Haven't been here in a while, stopping to say hi.

ganzosrevenge

ganzosrevenge

New member
I haven't been here in about 3 (almost 4 months) due to finishing up a B.A. in Political Science, and in that time I hadn't given my strat and my vox AC4 much love. In fact, I almost forgot what they sounded like, so I plugged the strat into my vox and it sounded MUCH, MUCH, thicker than I remember. Not muddy thick, but more of a mid to low-mid hump than I remember. It still has the same mods as it had when I posted the laundry-list a few years ago, but I'm beginning to wonder if I may have gone "too far" in trying to get "fat tone" from the strat. I mean, it has resonance, but at the same time it doesn't have as much of that "chime value" as say a '57RI or a CS '56. It has more of an "i wanna be a jazzbox" to "i wanna be Angus' SG!" in it. I love my guitar (and don't ask, I will NOT part with it), but I want to build something that harkens more to a strat's strat.

Sorry if it sounds like venting.

Jason
 
Re: Haven't been here in a while, stopping to say hi.

Welcome back. You missed all the holiday season fun with Aceman's Gloss/Glaze. Getting back to your Strat. Try new strings.
 
Re: Haven't been here in a while, stopping to say hi.

Welcome back Bro! Best o luck with getting your studies finished up!
 
Re: Haven't been here in a while, stopping to say hi.

That could be the problem. New strings. :P. Realize I haven't played my strat much due to classes (I have 6 grades I'm waiting for... thankfully 3 came back A's so far, just waiting on the rest). I think part of the "thick" problem may be that I've got .012 to .052s with a wound G on my strat since I wasn't able to discern between "good big" strat tone and "bad big" strat tone. It has almost a round sound to it... kinda like a small jazzbox at the neck, but the bridge is just ridiculously fat (good fat).

In the process of my being gone, I began to think about building a double HB'd PG for my strat, but then feared excess fat strat all over again. So now I'm split between either an antiquity II PG, or a PG with the ants JB / Jazz set up. My heart though now wants to build a "strats strat" not a strat trying to be a gibson.

Jason
 
Re: Haven't been here in a while, stopping to say hi.

Welcome back dude! Congrats on the A's!

There's nothing wrong with going HH in a strat if you want a bit of thickness. The trick is working with the Strat's natural brightness.

That said, from what you're trying to do, you might wanna think about an HSS strat, with a full size humbucker in the bridge, and a single sized hum in the neck. Plus switches to split the humbuckers and to go series/parallel. It'll open up a lot of options and lots of tones, ranging from classic strat quack to full on thick humbucker, plus a whole bunch of in-between stuff.
 
Re: Haven't been here in a while, stopping to say hi.

ConvoysToNothingness said:
Welcome back dude! Congrats on the A's!

There's nothing wrong with going HH in a strat if you want a bit of thickness. The trick is working with the Strat's natural brightness.

That said, from what you're trying to do, you might wanna think about an HSS strat, with a full size humbucker in the bridge, and a single sized hum in the neck. Plus switches to split the humbuckers and to go series/parallel. It'll open up a lot of options and lots of tones, ranging from classic strat quack to full on thick humbucker, plus a whole bunch of in-between stuff.
Click to expand...

I have an HSS as it is. And it's way thicker-than-normal in the neck. Here's where I stand right now with strat configs.

Creature is: A 2006 Fender American Special Mahogany HSS Stratocaster.

