SRV played several guitars throughout his career, but far and away his favorite and the most played was the one he called “Number One,” which was purchased in fender srv stratocaster capacitor
 the mid 1970s at Ray Hennig’s Heart of Texas Music Store in Austin, Texas. This guitar is often described as being a 1959 Fender Stratocaster with a slab rosewood fingerboard, a reference that has helped to give Strats of this vintage an extra cache on the collector’s market. Martinez: No, it was all the same. He still had high action, he played in E-flat, we tuned E-flat and the action was still high. But nothing changed other than that. The tone was always you know, it's not just the strings and the rig, it was all 100% in his hands, so it didn't change. Breaking strings became a big part of that, but once I figured that out, then everything was okay.