Eric Clapton’s (not so) Secret Guitar Mod

[Music] thank you [Music] here it is the most famous electric guitar the Fender Stratocaster used by some of the most iconic artists to ever record music whether we're talking about Jimi Hendrix Stevie Ray Vaughan or in the case of this guitar Eric Clapton so there's a few things that make the Eric Clapton Stratocaster different than an ordinary 1950s Style Strat which is roughly what it's modeled after this version is called Blackie because it resembles a guitar that Eric had that was a 50 Stratocaster that from my understanding was sort of a hodgepodge of other 50s guitars where it was a mismatched body and neck and it had a typical three single coil setup it didn't include some of the things in this guitar but this is roughly sort of approximating what that guitar was however some key differences from a vintage Fender being firstly that it has what's called a tbx tone control and mid boost it will get more into that in the design a little bit later in the video but this is Prince principally what's different but what actually is different in reality is the way that it sounds and that it can sound like an ordinary single coil Strat just like you hear here [Music] [Music] [Music] and it can also sound similarly to a Les Paul [Music] [Music] [Music] the other thing that's unique about it is that it has one of the first incarnations of noiseless pickups and these were designed by Dawn lace now lace sensors originally came out in the mid 80s and it became a standard on all Fender guitars that were of a certain caliber like the Elite Series or all the Eric Clapton stratocasters From about 1987 in the fender plus series that I believe in 88 it became standard on all Clapton guitars from 88 until about 1996. I'll use the Gold version of the lace sensors which was designed to sound something like a 1950s Style Stratocaster pickup but enough about the basic features of the guitar I think one of the coolest things as I talked about earlier is the tbx tone control and mid boost that is on this guitar and this was originally designed by James Demeter Demeter has his own successful amplifier in pedal in in Studio Gear company called Demeter amplification that you can check out I'll link it above and I actually spoke spoke to James about how this came about this tbx tone control and he was actually working for Carruthers guitars at the time as a technician and Carruthers was often hired by Fender as a consultant to do some work with them to help them sort of vet new product ideas and Carruthers had tasked James Demeter with designing a preamp a mid boost preamp that could exist within the new Fender line of guitars at that time it was those Elite and plus style Fender guitars and James was often taking these vintage style fenders that were reissues at the time in the early 80s he was installing dummy coils in them to make them noiseless and was also including a mid boost circuit to give them a little bit more versatility he essentially took the design that he had been using for a lot of these different instruments and put them into the Fender guitar that they were prototyping which ultimately became that Elite series Fender guitar and then eventually got translated into the Eric Clapton guitar the basics of it are as I mentioned before you have a mid boost pot which basically functions as a normal tone pot from zero to five it's just like zero to ten on a normal Strat and once you get to the d10 in the middle of the sweep of the pot and you go beyond that you're then all doing mid Boost from that point forward it also has this Distortion or gain control which adds some compression and really what it is is also that mid boost at about 500 Hertz and what it's doing is blending that in with the tone control but essentially how he's doing it is he's cutting off all the low end he's cutting off all the high end and it's just allowing the mid-range to pass through at that frequency that he's vetted out either by way of other artists or Eric Clapton himself I'm not sure who chose the particular cue or voicing of the actual mid boost but it is at 500 Hertz and it just provides that beautiful mid-range so let's hear the guitar with just its normal tone control what would be equivalent to 10 and then let's boost it up and let's get a little extra presence and chime and mid-range to it [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] so I think it sounds really beautiful and of course if you're going to go to clean style things it really really sounds great I'm going to engage a little chorus and and just bring in a slight bit amount of delay and Reverb and just kind of play some kind of pads over it and you can really hear how it sounds really beautiful for that kind of 80s clean tone I think it's kind of one of those unbeatable clean tones for that era [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] it not only sounds great for that but if you want to do some chords some copying some arpeggios it can really sound beautiful for that too I'm going to try a little bit of an air Clapton tune called change the world not as good as Eric Clapton or the co-writer on