The Ultimate Stratocaster Tone!

[Lewguitar]

I put the Tele bridge pickup in my white Strat that the previous owner had really hogged out for a humbucker...plenty of room! But the rout was quite oversize. I do really like the tone I'm getting but I plan on tweaking that guitar further.

I'm going to remove the 3-way tele style bridge and push/pull pot and install a Schaller 5 -way Magaswitch that lets me get neck, neck & middle, neck & bridge, middle and bridge and bridge pickups combined.

I may also change the pickups themselves. I love the Fralins but I already have them in my Candy Apple Red Strat and I want to try the Duncan Custom Shop Jerry Donahue Tele bridge pickup MJ wound me and a set of Duncan APS-1 or APS-2 or Texas Hot neck and middle pickups with it.

Lew

I have since removed this set from my white Strat. Just got tired of it and didn't feel the tone was all that great after awhile. Kind of cool as a novelty but not for me. Sounds kind of dry.

(Strangely enough, my favorite tone was with all three pickups on at the same time! Only set I've ever felt that way about - usually I don't like all three on at the same time!)

I love the Fralin Vintage Hots, but not with the Blues Special Tele bridge pickup.

I wound up putting the full set of Antiquity Surfers I originaly had in this guitar back in and I like that alot better.

[brinton]

Okay, now my bridge pup is really up in the air, I've decided on ssl-1s neck/mid, and I still have too many options for the bridge pup. I really think I won't find the twangbanger to be all that powerful. I thought the ants custom bridges would hotter than the TB, anyway, I think I can choose anywhere between a hot,QP, custom flat. I really think that a set of ssl1's with a SP 43 would do me good, but nobody I know carries those, not grtheaven, MF, acmeguitarworks.

I think I might just like the hot tapped, @ 8.8k when tapped that's a might fine 4th pos. I'm hearing, anyone got clips of this bad boy, tapped would be a +.

[brinton]

woah, I just jacked the Ultimate Strat Tone thread, OMG i'm so sorry

[brinton]

how bout those QP's too, anyone have input on that.

[brinton]

um, back to ultimate strat tone

[Gunbucker]

That would be a set of Fender American Vintage 57/62 pickups. In the right strat, and in the right hands, NOTHING, beats this set.

[the guy who invented fire]

um, back to ultimate strat tone

and back to it we go...ANY pups you need can be gotten from Lew...click the link at the bottom of his posts...

The QP sound more like a P-90 that a strat pup. If you're going SSL-1 in the neck and middle check out an SSL-3 in the bridge...maybe a QP...thats what Curly would tell ya and more than likely Lew too. Also look into SSL-5 too...that is a hotter pup but it is staggered like the SSL-1's.

[Gearjoneser]

Another question. Antiquity I's are wound opposite from Antiquity II's, meaning you have to reverse the white and black leads, to make them compatible with each other, like Lew illustrated earlier. How are the modern Duncan strat pickups wound? Like the Twangbanger, SSL-1's etc? Will they jive with the Ant I's or II's?
Also, how is the wind and polarity on Fralins? Could I mix a Steelpole bridge with my Surfer II neck and middle, without running into problems?

[rspst14]

[Lewguitar]

Another question. Antiquity I's are wound opposite from Antiquity II's, meaning you have to reverse the white and black leads, to make them compatible with each other, like Lew illustrated earlier. How are the modern Duncan strat pickups wound? Like the Twangbanger, SSL-1's etc? Will they jive with the Ant I's or II's?
Also, how is the wind and polarity on Fralins? Could I mix a Steelpole bridge with my Surfer II neck and middle, without running into problems?

My buddy AJ had a set of SSL-1's with a JB JR in his Strat. He had me install a Steel Pole 43 and I had to reverse the wires on the SP 43. Sounds great though! No problems.

John (Stratdeluxer47) has a Twangbanger with a set of Surfers....maybe he'll chime in and let us know if he had to reverse the black and white wires and resolder the bassplate to the white wire on the Twangbanger. I think he did!

Brinton: I think you should just go with the SSL-1's and Twangbanger and see how you like it. You've reached the point where you just have to try it, see if you like it and then if you don't, use the SD 21 day exchange. That's what it's for.

You'll never know otherwise and no one can tell you what's going to work for you. It's no big deal exchanging the bridge pickup for something else if you need to.

