Workhorse strat HSS, little help from the board?

[aph]

My first post to the board. Help needed!

I'm planning on building (well, someone else is gonna build it ) a workhorse strat. A guitar that basically is very versatile and is able to produce tones from hard rock to jazzy and bluesy sounds.

Most important specs:
- Alder body
- Maple neck
- Rosewood fretboard
- Floyd rose locking trem
- HSS
- 5-way switch
- 2 volume (bridge+mid and neck), 1 tone (master or neck or neck+mid... bit undecided here)

I have come to peace with JB trembucker in the bridge position after thinking about '59 or Custom trembuckers. But all in all, JB is the best all around humbucker I have played.

I'm a bit undecided with the mid and neck single coils but as of now I'm leaning towards the tapped version of SSL-5 Custom staggered on both the mid and neck. Unfortunately I have never tried one out so I am very interested hearing your opinion on it. Is it a good option for more rocking stuff when untapped? And does it produce more vintage kind of sound when tapped and does the sound have any similarities with the SSL-1?

I've been planning to put in a one mini toggle switch in order to do the coil splitting in humbucker and coil tapping on single coils. Also a push-pull pot to have more options on pick-up selections. When the pot is pushed the selections are as in typical HSS configuration and I also have relatively clear image what configurations I want to have when the pot is pulled but I'm not sure if it's possible to do this kind of cofigurations.

The configurations I would like to have when the pot is pulled are as follows (not in any specific order):
- outer coil of the humbucker and the neck pickup (for tele type of sounds)
- all pick-ups together
- bridge + neck
- bridge + middle
- your suggestion?

The big question is: is this even possible?

Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

[JakeusUrungus]

Re: Workhorse strat HSS, little help from the board?

I don't have any experience with the SSL-5 but I can tell you that what you want to do is definitely physically possible, although that is a very interesting way to wire a 5-way switch and I'm not sure how lol.

The JB is great for heavier (or just fatter/thicker) bridge tones and it splits well.

As far as the neck pickup goes, it's a toss up. Most will sound good split with the middle pickup on as well (position 4) but not as great split on their own (position 5). You kind of have to sacrifice one or the other (even if it's just a bit)... either the big humbucker sound or the pure single-coil sound.

I don't know how much you use the middle pickup by itself but I had my Strat's middle pickup set up to make the best possible sound out of positions 4 and 2 because I never really used it on it's own. I went with a Duckbucker.

[esandes]

Re: Workhorse strat HSS, little help from the board?

the only single coil pickups i would ever consider buying would be the SSL-1s. they are the real deal.

as for the HB, i tried the series/parallel thing and i ended up removing it. i prefer the standard series configuration. sure the parallel sounded similar to a single coil but i want the bridge to always sound like a real, series HB.

[marcello252]

Re: Workhorse strat HSS, little help from the board?

I have a SSL5 in bridge position of my strat and, although it's a great bridge position pickup and I think I'll keep it there for a long time, it doesn't even come close to the chimey of a SSL1, it's way rounder and compressed.
I think you can use a couple of SSL1 with the JB without any problem, best of both world.

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: Workhorse strat HSS, little help from the board?

I recommend the 59/custom hybrid for most hss strats because the thing splits crazy well with the custom slug coil, without having to get a hotter humbuckers like the custom, jb or distortion to get an acceptable output when split. Plus I just think it's more versatile than any of the 16ishk humbucker models, able to get both vitnage and modern humbucker sounds with tweaking. Got a weird spongey yet glassy thing going on I really dig. I recommend the ssl-1s.

[aph]

Re: Workhorse strat HSS, little help from the board?

Thanks for all the replies so far!

As for different configurations, my goal is to make as versatile guitar as possible, basically a reliable guitar I can go through the whole gig with, without changing the guitars every now and then back and forth. And a guitar that can produce good and believable tones in different styles.

I was studying little about the differences between SSL-1 and SSL-5. Obviously SSL-5 is much hotter but when tapped the output is about the same as SSL-1 but the resonant peak is still much lower and does not deliver the same chime as SSL-1. And of course the SSL-1 is the arch-type of vintage strat sound but I'm not sure it can deliver the full sounding solo tone in higher gain settings. I'm afraid it's a little weak and thin where as SSL-5 can deliver more round and compressed tone as marcello252 wrote. When tapped it should open up significantly due the pup using only about half of the pup's wire and it should produce a believable vintage tone although it's missing some of the chime of SSL-1. And it still is a true single coil so it should be more trebly than single-coil-sized humbuckers. Correct me if/when I'm wrong.