Re: Fed-up with my JB JR
If you ever decide to part with the JB Jr., let me know...
If you ever decide to part with the JB Jr., let me know...
Hi All,
Last year I built a Strat from parts. It was a great experience, learning how the guitar electronics worked and researching all the components to build myself a truly custom guitar. However, after a lot of playing now I'm suffering from the usual gear-junkie's itchy feet and am wondering if the JB Jr I installed in the Bridge wasn't a really bad idea.
The problem is that I am the Rhythm guitarist in a Hard-Rock covers band and I'm responsible for holding down the Riffage on songs by bands like Guns and Roses, Black Crowes, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Bad Company, Cry of Love etc. I thought a Strat with a humbucker in it would suffice. Certainly Eddie Van Halen always had a thick, fat, crunchy tone with his PAF loaded Strat.
What I'm finding is that my guitar (played through a Marshall Silver Jubilee) is just a whole lotta mids. Hardly any Crunch, more of a quacky, honky sound. It's OK, not awful, but played next to the lead guitarists Les Paul Studio, it is very weak in comparison. My single-coils are Fender Custom Shop 'Texas Specials' and these do their job well. I only use these for when I'm just jamming on my own, for that 'Little Wing', 'Castles Made of Sand' thing.
Some people have suggested that the very nature of a Strat body, scale-length and a vintage trem means it'll never crunch like a stop-tail Les Paul or SG, but I beg to differ. My old lead guitarist had an Alder Strat with a Dimarzio PAF in it, and a Floyd Rose, and still got bags of sustain and crunch.
Before I go routing out my vintage-routed guitar to install a full-size humbucker, I wanted to eliminate a few things first. My wiring is below and perhaps someone might be able to see a glaring reason for the middy-ness and lack of balls to my rhythm sound.
My guitar is a Swamp-Ash, vintage-routed Strat with a thin Nitro-Celulose finish. The trem is from 'Allparts' and is the more expensive Steel Block version. The Trem is flush mounted to the body so that it only moves down not up. The neck is all maple and unfinished, save for a light beeswax finish on the back. I am slightly concerned that perhaps the problem is the guitar construction, not the pickups, as even the single-coils seem to lack a certain bass and warmth.
I checked out the SD website tone-comparison clips and found that my ears were drawn to the 'SH-55 Seth Lover' and the 'Custom Custom' humbuckers these seemed really warm and ballsy but with crunch. Interestingly, you can't compare the JB Jr with these Humbuckers directly as the JB Jr is playing a different clip on the website.
Can anyone give me some useful advice on what I should do with this guitar? Would particularly like to hear from some JB JR lovers/haters. I'm thinking that perhaps the JB Jr wasn't a good choice for my stye of music and is perhaps more suited to a lead player.
Cheers!
Many Thanks