that song Babyface but you'll get an idea again of how well it just takes the clean tone and just elevates the entire sound of it really sounds great [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you but another the clean tone one of the things that's really great about this is when you add in that back tone control which is coincidentally not a tone control but more of a of a cascaded gain stage where it adds in more gain and also adds more output and saturation to the overall sound is really just the most beautiful sort of sustained lead tone that you could think of so let's have a little listen to My Father's Eyes it's mostly going to be single nose but you're going to hear that this thing sustains like a compressor and really just has the fatness and warmth that no other Stratocaster I'm aware of can get and really just sounds beautiful let's have a listen to that foreign [Music] not only does it sound great with that but if you want to play a little bit more complex chords some kind of rock and Rhythm chords and mix that in with some leads I'm going to do a little bit of Layla or Poor Man's version of it and it just sounds beautifully sustaining for that too and just has this great articulation and it kind of sounds not quite like a single coil not quite like a humbucker of course if I wanted to do that as you heard I can just bring down some of that mid-range and kind of bring back that gain on the bottom tone control and I can get some beautiful classic strap tones and if I bring it up I can get a little something like this [Music] oh [Music] [Music] and not only does it do that well if I'm trying to just focus more on single notes I can kind of do a little bit of a bad love type thing thank you [Music] so that is the air Clapton Stratocaster it's an absolutely great instrument and honestly these are quite affordable uh second hand as far as artist signature models go they come in several different colors and I can't recommend them highly enough if you want a super versatile guitar in the circuit in the tbx that James Demeter designed is absolutely amazing and really unparalleled in fact you can buy these separately if you want to be able to install this in your guitar or another less invasive way to do it is actually buy the fat control from James Demeter and although this is not exactly the same as the tbx tone control having played this with passive guitar pickups without preamps on board this actually gets quite similar to the sound of the actual Eric Clapton preamp and I can just put this on any guitar that I want if you like what you saw today I highly recommend that you like you subscribe leave us a comment tell me what the favorite lick was that I played today or some other experiences that you've had with this guitar or other guitars do you think are honorable mentions in most versatile sort of stratocasters as it relates to artist models I'd love to hear from you on that and if you want to support us further and easy way to do that is head over to our website check out all of our offerings in terms of pedals and pedal boards and you can find authorized dealers all listed on the website I also offer tone consultations for any of you who are building Rigs and want to do it in the style that I do you can hire me over on the rigdr.com and you'll find a tab called tone consults and you can hire me there to work with you one-on-one on your rig and help you get the most out of it we also offer things like cables patch cables all the things that you see me using to connect the guitar today to the amplifier these are all things that you might want very high quality lifetime warranty all those things that you would expect so definitely check those out as well also if you want a free way to support us an easy way to do that is head over to our podcast it's on Apple Spotify all the places that you find podcasts and it's called the chairman of the boards podcast and I do it with Brian o'million from a millionaudio and Grant Classen from Goodwood audio we have a Roundtable discussion every week about gear tone pedal boards best practices all things that you might want to know about if you like the content that's on this channel and just want a little bit longer form version as you go to and from work on your commute until next time I'm Mason marangela aka the rig doctor from vertex FX and this is again the Eric Clapton Strat what I believe to be the most versatile artist signature Stratocaster ever made see you later [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: Vertex Effects

Views: 71,873

Keywords: Mason Marangella, Vertex Effects, Rig Doctor, Pedalboard, Pedalboards, Eric clapton, stratocaster, guitar gear, electric guitar, tbx tone control, mid boost pedal, Demeter fat control, vintage guitars, lace sensor pickups, guitar, telecaster, fender guitars, Eric Clapton blackie, guitar effects, rare guitars, which guitar should I buy?, unique guitars, Rhett shull, the jhs show, music gear, sweetwater, Paul davids, vintage stratocaster, affordable custom guitars, custom shop

Id: cehL7fbvWuk

Length: 13min 43sec (823 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 08 2023