since prince started using stratocaster guitars(since late 2002)

his guitar sound become much more natural and at the same time heavy.
his sound was the worst during rave era.

it's the best change and addition in prince's sound.

compare his guitar sound on musicology in la and rave 2000 dvd.
prince matured in the sound department.

nobody thinks like me?

What´s it got to do with the brand of guitar ? Maybe he was going through a bad phase during Rave 2000. The Fender might sound good but I like the fact that Prince is among those guitar players with a distintively unique sound and a trademark guitar...or , better yet, three trademark guitars...the Symbol / Habibi, the Hohner and the Cloud.That´s cool.

I don't think that it's all thanks to the strat. It has the same EMG configuration has all of his other Symbol and Clouds so I think it's mainly the amps and effects which I'm just about sure he changes routinely.

thebanishedone said:

tele is best guitar 4 prince sound.....with boss pedals....ghs strings....with fingerease

tele is the best for chunkier fat clean funky sound,it's not so good for leads,althought purple rain solo(album version) is recorded with a telecaster copy hohner,not with cloud guitar

funkyguitar2007 said:

Don't forget the Boogie Coliseum III amps and The White/Peach/Blue/Yellow Cloud guitar.

I have a question for the guitar players. I notice for his rhythm tones P either plays the neck pickup on the Clouds and Tele but on the hollowbodies he'll use the middle selector using both humbuckers.

He doesn't use a middle single coil pickup with the neck pickup for that "Strat" sound. (As his tones are still kicking!) Miko and Mike Scott get good clean tones also.

I was wondering where this originates from as far as his influences? Does it come from Tony Maiden and Freddie Stone?

carlcranshaw said:

He's definately using just the neck pickup here. Anyone know if it's a stacked humbucker that looks like a single-coil?

According 2 my guitarist friends, Strats don't sound as nice as Teles or Les Pauls! I suppose it comes down 2 personal preference. A lot of players seem 2 B using Teles nowadays. I wish P would use the Ibanez GB10 a bit more. Once he got it sorted, that thing cranked out some seriously sweet sounds On the Rave DVD, U can see he's not sure about how it should've been amped up, coz U can hardly hear it I wounder how he'd go with a Paul Reed Smith 'Santana'?
That's a nice Axe!

Amaxx said:

It definitely is a matter of personal preference - I'm a strat man all the way. Nothing gives me that clean funk sound like a strat. For my leads, I have a humbucker in the bridge. A "fat strat" gives me the best of both worlds.

Prince could play on pots and pans and make it sound good.

MajesticOne89 said:

Agreed. It's a customized Stratocaster. No doubt with the same maple body as he prefers all his guitars (Strats typically have an Alder or Ash body), and he's using the active (battery-powered) EMG pickups. I think it's more a new look, and a comfy and playable guitar for him. I thought I read he used the new acoustic/electric hybrid Taylor for the Musicology stuff..at least it's in the Te Amo Corazon Video.