Superstrat is a name for an electric guitar design that resembles a Fender Stratocaster but with differences that clearly distinguish it from a standard Stratocaster, usually to cater to a different playing style. Differences typically include more pointed, aggressive-looking body and neck shapes with increased cutaways to facilitate access to the higher frets, an increased number of frets on the fingerboard, a contoured heel at the neck joint facilitating easier higher fret access, the usage of humbucking pickups, and locking vibrato systems, most commonly the Floyd Rose.[1] [2] [3]
There is no formal definition of a superstrat; the categorization is still largely left to popular opinion and depends greatly on the artist(s) associated with a particular model and how it is marketed.
With the increased popularity of heavy metal music during the early 1980s, guitarists began seeking out guitars more suited to the new style, both in terms of looks (more "pointy" aggressive designs) and playability (ease of playing and larger tone that sounds pleasant with hi-gain amplification). Guitarists such as Ritchie Blackmore, Uli Jon Roth and Dave Murray had used Fender Stratocasters, but each had minor modifications made to their instrument to suit their individual playing style.
Ritchie Blackmore was one of the first to build a guitar with superstrat characteristics. Dissatisfied with the performance of then-available original stock model commercial guitars, Blackmore sought to create a hybrid instrument that would suit his acrobatic playing style as seen in Deep Purple concert photos from Manchester in 1974.
Eddie Van Halen was another pioneer of the idea. The stock single-coil pickups of a Fender Stratocaster were noisy, and lacked the output necessary to drive an amplifier into hard distortion (characteristic of the Van Halen sound), but the body shape and wide pitch range of the Fender fulcrum tremolo appealed to him. An avid tinkerer, Van Halen assembled a Boogie Bodies Stratocaster body with a thin, 21-fret maple neck and a humbucking Gibson PAF pickup in the bridge slot. This guitar, known as the "Frankenstrat" was featured on Van Halen's 1978 debut album Van Halen, and pictured on the album cover. It was later repainted with a top coat of red, and has had different humbuckers over the years, some of them custom-wound.[4]
While many believe Van Halen's 1977 Frankenstrat to be the first Superstrat, Michael Hampton of Parliament-Funkadelic often used a sunburst Stratocaster with 3 humbucking pickups and a reversed headstock during the band's tours in the mid-to-late 1970s. This guitar can be seen on the DVD , which was filmed in 1976.
Soon, other guitarists and luthiers would also apply similar custom modifications to their instruments. Many sources cite Grover Jackson as one of the first (and most influential) guitar makers to have crafted custom shop guitars with all the features of superstrats, doing so as early as 1981.[5] [6] Later all these improvements were integrated in the factory-produced Jackson Soloist model.
Starting about 1983–1984, companies such as Kramer,[7] Jackson, Charvel, Yamaha, Aria, Ibanez, Washburn and Hamer started mass production of superstrat design guitars due to growing market demand. The rising popularity of heavy metal music led to a new generation of guitarists that employed fast and complex techniques which demanded thinner and more versatile guitar necks and stable tremolo systems. Some examples of guitars marketed to this specific audience include:
During the rest of the 1980s, due to the style's huge marketing success, most guitar companies had at least one model of superstrat in mass production.
Makers of superstrat models besides the companies mentioned elsewhere in this article also included Fernandes, Schecter, Carvin and ESP.
Fender responded to the superstrat fashion in the mid-1980s, producing a number of models based on the standard Stratocaster.
Fender also released several superstrat models, such as Talon, under Fender/Heartfield name from 1989 to 1993.[12]
Gibson also produced some models inspired by the superstrat:
In early and mid-1990s, heavy metal and particularly shredding declined in popularity, in favor of grunge, nu metal, alternative metal and other styles. The popularity of superstrats also declined, in favor of guitars more suited to these new styles. Companies that relied on superstrats as a major part of their target market suffered heavy losses and went out of business or were bought by larger corporations:
Nevertheless, extended-fretboard superstrats remain popular among metal and shred guitarists in particular, and are produced by guitar manufacturers of all sizes. Additionally, some Stratocaster modifications which were strongly associated with the superstrat, such as the Floyd Rose tremolo system and especially the inclusion of humbucking pickups, have become widely available from stock on 22-fret bolt-on neck instruments which are often seen as Stratocaster variants rather than superstrats, including several stock models of official Fender Stratocaster.[20] [21] [22] A Fender Stratocaster mounted with at least one humbucking pickup (usually a single humbucker replacing the bridge pickup) is often called a "Fat Strat." The available Fat Strat configurations as of 2018 are HSS (all models including both Fender and Squier), HSH (Player and MIM Deluxe only) and HH (Fender Player and Squier Contemporary). Modern solid-body electric guitars with seven, eight or more strings often show strong influence from the superstrat (such as extended fretboards, humbucking pickups, rear routs and/or locking tremoloes alongside a Stratocaster-influenced body shape) or could be regarded as superstrats themselves: for example, the Ibanez Universe, the first mass-produced solid-body seven-string guitar,[23] closely resembles the Ibanez JEM.