Dead sounding strat?

alex1fly

alex1fly

Well-known member
What would you suggest for a dead-sounding strat? No life, no mojo, plays nice enough but unplugged its thin and dull, no sparkle or shimmer. I won't sell it because it has sentimental value and feels good... I just want to go "oh yeah" when I play it. What does it need? Mojo-filled pickups? 1 meg pots?
 
Re: Dead sounding strat?

What IS it actually? What's the construction? Check for tightness of the neck joint, make sure the bridge is set up right. I have a plywood MIK Squier strat that is at least somewhat lively. Maybe a higher mass steel bridge block might do the trick.
 
Re: Dead sounding strat?

Why are you playing or care what a Strat sounds like unplugged? I mean after all its an electric guitar plug that puppy in & crank it up! Granted a unplugged guitar; if it sounds great will sound great plugged in as well, but the primary thing is you buy it to plug it in. Do that & how does it sound?

If you want to play unplugged, buy an acoustic guitar!
 
Re: Dead sounding strat?

My '95 Strat Plus was dead too, and after a few pickup changes, I swapped the body with a different body, and now it's lively. Sure, changing pickups before did change the tone, but it never made it lively and sound the way I wanted.

Dave, while the goal isn't to make a good sounding unplugged electric, a dead sounding unplugged electric can be symptomatic of bad wood and a reason why the guitar doesn't sound as expected plugged in.
 
Re: Dead sounding strat?

With Fender guitars you can tell how the guitar is going to sound by the way it sounds acoustically. All three of my Strats and my Tele re-enforce this theory.

OTOH I have heard some Les Pauls sound like toys acoustically but awesome amplified.


Bludave said:
Why are you playing or care what a Strat sounds like unplugged? I mean after all its an electric guitar plug that puppy in & crank it up! Granted a unplugged guitar; if it sounds great will sound great plugged in as well, but the primary thing is you buy it to plug it in. Do that & how does it sound?

If you want to play unplugged, buy an acoustic guitar!
Click to expand...
 
Re: Dead sounding strat?

Bludave said:
Why are you playing or care what a Strat sounds like unplugged? I mean after all its an electric guitar plug that puppy in & crank it up! Granted a unplugged guitar; if it sounds great will sound great plugged in as well, but the primary thing is you buy it to plug it in. Do that & how does it sound?

If you want to play unplugged, buy an acoustic guitar!
Click to expand...

Well, Paul Reed Smith said 20 years ago in Guitar Player Magazine, that any guitar is, first and foremost, an acoustic guitar. You can tell what a guitar is going to sound like by playing it unplugged. I've never bought an electric that I plugged in first. It has to do with the resonance of the body, the tones you can hear when it's not plugged in, because a pickup is just a "microphone". Eric Johnson said that his best Strats had a certain warmth when he played them unplugged, that the others, while they might sound okay, didn't have the sparkle or personality of tone that the guitars that resonated did. Some guitars just don't have it.
 
Re: Dead sounding strat?

PFDarkside said:
Same bridge, electronics, neck, tuners... In that case I got a new MIA Strat for $50!
Click to expand...

I don't know... it's kinda like putting your 88 Jetta's Rims on a new Audi A4, and telling your insurance company it's still a Jetta.
 
Re: Dead sounding strat?

alex1fly said:
What would you suggest for a dead-sounding strat? No life, no mojo, plays nice enough but unplugged its thin and dull, no sparkle or shimmer. I won't sell it because it has sentimental value and feels good... I just want to go "oh yeah" when I play it. What does it need? Mojo-filled pickups? 1 meg pots?
Click to expand...

Better nut.

Better bridge.

Make sure tuner and string trees are tight.

Remove all junk, paint, spacers, tiling mechanism, everything from the neck pocket.

Make sure neck has contact with sides of the neck pocket.
 
Re: Dead sounding strat?

uOpt said:
Better nut.

Better bridge.

Make sure tuner and string trees are tight.

Remove all junk, paint, spacers, tiling mechanism, everything from the neck pocket.

Make sure neck has contact with sides of the neck pocket.
Click to expand...

and if this doesn't work...a small, shallow, unmarked grave back next to the garden
 
Re: Dead sounding strat?

a big problem is that there is hardly any sustain.... maybe 3 seconds. Action and relief appear to be fine. I use 10s and they feel very stiff... I could go for a slinkier feel, maybe back down to 9s or something. I've tried duncans and dimarzios, and the pickup sound is good but the guitar itself needs to sound and play better.

