a big part of it. 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:11.399 So one of those is that the Gibson less Paul 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:15.359 has special pickups called humbuckers, and I talked about this 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.960 in the Gibson episodes. They're called humbuckers because the design 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:22.239 of those pickups is meant to eliminate the hum you 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:25.960 get from electrical interference getting picked up by your electrical 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:30.159 pickup and your guitar. Because remember, electrical pickups essentially are 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:33.439 working on the principles of electromagnetism, So if they are 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:36.359 anywhere close to anything that's generating an electric field or 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:39.800 a magnetic field, you can start getting this hum interference. 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:42.720 And uh, you know, once you amplify that, that comes 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:44.639 through and it goes through to the speakers and you 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:48.160 can hear it on the speakers. The Gibson guitars had 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:52.080 these special humbucker coils, UH kind of had like these 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:56.600 coils that were wired with opposite polarity, so that the 0:18:56.720 --> 0:18:59.879 collective interference the coils would pick up would actually cancel 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.320 each other out. It's it's like they were out of 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:04.680 phase with each other. And it's like a sound wave. 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:06.719 If you have a sound wave and then you produce 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.880 a sound wave that has equal and opposite peaks and valleys, 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:13.280 so that the peaks and valleys of one sound wave 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:15.720 match up with the valleys and peaks of another sound wave, 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:18.000 they cancel each other out. I explain more about that 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:19.919 in the episodes about Gibson guitars, so you can go 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:21.480 listen to that if you want to learn more about it. 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:26.280 But speaking of humbuckers, I should mention Fender actually attempted 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:28.840 a few times to create systems that could emulate the 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:34.720 humbucker sound without actually using humbucker pickups. The Baja Telecaster 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:39.000 was such an instrument. Unlike the other telecasters, this model 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:41.760 actually had a four positions switch. The other ones were 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:44.960 all three position switches, and that fourth position would cause 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:48.560 the neck and bridge pickups to work in series, not 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:52.760 in parallel. So if you remember the original telecaster, if 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.560 you had it in the first position, both the neck 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:59.120 and the bridge pickups would send signals, but they sent 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:02.000 them in LLL, so both sets of signals would go 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:06.480 to the output jack. The serial approach meant that the 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:08.639 signal one of the pickups would pick up the signal 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.239 and send that to the second pickup, which would then 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:14.560 add it to its signal and then move that to 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:18.120 the output jack. That does change the nature of the music, 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.439 and it made the two pickups act kind of like 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:24.639 a humbucker does. That's the Baja telecaster. So back to 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:29.120 the stratocaster. The strato caster has three single coil pickups. 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.520 There's one that's near the bridge, the bridge pickup, there's 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:34.680 one that's called the mid pickup, and then there's the 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:37.800 neck pickup, so the mid pickup is in between the 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:41.879 bridge and the neck. Uh. Then there's the scale length 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:46.320 of the strato caster versus the Gibson less Paul. Scale 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.520 length is the length of the strings measured from the 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:53.119 nut to the bridge. The Gibson less Paul has a 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:56.359 shorter scale length. The string measures twenty four point seven 0:20:56.440 --> 0:21:00.240 five inches from nut to bridge. The stratocaster scale length 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:03.440 is twenty five point five inches. It is three quarters 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:06.760 of an inch longer than the less Paul that changes 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:09.600 not just the tone of the strato caster, but also 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:14.320 the playability of it. So remember the strings frequency, the 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:16.879 note that's going to produce when you pluck it depends 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:20.359 upon the thickness of the string or it's gauge, the 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:23.800 length of the string, and the amount of tension on 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:27.920 the string. Once you string a guitar, it's pretty hard 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:31.040 to change the thickness or length of that string, but 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:34.040 you can change the tension either through the tuning pegs 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:37.359 or if you have a vibrato bar like the strato 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:39.879 caster does. More on that in a second. You can 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:42.800 do it that way, or you can change it just 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:46.960 by you know, again, tuning very slowly. So if you 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:48.840 want to tune a less paul in the strato caster 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:51.159 to the same tuning, you want both guitars to have 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:53.720 the exact same tuning, you actually have to put more 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:57.680 tension on the strato caster strings because it has a 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:01.399 larger scale length, and the longer scale also means the 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:07.159 space between frets on a stratocaster is larger, So that 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:09.320 might mean that if you have small hands, that playing 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:12.080 a stratocaster is more of a challenge to you than 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:14.720 it would be with a less Paul because the frets 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:16.600 are further apart from each other than they are in 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:19.280 a less Paul. The longer strings on a strap make 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:22.040 it a bit easier to bend the strings, so you 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:25.000 can start to shape notes that way. And the longer 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:27.679 scale is also one of the contributing factors to making 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:30.359 the sound of a stratocaster sound like a mel It 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:34.960 chimes almost. It's very clear when you have the settings 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:39.080 um properly set and a and a good amplifier and 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:41.760 it it can be a little more jangly and clean 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:43.800 than a less Paul. You can pick out those notes 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:47.639 much more easily. But a less Paul creates a pretty 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:52.639 iconic rock sound frequently used in harder rock, metal, that 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:56.160 kind of stuff. The strato caster became incredibly popular guitar 0:22:56.200 --> 0:22:59.640 for all sorts of other types of rock, especially things 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:03.399 like of music. I always think of the stratocaster in 0:23:03.480 --> 0:23:08.040 relation to surf guitar. That's that jangly music you'll hear 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:10.800 on those instrumental surf rock albums, stuff like Dick Dale 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:13.960 and the Dell Tones, or the Woggles or the Hate 0:23:13.960 --> 0:23:19.199