Fender Stratocaster

The Stratocaster, made by Fender, is arguably the most famous and successful electric guitar ever made. Designed in 1954, the basic Stratocaster has undergone surprisingly few changes. A Stratocaster features a double-cutaway shape with an extended top horn, a 25.5″ scale length neck, a six in-line headstock (meaning all six tuners are on the same side of the headstock), three single-coil pickups, a tremolo bridge (some versions feature a fixed bridge), master volume and two tone knobs, and a five-way pickup switch (early versions and some re-issues have a 3-position switch). The specific woods (usually alder or ash for the body, maple for the neck shaft, and maple or rosewood for the fingerboard), curve and radius of the fingerboard, and purposes of the knobs may change with the various models of Stratocaster, but those basics, present in the original, still hold true today. Today, there are numerous guitar manufacturers that build instruments either based on or identical to the Fender Stratocaster.