Quels micros pour ma future strat Haar ?

Number One (also known as Vaughan's 'First Wife') was originally claimed to be a 1959 Fender Stratocaster used by Texas blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan for most of his career. Various interviews with Vaughan's guitar tech, Rene Martinez, and Fender Guitars state Number One is actually a Chocolate Sunburst Stratocaster produced in 1961. After purchasing the instrument in 1973 from Ray Henning's Heart of Texas music shop in Austin, Texas, it was his main performing instrument and companion. Vaughan made heavy use of the guitar on all five pre-death studio albums and on 'Family Style' - an album recorded with his brother Jimmie shortly before his death in 1990.

Stevie Ray said that he knew straightaway that there was something special about First Wife. He liked the sunburst finish and the thick, oddly shaped D-neck. Stevie Ray had large hands and the unusually thick neck felt comfortable.

"I didn't even have to play it - I just knew by the way it looked that it would sound great. I was carrying my '63 Strat and asked if [Ray] would like to trade. Thank God he did, and it's been my main axe ever since."[citation needed]

Soon after he got the guitar, Vaughan tried to change the guitar over to a 'left-handed' tremolo to imitate one of his idols, Jimi Hendrix. Because the quality of his 'transformation' was so poor, he went to a truckstop to find something to cover the giant hole he chopped in the body, hence the "CUSTOM" sticker across the bottom of the bridge. He also found some large, prismatic stickers to spell his initials "SRV" on and applied those to the guitar for a little extra flash. His use of the stickers make Number One one of the most recognizable guitars in the history of modern music.

"Number One" had a neck relief of .012" at the 7th and 9th frets, and leveled out through the remainder of the fingerboard. The fingerboard radius is 10" and used Dunlop 6100 fretwire. String height was measured to be 5/64" on the high E string and 7/64" on the low E string. Each string had 3 full winds for the best angle at the bone nut.

Stevie wasn't picky on string brand, but was well known for using GHS Nickel Rockers of heavy gauge, partly for tone and partly because his fretting and strumming were so strong he often snapped strings while playing. He changed around gauges often, depending on the condition of his fingers, but always favored the following gauges:

e string: .013" B string: .015" G string: .019" D string: .028" A string: .038" E string: .058"

Early Vibrato bars were standard Fender items. Because he broke them often and the threaded sems were difficult to remove, Rene Martinez custom started custom making Vibrato bars of stainless steel and added a small wad of cotton at the bottom of the block hole to prevent stripping and ease removal of broken bars. Because Vaughan didn't like the floating bridge, it was set flush with the body and used 4 springs on the vibrato system tightened almost all the way.

Number One is currently in the possession of Jimmie Vaughan, Stevie Ray's brother (After Stevie's death, Rene Martinez put the original neck back on Number One and presented it to the Vaughan family), although there were rumors that Number One had been buried with Stevie in Dallas. There are also rumours the guitar has been sold to the owner of the SAE Institute, a world wide company that educates people for sound related jobs in both live and recorded music and film.

Stevie collaborated with Fender for an Artist Signature model before his untimely death in 1990. His favorite old battered 1961 Strat served as a basis for the Stevie Ray Vaughan Signature model Stratocaster, first introduced in 1992.

The Fender Custom Shop produced a faithful representation of Number One as a part of the Tribute series in 2004. This limited-edition Tribute Stratocaster guitar was made in a global run of only 100 instruments. Much discussion and debate between the Fender Company and Jim Cara of Original Cara Hot Rod Guitars have questioned the legal issues of Cara buying Fender guitars and relicensing the instruments to very closely resemble the age and incidentals of the original SRV #1. [1]