Jimmie Vaughan Tex-Mex Stratocaster
The 'Jimmie Vaughan Tex-Mex Stratocaster' is an artist series electric guitar made by the Fender MusicAL Instruments Corporation for Texas blues guitarist Jimmie Vaughan.
Specifications
- Body: Alder
- Neck: 1-Piece Maple, Soft "V" Shape
- Fingerboard: Maple, 9.5” Radius (241mm)
- Scale Length: 25.5in (648 mm)
- No. of Frets: 21 Medium Jumbo Frets
- Width at the Nut: 1 11/16 (43mm)
- Machine Heads: Fender/Gotoh® Vintage Style Tuning Machines
- Pickups: 2 Tex-Mex™ Calibrated, Overwound, Single-Coil Strat Pickups (Neck and Middle), 1 Tex-Mex “Hot Bridge” Single-Coil Strat Pickup (Bridge)
- Pickup Switch: 5-position blade
- Controls: Master Volume, Tone (Neck), Tone (Bridge)
- Pickguard: 1-Ply White
- Bridge: American Vintage Synchronized Tremolo
- Strings: Fender Super 250L, Nickel Plated Steel, (.009 to .042)
The Jimmie Vaughan Stratocaster is one of the Fender Artists Series guitars. It was designed by him and made at the Ensenada plant in Mexico using American made electronics. He wanted a strat that was simple yet had more powerful pickups and a ‘V’-shaped neck maple neck. The wiring on this guitar is a little different than others as well. The two most impressive things about this guitar are the pickups and the soft ‘V’ neck.
The body of the guitar is made of Alder and comes in 2-Color sunburst, Olympic White, Black, and Candy Apple Red colors with a Polyester finish. It has a single ply white pickguard or scratch guard as it used to be called. The bridge is an American Vintage synchronized tremolo. One feature about the body is the use of Fender/Schaller straplocks which basically keeps your strap on the guitar.
The 25.5 inch scale length neck is made of a single piece of maple and has a soft ‘V’ shape profile with a satin polyurethane finish. Jimmie prefers the look and feel of maple necks. Since the fretboard is maple there is no problem of the possibility of the neck twisting because of temperature. The radius of the neck is 9.5 inches with 21 medium jumbo frets. Both of these signify a good guitar for both lead and rhythm playing. The nut width is standard at 1.6875 inches while the headstock has Jimmie’s signature on its backside. The machine heads are Fender/Gotoh vintage tuners. The maple neck is smooth and feels real nice so you can play the guitar with ease. This guitar doesn't get in the way of your playing. The Jumbo Frets are known for there added sustain and tone plus the ease of bending the notes and over al playability of the guitar.
The pickups used for the neck and middle pickups are Tex-Mex overwound vintage types. They are louder than most single coil strat pickups I’ve played. The have more bass and high end as well yet still sound very strat like. The magnets used in them are the Alnico 5 which are more magnetic than other magnets. The wire used is polysol for the windings. The middle pickup is reversed wound so when you use pickup selector positions 2 and 4 you get hum canceling. The neck pickup is a Tex-Mex hot bridge pickup which is a part of the TexMex pickup set. It seems to be louder than the rest which is probably because it has more winds of wire. This is one of the better sounding strats I’ve heard. One other difference is that the middle pickup doesn’t have a tone control instead the first tone knob is for the neck pickup and the 2 nd is for the bridge. It took a bit to get use to it. The 5-way pickup selector is wired how you would think, except that since the middle pickup is reverse wired positions 2 and 4 are hum canceling. I’ve always noticed that with reversed wired middle pickups there is more than just hum being canceled. I like the sound of it and seemed to use position 2 (Bridge and Middle) the most.
The Jimmie Vaughan Tex-Mex Strat guitar “borders” on the sublime, with an alder body, specially shaped tinted maple neck with medium jumbo frets, vintage hardware and single-ply white pickguard. The single-coil Tex-Mex pickups in the neck and middle positions, and extra-hot Tex-Mex pickup with special wiring in the bridge position, stir in tones with just the right amount of southwestern spice and rattlesnake bite.
External links
hu:Fender Jimmie Vaughan Tex-Mex Stratocaster