The Fender Stratocaster would be the classic choice of guitar to use if you are a blues player. Fender Stratocaster’s generally come with a rosewood or maple fret board, maple being the brighter of the two. My personal choice would be rosewood, more rounded tone but like so many things it really boils down to what your ear wants to hear.
I would defiantly go for a Fender Amp as well; something with valves in it would give you a real classic blues sound. The fender bluesman has two pre amp channels which are switchable, one giving you a clean sound and the other giving an overdrive sound. The overdrive channel has valves in it which in my opinion still give a far superior overdrive sound than a transistors amp.
Between your guitar and amp you can have numerous pedals and effect processing units, I would certainly keep this to a minimum. Especially with blues I think the less you process your sound the better. Rather spend more on the amp and guitar than get all sorts of pedals that promise great tone but actually end up killing the tone of a good amp and guitar. I am clearly not one for too many effects but one that deserves a mention is the Pro Co Rat. This is a very simple distortion pedal that when coupled with a Fender Strat and Valve Amp gives the most amazing blues sound you can imagine. Yes it’s very retro, you’ll sound like you just stepped out of the seventies but it sure is a very cool blues sound.
The rest of your outfit would be leads, straps, picks, a guitar stand, a tuner and a bag or case. You may also have some backing tracks to practice to and perhaps a recording device like an iPod or mini disc so you can listen back and hear what you sound like.
Well, good luck with your blues playing and remember, good tone starts with your fingers.
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