advice on getting a fender strat for shred?

[veji]

i been gassing for a fender stratocaster for awhile.
But i play 80's shred aka nuno,lynch, dokken, vito, evh

which wood should i go with ash or alder for 80's shred?

i am eyeing right now the 57 hot rod fender strat with the tone zone bridge.
thanks

 

[Chris6870]

I have this.

Its an Ash Strat deluxe. The neck is awesome. I set it up with nice low action,the tremolo is real nice too. I could not find this particular guitar with a HSS configuration. I ran it with a Fast track 2 that sounded great but I ended up changing out the single coil to humbucker. It is definitely capable of shred. Amazing guitar.

 

['63-Strat]

Depends what you want really, nothing wrong with the one you mentioned, has a lot of specs I dig like the bigger frets, bridge tone and a humbucker though I'm not sure I'd go for the tone zone but that's personal preference. I would also look at the EJ if it was me, it's got a little flatter radius. I'd look at jackson/charvel for a strat for shred too which are both really fender at this point anyways, lol. Depends if you want the vintage tremolo or not too, most of the guys you mentioned have very floyd sounding tones.

 

[Rushtallica]

You probably can't go wrong with either. My MiM HSS strat is an easy to play shredder that IMO sounds decent even with the stock humbucker.

I have this.

Its an Ash Strat deluxe. The neck is awesome. I set it up with nice low action,the tremolo is real nice too. I could not find this particular guitar with a HSS configuration. I ran it with a Fast track 2 that sounded great but I ended up changing out the single coil to humbucker. It is definitely capable of shred. Amazing guitar.

That's a nice-looking guitar. 8)

 

[Chris6870]

Also don't forget the HM Strats. They were built for shredding. Greg Howe used to play them and endorse them. I have one of those too and is probably the flattest, fastet neck I ever felt.

 

[Chubtone]

I'd say a Charvel So Cal.

 

[veji]

is ash better than alder for shred?
yeah i'll probably change the pickups to an MCP afwayu

 

[EchelonEngineering]

+1 for Charvel/Jackson.

Fender product for one. great playing necks for two. plus You can find a japanese Jackson these days for about $300. That leaves cash left over for whatever kind of pickups you want! sounds like a win win IMO.

 

['63-Strat]

As far as I know alder is much more common for shred guitars, and certainly for strats in general. That doesn't mean an ash one couldn't sound good though. My tele is ash and sounds great but that's apples and oranges, really.

 

[Rushtallica]

is ash better than alder for shred?
yeah i'll probably change the pickups to an MCP afwayu

I had a ProTone Squier strat that I think was swamp ash and wouldn't say it was either better or worse for shred tones.