Pickups: Seymour Duncan
Neck: Seymour Duncan SSL-1 rwrp
Middle: Seymour Duncan SSL-1
Bridge: Seymour Duncan Brobucker overwound to 11k​
Potentiometers: RSGuitarworks Custom Kit
Volume: 280k RSGuitarworks / CTS superpot (readout: 300k)
Tone 1: 250k RSGuitarworks / CTS pot (wired to neck and middle SSL-1s)
Tone 2: 500k RSGuitarworks / CTS pot (wired to brobucker)​
Capacitors: LuxeRadio Vintage Reissues
Tone 1: Luxe 1957-1958 Phonebook .1uf/150v capacitor wired to tone control #1, controls neck and middle SSL-1
Tone 2: Luxe 1956 – 1960 “Bumblebee” .022uf / 400v PIO capacitor wired to tone control #2, controls Brobucker in bridge position​
Switching: 5-way Lonestar Switching with AutoSplit in position 4
Position 1: Neck SSL-1rwrp (wired to tone control #1)
Position 2: Neck SSL-1rwrp in parallel with middle SSL-1 (wired to tone control #1)
Position 3: Middle SSL-1 (wired to tone control #1)
Position 4: Middle SSL-1 wired in parallel to inside coil of Brobucker in bridge (SSL-1 wired to tone control #1, Brobucker wired to tone control #2)
Position 5: Full Brobucker in bridge position in Series (wired to tone control #2)
Switch: Fender / CRL 5-way superswitch​
Bridge:
Block: Premium Callaham American Series Block made from Cold-Rolled UNS 1018 to match 1950s Stratocaster Specifications
Saddles: Callaham Hardened Steel saddles for American Series / American Deluxe Stratocaster with elongated string openings for reduced breakover angle
5 American Series Springs to Stratocaster Claw, with claw clamped down​
Neck: Screw upgrade Kit by Onyx Forge Guitars
4x 10-32 thread, 18-8 stainless steel machine screws
4x Stainless steel inserts for 10-32 thread machine screws​
Miscellany:
AcmeGuitarWorks Solderless connector kit for hot wire, output wire, and ground wire, soldered to Volume Pot
Grounding wire connecting all 3 potentiometers together for further hum-reduction​

Hope this Helps.
 
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Re: Haven't been here in a while, stopping to say hi.

Update: 3 grades are in,
A in Business Law 2
A in Middle East Conflict
A in MicroEconomics.

3 Grades to go. (yea, i took 6 classes my final semester :P )
 
Re: Haven't been here in a while, stopping to say hi.

I bought a Squier that acoustically was just strattier. I tried to make it into a superstrat but to no avail. So i think if you bring your guitar and compare it in the shop to other strats unplugged, you will find that bright, clean chimey Fender strat potential. But i doubt the pickups will be exactly awesome, depending ofcourse on the make/model, so you may add those after for extra texture.

Or coil tap an HB to do single, althoughi dunno how common that is...
 
Re: Haven't been here in a while, stopping to say hi.

Khriss Bliss said:
I bought a Squier that acoustically was just strattier. I tried to make it into a superstrat but to no avail. So i think if you bring your guitar and compare it in the shop to other strats unplugged, you will find that bright, clean chimey Fender strat potential. But i doubt the pickups will be exactly awesome, depending ofcourse on the make/model, so you may add those after for extra texture.

Or coil tap an HB to do single, althoughi dunno how common that is...
Click to expand...

I have the HB split, it's called coil-splitting. Coil-tapping is when you have one pickup (say a quarterpound) with a lowoutput and a highoutput setting. That's an entirely different animal altogether :)

Jason
 
Re: Haven't been here in a while, stopping to say hi.

I think I see the problem. You are trying to get MORE thickness out of a Mahogany body.

I have a mahogany super strat that I am trying to fight with to not be so thick, and I'm basically trying to find bright pickups for it. I decided on a TB-6 Distortion for the bridge, and a DMZ humbucker from hell in the neck (this is my dedicated metal guitar, hence the TB-6). I also considered a full shred set.

I think you need to stop fighting the mahogany. It has plenty of thickness already. What you need to do is bring back some brightness into the equation.

Either that or get a nice Alder or Swamp Ash body.
 
Re: Haven't been here in a while, stopping to say hi.

I was tryin to get more thick out of it. Now i want to get more highs out of it.
 
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