Eric Johnson Strat

DonovanB

I was just in Glenwood Village Music (they're having a sale, ALWAYS visit the sales....) and played the Eric Johnson Strat.

It has a binding on the neck which is unusual for strats but OMFG, the tone is incredible!!!!!!!

I'm also curious about the 5 springs on the bridge instead of 3. I noticed the John Mayer strat has that too, and they both deliberately leave off the back plate.

the price? R39,695 but with discount about R25k. anyone wanna buy a kidney, or any other body part? I'd sell my left ball for this guitar...

Malkav

The 5 springs will have an effect on string tension - most likely making it tighter feeling. Also tonally you'd have more mass to contend with so it would change the resonant characteristics of the guitar as well, for better or worse is your call ? The backplate being left off is most likely just cause any guitarist who's dealt with trems for ages normally ends up leaving it off so that when you change strings etc you can tinker in the back without removing anything ?

DonovanB

It felt like a normal strat to me. :-\

The bridges on my guitar are flush with the body, as was this one. It had no trem arm either, nor did it seem to have a place for one. Also curious...

The biggest impact for me though was the sound of this guitar. *drool*

Malkav

The Johnson definitly should havea trem arm, and as for the tension thing I believe the Johnson is strung with .010 - .052 gauge strings so if it felt normal then that is quite abnormal ? Though I may be wrong about the gauging, I believe johnson uses those gauges so the signature should to BUT then again the SRV signature definitly doesn't use the same strings or frets as SRV did ?

ezietsman

The trem springs will not have an effect on the string tension. The only thing that influences string tension is string thickness (mass) and pitch. The springs will have an effect on the attack and how much the other strings go out of tune when you bend one of them.