That 6 page resonance thread is great, as are many of your suggestions. I may dig into that thread and try some things in the future... hopefully without dropping much money (if any).
 
Re: Dead sounding strat?

alex1fly said:
a big problem is that there is hardly any sustain.... maybe 3 seconds. Action and relief appear to be fine. I use 10s and they feel very stiff... I could go for a slinkier feel, maybe back down to 9s or something. I've tried duncans and dimarzios, and the pickup sound is good but the guitar itself needs to sound and play better.

That 6 page resonance thread is great, as are many of your suggestions. I may dig into that thread and try some things in the future... hopefully without dropping much money (if any).
Click to expand...

what strat are we working with? if the neck / body joint isn't tight... then you're dead from the start... best to start with something that has a tightish fit from the getgo.
 
Re: Dead sounding strat?

alex1fly said:
What would you suggest for a dead-sounding strat? No life, no mojo, plays nice enough but unplugged its thin and dull, no sparkle or shimmer. I won't sell it because it has sentimental value and feels good... I just want to go "oh yeah" when I play it. What does it need? Mojo-filled pickups? 1 meg pots?
Click to expand...

Aluminum bridge hardware and a refinish.

If it has a thick finish, replace it with a thin finish.
 
Re: Dead sounding strat?

alex1fly said:
What would you suggest for a dead-sounding strat? No life, no mojo, plays nice enough but unplugged its thin and dull, no sparkle or shimmer. I won't sell it because it has sentimental value and feels good... I just want to go "oh yeah" when I play it. What does it need? Mojo-filled pickups? 1 meg pots?
Click to expand...

There is nothing the electronics can really save when the instrument is acoustically dead, so tossing out money for Pickups or pots is essentially an effort in futility and more importantly a waste of money.

A good setup on the other hand.... well, that´s money in the bank if done right and with the proper attention to detail.

Here´s Lew´s thread from the vault, essentially the bible of setting up a strat, I haven´t read the entire thing but Lew rarely forgets details ;)

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?t=24908

Bludave said:
Why are you playing or care what a Strat sounds like unplugged? I mean after all its an electric guitar plug that puppy in & crank it up! Granted a unplugged guitar; if it sounds great will sound great plugged in as well, but the primary thing is you buy it to plug it in. Do that & how does it sound?

If you want to play unplugged, buy an acoustic guitar!
Click to expand...

^^ there is a certain truth to this statement, but it kind of disregards one important fact: ALL guitars are acoustic. Some use a large air filled box for amplification, others use what is essentially a microphone (the pickup) and an amplifier to get the job done. And very much in the way that Sinatra will sound great through any microphone and I will sound like crap, an acoustically alive and resonant guitar will sound louder and stronger with more sustain than an identical instrument that sounds like driftwood. With or without pickups and an amp ;)
 
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Re: Dead sounding strat?

i've owned 2 dead MIM Fenders over the years..... but they were not that bad either...

1 of them was a 1996 Tex Mex, rosewood board with the vintage style hardware and Tex Mex PU's... it was finnished in that nice Light Yellow finnish i love... anyways it always sounded ok but i always found it needed a little something extra... i tried many many PU's in it and came to the conclusion that nothing sounded as good in it as the Stock Tex Mex PU's... after a while i sold it to afford a new MIM Standard that had some mojo... I miss that old Tex Mex a little as it sounded amazing with my Line 6 stuff, better then most of my axes... that stock strat and a POD worked well together!!!!! but the same strat thru a tube amp was less then the best

the other one i still own... it's a 1994 MIM Squier Strat... basicly Squiers were made for a few short years in Mexico around that time... it's a MIM Standard neck, body and PU's... the bridge and tuners were a little cheaper... i upgraded the bridge and tuners with used Mexican Standard parts... The PU's have been changed a million times... i've had many Humbuckers, many single coils, noiseless, by many makers like Evans, Duncan, Fender, Dimarzio, Yamaha... one set up that was cool is i routed it out to take 3 full sized humbuckers..... the body wood is solid wood of some sort... it has a look of Maple to the grain more then Poplar oddly... Today that guitar has 3 57 Fender Reissue PU's in it i got out of a strat a friend of mine smashed on stage.... and it's still not the greatest...

the odd part is these 2 strats sounded better for a few days with fresh strings and within 3 days they start sounding dead again... i have some axes that with old junk for strings still sound amazing..... it's a weird world...

that MIM Squier i have has no resale value worth much, no need to really worry about selling it... i'm going to cut a custom guard for it and stick a Bucker back in it and throw it in my locker at work with a small practice amp for break times
 
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