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I write a column called BLUES GEAR, and this month it's an excerpt from a book I'm writing on setting up your guitar to get great tone. I'm pretty excited about it.
How To Make Your Fender Stratocaster Guitar Sound Great!
The Fender Stratocaster is one of the most popular guitars in the world. Jimi Hendrix played a Strat and so did Stevie Ray Vaughan. So do Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan and Eric Clapton.
But getting a great tone from a Fender Strat can be a real challenge - especially for beginning guitarists.
If the pickups in your Strat (those three white transducers under the strings that “pick up” the vibrations of the steel strings and make an electric guitar electric) are not professional quality, you can greatly improve the sound of your guitar by replacing them with some first rate vintage style pickups.
If you own an import Stratocaster (one made in Mexico, China or Japan) the next time you change your strings, unscrew your pick guard and carefully turn it upside down so you can see the backside of the stock pickups.
If you find one or two grey bar magnets glued to the back of your pickups, those are modern ceramic magnet pickups - not vintage style alnico magnet pickups like Leo Fender used.
Here’s the deal: with vintage Fender Stratocaster pickups from the 1950’s and 60’s, the six round metal pole pieces you see poking through the top of the white plastic cover are actual magnets and are made from a composite of aluminum, nickel and cobalt called alnico.
With ceramic magnet pickups, like those often used in import Strats, the pole pieces look the same from the top but they’re not magnets at all - they’re just plain steel slugs and a ceramic, not alnico, magnet is glued to the back of the pickup to magnetize the plain steel slugs.
Being an older guy, and having owned a few Strats from the 1950’s and 1960’s, I think vintage style alnico magnet pickups sound best and my favorites are those from 1962 and early 1963. Those seem to have a fuller tone and slightly more output than those from the 1950’s and those made after 1965 when Leo sold the Fender company.
Real 1962 Stratocaster pickups would cost a fortune - even if you were able to find someone willing to sell them to you.
Fortunately, we have options: Antiquity Surf Pickups, hand wound in the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop by either Seymour or his partner, Maricela Juarez, are pretty much spot on recreations of the 1962 Stratocaster pickup.
Lindy Fralin, Chris Klein, Jason Lollar and Don Mare also wind great sounding 50’s & 60’s style replacement pickups.
It should be mentioned that in old Strats from the 1950’s & 60’s all three pickups are virtually identical, whereas in modern Strats the bridge pickup is often wound to have more output than the neck and middle pickups.
Also, in modern Strats the middle pickup is usually assembled with the polarity of the pole piece magnets reversed: instead of the south pole facing up, the middle pickup is constructed with the pole pieces upside down so that the north pole is on top. Or if the pole pieces of the neck and bridge pickups have the north poles facing up, the middle pickup will with have the south poles facing up.
This is done to help eliminate noise, especially electrical hum, when the middle pickup is combined with either the neck or bridge pickup, but I think modern Strats sound more like vintage Strats when all three pickups have the same polarity on top and when all three pickups are wound for the same output.
Here’s another tip: the standard Strat pickup selector switch allows you to select the neck pickup by itself, the neck & middle pickups combined, the middle pickup by itself, the middle & bridge pickups combined or the bridge pickup by itself - but you can’t get the sound of the neck & bridge pickups combined.
That happens to be one of my favorite tones, so when I replace the switch in a Stratocaster, I’ll sometimes use one made in Germany called the Megaswitch. The Megaswitch eliminates the middle pickup by itself setting (which I rarely use anyway) and in its place gives me the neck & bridge pickups combined.
Another oddity of the Fender Strat is that there is no tone control for the bridge pickup. When I replace the pickups in a Fender Strat, I usually disconnect the tone control for the middle pickup and reconnect it so that it works on the bridge pickup instead.
This is an especially good modification if you like to use overdrive pedals like the Tube Screamer Stevie Ray Vaughan used or the Klon Centaur Jeff Beck uses, and it allows me to turn the bridge pickup tone control down until I find that sweet spot that lets me dial in a smooth, violin-like tone for my solos.
And speaking of overdrive pedals, check out the new Electro Harmonix Soul Food pedal. For $63, it gets most of the tones of the now legendary and long discontinued Klon Centaur pedal which now sell used for about $2000. Mission Amps should have them in stock.
The thing I love about the Klon is that it allows me to go from cleanish blues/rock tones to very overdriven blues/rock tones with the sustain of a bowed violin, using just the volume control of my Fender Stratocaster. I don't need to stomp it off and on - I can just set it and then leave it on.
Well, that’s enough for this month. Next time we’ll talk about adjusting your pickups, setting your string height and intonation so your guitar is easy to play and plays in tune, and I’ll also give you some tips for setting up your vibrato so that when you do those Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan style dive bombs, it’ll return in tune.
