Strat positions

[GuitarStv]

Well those are all pretty outstanding examples. I will say though - Gilmour isn't using a regular strat bridge pickup.

[beaubrummels]

Well those are all pretty outstanding examples. I will say though - Gilmour isn't using a regular strat bridge pickup.

In the Black strat? I suppose if you don't consider Duncan singles regular Strat pickups. The bridge is a custom-wound Duncan SSL-1C, which is the same as the current SSL-5.

[zionstrat]

Some examples

Okay Beau you just took this to the next level plus another... I think exactly like your examples... If a picture is worth a million words, you just replaced a couple of billion.

Mincer, any chance we could consider this for pinable material? Considering how far this is gone in two pages, it would be wonderful to see if everybody could contribute to a very specific "what is a Strat?" post.

[GuitarStv]

In the Black strat? I suppose if you don't consider Duncan singles regular Strat pickups. The bridge is a custom-wound Duncan SSL-1C, which is the same as the current SSL-5.

I just mean . . . the SSL-5 is pretty heavily overwound. It doesn't sound at all like a traditional strat bridge (which is a good thing!).

[beaubrummels]

I just mean . . . the SSL-5 is pretty heavily overwound. It doesn't sound at all like a traditional strat bridge (which is a good thing!).

Fair enough. I'll look for a pure bridge tone video. I can think of a couple, not as legendary as Gilmour. IMO Gilmour isn't the best example anyway mainly because of how much effects he has on it.

[orpheo]

The strat is the tone I hate the most out of all guitars. Doesn't matter who plays it (except for Eric Johnson and John Mayer), I hate it. Snotty, honky, midscooped. Nop. Gimme a Les Paul and I'm happy. Humbucker in strat? cool too! But the singlecoil tone? hate it.

[jeremy]

eric johnson and john mayer eh? thems some pretty different tones for sure. both great players though. ive always been a strat guy at heart

[zionstrat]

ive always been a strat guy at heart

I totally get this... Although I play practically everything on a relatively regular basis, I think my basic underpinning has become a strat.

For example, my primary teaching guitar right now is a Reverend that has a bridge humbucker and a p90 neck.

If I'm in humbucker mode and I need to get thinner, I'll parallel the bridge and my mind thinks "what a beautiful strat bridge" :-)

If I'm going to push into clean rhythm, I'll often go to the middle position, matching the p90 with the parallel bridge and my brain will think, "that's a nice second position strat."

And when I want the warm sustained Hendricks tone I'll go to the p90 thinking "that's a nice fat strat neck sound."

I've never really thought about it before, but I think the strat became the foundation for all electrics because it has practically all combinations.

If I think Les Paul bridge, my brain jumps to HSS strat with a little tone rolled off. If I'm thinking middle position Les Paul, I'll be thinking about the "tele mod" with some tone rolled off.

Of course none of those tones are exact matches, but it's a lot easier for my brain to expand from the simplicity of three single coils.

[Chistopher]

I've never really thought about it before, but I think the strat became the foundation for all electrics because it has practically all combinations.

There's a psychological term for this way of thinking that escapes me at the moment. I think it's a type of availability heuristic. You tend to think in terms of Strat, so you tend to view the world as if it were designed in terms of Strats. I tend to view guitars I think relative to Telecasters.

[uOpt]

In the Black strat? I suppose if you don't consider Duncan singles regular Strat pickups. The bridge is a custom-wound Duncan SSL-1C, which is the same as the current SSL-5.

I still doubt that the black Strat has a AWG43 pickup at the bridge.

[jeremy]

in the gilmour video, that is a ssl1c/ssl5 in the bridge. it was put in the guitar in the late 70's

[beaubrummels]

A few more examples, for fun.

Position 1 - pure bridge tone, for GuitarStv

Position 2 - start at 0:48 seconds

Position 3 - this guy spends almost the whole night on the middle pickup

Position 4 - at 14:27, this guy gets the #4 position to sound pretty bad ass

Position 5

[zionstrat]

Again great examples! Thank you Beau

[zozoe]

For many of us, Strats are an aural treat for the senses, especially clean...
For me, i cleaned up all the riff-raff, installed 4-way switches in every eligible piece of wood, did away with the solo middle & the neck+middle, so I'm now (with north-south-south, or south-north-north orientation)
B•BM•BN•N, 1 volume, 1 tone (either on bridge only or all 3), & a tone cap in the .007uf range (secret sauce!)....
Each one of my Strats sound different & prettier than the next.... Knopfler, Cale, Clapton, James Calvin Wilsey, Burton..... all there!!,, but my main thing is amps!!
Each one, an exemplary ingredient~ Cheers

[Lake Placid Blues]

Great examples.

I find a lot of strats with vintage single coils players tend to use pedals and/or a high gain amp a lot more, while the straight into the amp guys will more often want a humbucker in the bridge, hot wound SCs, or an onboard preamp. This is not a hard and fast rule of course, and there's a lot overlap in approach, but a vintage pickup strat lends itself to that approach.

There's the pedal or preamp making up for the low output aspect, but a lot of it is the strat being a blank canvas and adding and subtracting sound colors. For example Jimi, using a fuzz, univibe, and wah a lot. In one of the vintage pickup examples above, the SC tone is still drenched in reverb. A really cool sound btw.