Lew

[brinton]

yeah I know...... but I can't exchange a duncan for a fralin. besides when your 16 and can't do everything yourself, like online ordering, you just wanna be sure. Besides learning all I can never hurts. (my dad said he wasn't gonna send back my red velvet when I bought that. This time I wanna be sure)

That's why I've decided that I'm going to get a tapped hot for strat pup, I said in one of my other threads that I just love squirling thumb harmonics, and the mids just sound awsomely expressive in the bridge/dirty audio sample. I hated how dull/dark the cleans were on the ssl3 though, that's why it's going to be tapped when I order it.

gtrheaven.com free shipping on all orders over 100$

[Kelsey]

I just put a Twangbanger in the bridge of my California Series Strat with SSL-1 neck and RWRP middle pickups. It sounds good to me -- nice and fat with better lows than I expected. It is RWRP with the middle pup, so it remains hum-canceling in the B/M position, and that combo still sounds real good -- a bit fatter and more useable overall than the thinner "Bell Bottom Blues" tone of the all SSL-1 B/M combo. This will do quite nicely as a "Nashville Tele" for me, and makes this Strat much more versatile.

[BlueSnMettle]

Could we put this in the vault pleeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssee!!!

[Armotron]

Could we put this in the vault pleeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssee!!!

+ 1,000,000,000,000,000,000

[Gearjoneser]

I've been messing around with my two strats, and it seems I'm back to the soldering iron. My two faves are the Surfers and Fender Fat 50's. To me, the Surfers are more Hendrix, and the Fat 50's are more SRV. Also, I like H-S-S strats sometimes, so I combined the C-5 tremspaced with 2 Surfers. I think I'm leaning back toward mating the humbuckers with Fat 50's NOT Surfers......The Surfers are glassy and clean with a lot of fullness, but are still too vintage sounding to mate with humbuckers.
Now, it's gonna be a Surfers with Surfer Custom Ant II bridge and my H-S-S strat will be a Custom Shop overwound C-5 trem with 2 Fat 50's.

[Dangerine49]

I've been following this thread with great interest. I have three Strats, one MIA Deluxe with Fender Vintage Noiseless and another MIM with Kinman Traditionals which I'm leaving as is.

The third one, however, has become something of a project Strat. It is a beautiful ash bodied CIJ '71RI which is routed S-S-S and is currently outfitted with a set of MIA Delta Tones. I had this guitar up for sale, but I am now reconsidering.

The bridge position for Strats seems to me to be the critical decision, and after reading many pickup related threads I'm thinking of getting a Lindy Fralin SP43 for a beefy P90 bridge tone. Now I also have a SD Nashville 5-2 in the neck of an old Mustang that I don't play much which I could move over to the neck of this Strat.

My question therefore is: would a SD 5-2 (neck) - Fender Delta Tone (mid) - Fralin SP43 (bridge) mongrel mixture work well together (and individually) in an ash Strat?

[BlueSnMettle]

I've been messing around with my two strats, and it seems I'm back to the soldering iron. My two faves are the Surfers and Fender Fat 50's. To me, the Surfers are more Hendrix, and the Fat 50's are more SRV. Also, I like H-S-S strats sometimes, so I combined the C-5 tremspaced with 2 Surfers. I think I'm leaning back toward mating the humbuckers with Fat 50's NOT Surfers......The Surfers are glassy and clean with a lot of fullness, but are still too vintage sounding to mate with humbuckers.
Now, it's gonna be a Surfers with Surfer Custom Ant II bridge and my H-S-S strat will be a Custom Shop overwound C-5 trem with 2 Fat 50's.

Hey jonesy,

Draw me a comparison between the Ant C1 & Ant C2 bridge. I have the full Ant 1 set up in my Jeff Beck Strat & I love 'em. Another thing that came to me today was, The JB Strat came with the Hot Noisless Fender pups (around 10K) right. The Ant C1 (around 10K). I don't recall the pot values when I swapped the pups, guess I just didn't pay attention. Do you know what pots they may have in there? 500k, perhaps? Could that be the reason the Ant 1s
rock my world? ANT 1s with 500ks..........

Peace,

Darrin

[Armotron]

Vault this please?

[gypsy]

The experiments are fascinating. I enjoyed reading the bridge weights and effects of it. Did you try them all in the same guitar?

Very important of course.

While pickups make a difference of course, but the whole guitar's tone is a synergy of it's parts. I had a Fender relic that had Custom shop 54's in it, stock. I put in Fralins and while there was a little difference, it was hardly worth the effort. I could've gotten that same difference by tweaking the amp a little.

More than the brand, I think you should determine what you want in a magnet, wire, output etc... and then any brand should be fine.

I've had strats where I've had every pickup under the sun in them and you can still hear the same fundamental voice. It's just a little brighter, or louder or.....

If you're after vintage Fender sounds I think the Fenders are good.