Thanks for reading and please do send us some guitar and amplifier questions that you’d like answered. You can reach us at [email protected] or [email protected].
How To Make Your Fender Stratocaster Guitar Sound Great!
The Fender Stratocaster is one of the most popular guitars in the world. Jimi Hendrix played a Strat and so did Stevie Ray Vaughan. So do Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan and Eric Clapton.
But getting a great tone from a Fender Strat can be a real challenge - especially for beginning guitarists.
If the pickups in your Strat (those three white transducers under the strings that “pick up” the vibrations of the steel strings and make an electric guitar electric) are not professional quality, you can greatly improve the sound of your guitar by replacing them with some first rate vintage style pickups.
If you own an import Stratocaster (one made in Mexico, China or Japan) the next time you change your strings, unscrew your pick guard and carefully turn it upside down so you can see the backside of the stock pickups.
If you find one or two grey bar magnets glued to the back of your pickups, those are modern ceramic magnet pickups - not vintage style alnico magnet pickups like Leo Fender used.
Here’s the deal: with vintage Fender Stratocaster pickups from the 1950’s and 60’s, the six round metal pole pieces you see poking through the top of the white plastic cover are actual magnets and are made from a composite of aluminum, nickel and cobalt called alnico.
With ceramic magnet pickups, like those often used in import Strats, the pole pieces look the same from the top but they’re not magnets at all - they’re just plain steel slugs and a ceramic, not alnico, magnet is glued to the back of the pickup to magnetize the plain steel slugs.
Being an older guy, and having owned a few Strats from the 1950’s and 1960’s, I think vintage style alnico magnet pickups sound best and my favorites are those from 1962 and early 1963. Those seem to have a fuller tone and slightly more output than those from the 1950’s and those made after 1965 when Leo sold the Fender company.
Real 1962 Stratocaster pickups would cost a fortune - even if you were able to find someone willing to sell them to you.
Fortunately, we have options: Antiquity Surf Pickups, hand wound in the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop by either Seymour or his partner, Maricela Juarez, are pretty much spot on recreations of the 1962 Stratocaster pickup.
Lindy Fralin, Chris Klein, Jason Lollar and Don Mare also wind great sounding 50’s & 60’s style replacement pickups.
It should be mentioned that in old Strats from the 1950’s & 60’s all three pickups are virtually identical, whereas in modern Strats the bridge pickup is often wound to have more output than the neck and middle pickups.
Also, in modern Strats the middle pickup is usually assembled with the polarity of the pole piece magnets reversed: instead of the south pole facing up, the middle pickup is constructed with the pole pieces upside down so that the north pole is on top. Or if the pole pieces of the neck and bridge pickups have the north poles facing up, the middle pickup will with have the south poles facing up.
This is done to help eliminate noise, especially electrical hum, when the middle pickup is combined with either the neck or bridge pickup, but I think modern Strats sound more like vintage Strats when all three pickups have the same polarity on top and when all three pickups are wound for the same output.
Here’s another tip: the standard Strat pickup selector switch allows you to select the neck pickup by itself, the neck & middle pickups combined, the middle pickup by itself, the middle & bridge pickups combined or the bridge pickup by itself - but you can’t get the sound of the neck & bridge pickups combined.
That happens to be one of my favorite tones, so when I replace the switch in a Stratocaster, I’ll sometimes use one made in Germany called the Megaswitch. The Megaswitch eliminates the middle pickup by itself setting (which I rarely use anyway) and in its place gives me the neck & bridge pickups combined.
Another oddity of the Fender Strat is that there is no tone control for the bridge pickup. When I replace the pickups in a Fender Strat, I usually disconnect the tone control for the middle pickup and reconnect it so that it works on the bridge pickup instead.
This is an especially good modification if you like to use overdrive pedals like the Tube Screamer Stevie Ray Vaughan used or the Klon Centaur Jeff Beck uses, and it allows me to turn the bridge pickup tone control down until I find that sweet spot that lets me dial in a smooth, violin-like tone for my solos.
And speaking of overdrive pedals, check out the new Electro Harmonix Soul Food pedal. For $63, it gets most of the tones of the now legendary and long discontinued Klon Centaur pedal which now sell used for about $2000. Mission Amps should have them in stock.
The thing I love about the Klon is that it allows me to go from cleanish blues/rock tones to very overdriven blues/rock tones with the sustain of a bowed violin, using just the volume control of my Fender Stratocaster. I don't need to stomp it off and on - I can just set it and then leave it on.
Well, that’s enough for this month. Next time we’ll talk about adjusting your pickups, setting your string height and intonation so your guitar is easy to play and plays in tune, and I’ll also give you some tips for setting up your vibrato so that when you do those Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan style dive bombs, it’ll return in tune.
Thanks for reading and please do send us some guitar and amplifier questions that you’d like answered. You can reach us at [email protected] or [email protected].
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