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Author Topic: Fender 'Mark Knopfler' Signature Series Stratocaster (0117800-815) - Owners list  (Read 293015 times)

Offlinejbaent

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All the MK strats have the USA flag sticked?
You might get lucky, now and then

My book about Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler
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OfflineStephanG

  • Guitar George
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All the MK strats have the USA flag sticked?

until it falls off..

Offlinelcc77

  • Guitar George
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All the MK strats have the USA flag sticked?
The picture I've posted is just a few days after I received the graal, eight years ago : exactly like the video. Now, no USA flag anymore and sadly some scratches  :(.
Perhaps You wanted to know why I waited so long to reveal my acquisition : because now it's page 58/59 of this topic !!! ;) :D
« Last Edit: February 03, 2021, 06:19:38 PM by lcc77 »

Offlinedustyvalentino

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All the MK strats have the USA flag sticked?
I don’t think mine did, but I got it 18 years ago so maybe I forgot...


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"You can't polish a doo-doo" - Mark Knopfler

OfflineTomcaster

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Guys two more hints for the lovers of great sound, and an easy upgrade.

1. The tremolo blocks on the MK models are not good. They are cold rolled steel but with extremely deep holes. I have never seen from Fender any blocks that would go that deep. Get yourself for cheap the Fender Pure Vintage Tremolo blocks which has much shallower holes and the ball end of the string will be much closer to the edge of the back of the block. Fender Custom Shop's Head Mike Lewis himself stated in an interview that a longer string gives better sound.

2. Deck the tremolo. The MK Sig is built from ash and in addition the fretboard is from rosewood. This gives a guitar with relatively little amounts of mids. I read throughout the internet that this guitar is very bright acoustically and yes, this is the wood choice. Decking the tremolo will remedy this. The trem plate shall rest against the body wood and this will transmit certain frequencies much better. The guitar will become significantly more resonant acoustically and more full bodied electrically. You will need all five springs to do this. Watch out not to make a dent into the lacquer with this by having the trem springs exercise too much pull on the trem plate. This is best done by turning the screws holding the trem claw max a quarter turn at a time until you see no change of pitch on the tuner.

Both things will get you miles head in tone. You will get more body, more sizzle and the Texas Specials will work much better in such a setup as well.

For the pickup distances, press the high e at the last fret and set the distance to 3mm. Same with low e and then do 4mm. This seems to work best with these pickups.

Two easy non invasive mods to the guitar that can be fully reversed in case you want to preserve full value and you will get a guitar playing a full league higher. Good luck!

Offlinejbaent

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What I never understood is why it has Texas Special... It's something I would never had linked with DS or MK sound.
You might get lucky, now and then

My book about Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Jbaent

OfflineMudrian

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What I never understood is why it has Texas Special... It's something I would never had linked with DS or MK sound.
Totally agree with you , I find them too harsh, I've set them very  low in order to get rid of that . I won't swap them for another set because I want to keep it original , but I have a set of  Fender 57/62 in a 80's strat and a set of bare KnucklestHE sultans in a Classic Player and they are both closer to MK sound , by far.
My idea of heaven is a place where the Tyne meets the Delta, where folk music meets the blues.

Offlinedustyvalentino

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Funny.

They ARE the MK sound. They have been since 2003.


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"You can't polish a doo-doo" - Mark Knopfler

Offlinejbaent

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    • My book about Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler
Funny.

They ARE the MK sound. They have been since 2003.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Never liked it from 2003...
You might get lucky, now and then

My book about Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Jbaent

Offlinejbaent

  • Honorary Knopfler fans- Editor
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  • Registered: August 2008
    • My book about Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler
What I never understood is why it has Texas Special... It's something I would never had linked with DS or MK sound.
Totally agree with you , I find them too harsh, I've set them very  low in order to get rid of that . I won't swap them for another set because I want to keep it original , but I have a set of  Fender 57/62 in a 80's strat and a set of bare KnucklestHE sultans in a Classic Player and they are both closer to MK sound , by far.

I know some people who has the MK start and took the Texas out and put Lindsay Fralin instead.

Did any of the owners here did something like that?
You might get lucky, now and then

My book about Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Jbaent

OfflineMudrian

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Funny.

They ARE the MK sound. They have been since 2003.


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Funny.
I'm not saying that you can't get a Knoplerish kind of sound with them , but TS are not the most obvious choice (and from what I've seen on lot of forums since the release in 2003, I'm not the only one to think so).It's also clear that it depends on the rest of the rig used ( been using a Hiwatt  and Blackface Deluxe Reverb wich are in the ball park for MK clear sound).MK has been using Lindy Fralin for single coils for many years
My idea of heaven is a place where the Tyne meets the Delta, where folk music meets the blues.

Offlinedustyvalentino

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MK has been using Lindy Fralin for single coils for many years

Source for that?

MK said when the Strat was released that he tried lots of pickups and he liked the Texas Specials best.

He has now played them for 18 years, longer than anything else.

Maybe some fans don’t like them but clearly MK does.
"You can't polish a doo-doo" - Mark Knopfler

OfflineTomcaster

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MK uses Fralins in the Suhr guitars. The only other pickups I ever heard Mark to put into his Strats are Seymour Duncans.

I can check with Seymour if perhaps he did some other PUs for Mark as well...

With regards to not understanding why Mark chose Texas Specials. There are a couple of reasons.
1. Marketing: in order for Knopfler to receive a signature Strat, it was supposed to be spec wise different from the standard Fender range. The standard range at that time was the American Vintage (AVRi)1962 Stratocaster with a 7.25 board, small frets, 57/62 pickups, rosewood slab fretboard. This standard range is (on high level) spec wise the same as the pre-CBS 1961 Stratocaster MK played at Dire Straits. So what was Fender supposed to do? Take the AVRi, make it hot rod red? That would not suffice the need for it to be different and launch as a Sig Model. My guess is that Fender proposed Knopfler something that would allow it to be different and sexy, so they went with an ash body (marketing story: it was as light as pre-CBS alder), they put on bigger frets to advertise better playability, they added the pickups and they made the exclusive color. Now THIS was enough to justify a signature model.

2. The ash / rosewood combination of this Strat is not usual. I have written above - this combination makes for a very BRIGHT tone.  The Texas Specials offset this with their midrange honk. Installing other PUs is always possible, but you run into risk of getting a very bright tone. Decking the trem will help but not completely eliminate this. Ash normally works better with a maple fingerboard which has less presence (sounds "rounder").

hunter

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IMO, Mark's last great Strat sound was on the studio version of What It Is. And he never beat the Strat sound on the two first DS albums.


And I don't understand the reason for the Texas Specials, not for clean tones anyway.

Offlinefirmstools

  • Guitar George
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  • Registered: May 2014
Sorry if this has been mentioned before, just came across these Fender schematics for the MK strat and it shows no tone control for the bridge pickup, mine most defiantly has!
I got mine S/H 11 years ago so it may have been modded before I got it.
Are the diagrams wrong? (quite possible) or has my guitar been modified?

https://p4.zdassets.com/hc/theme_assets/549136/200076499/011-7800A_SISD.pdf

 

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