sumitagarwal
New member
Ok, so this background isn't really necessary for this exercise, but so you know how I ended up thinking about this: I love the aggro-riff bridge tones on my Les Paul's (57 classics), and the jazzy neck tone especially on my ebony-board LP Custom.
My Strat has gloriously articulate bluesy and clean neck tones with its Antiquity Surfers. In between is my Charvel So-Cal loaded up with EMG's that I find can't truly dig in for dynamic heavy riffage, and are frankly useless for cleans. Coupled with that they're much noisier than my Gibson's, as are my Strat singles with the awful wiring in my 100-year-old home. But the Charvel plays amazingly and, with its decked non-recessed Floyd, has a surprisingly excellent unplugged tone. So: how can I get the best of my traditional guitars into the Charvel, and with low noise to boot?
This isn't really anything new, everyone and their mother has been trying to get the best of the Strat and LP worlds forever, from PRS to even Fender and Gibson. Most of the time any comparisons basically come down to "pick the one you like better". Which isn't very interesting conversation.
Instead, I thought maybe its best to frame it up outside personal taste. If you're in a wide-ranging cover band, what setup would serve you best assuming you want to nail the most common tones with authenticity but also cover most sounds well enough to get by?
Assumptions (which I could be wrong on):
* Today's signal flows make it easier to get modern sounds out of vintage pickups than vintage sounds out of modern pickups
* Low-noise is key because you never know where you'll be playing or what you'll be plugged into
* Active pickups are NOT a silver bullet for noise! This was a rude surprise for me when I got the Charvel!
* Controls should be easy enough to use in an unpredictable setting
* "Variax" is not the answer.
As a starting point I'll include this link, which to me seems like a pretty versatile and easy to use setup: Mod Garage: Strat-PRS Crossover Wiring
My Strat has gloriously articulate bluesy and clean neck tones with its Antiquity Surfers. In between is my Charvel So-Cal loaded up with EMG's that I find can't truly dig in for dynamic heavy riffage, and are frankly useless for cleans. Coupled with that they're much noisier than my Gibson's, as are my Strat singles with the awful wiring in my 100-year-old home. But the Charvel plays amazingly and, with its decked non-recessed Floyd, has a surprisingly excellent unplugged tone. So: how can I get the best of my traditional guitars into the Charvel, and with low noise to boot?
This isn't really anything new, everyone and their mother has been trying to get the best of the Strat and LP worlds forever, from PRS to even Fender and Gibson. Most of the time any comparisons basically come down to "pick the one you like better". Which isn't very interesting conversation.
Instead, I thought maybe its best to frame it up outside personal taste. If you're in a wide-ranging cover band, what setup would serve you best assuming you want to nail the most common tones with authenticity but also cover most sounds well enough to get by?
Assumptions (which I could be wrong on):
* Today's signal flows make it easier to get modern sounds out of vintage pickups than vintage sounds out of modern pickups
* Low-noise is key because you never know where you'll be playing or what you'll be plugged into
* Active pickups are NOT a silver bullet for noise! This was a rude surprise for me when I got the Charvel!
* Controls should be easy enough to use in an unpredictable setting
* "Variax" is not the answer.
As a starting point I'll include this link, which to me seems like a pretty versatile and easy to use setup: Mod Garage: Strat-PRS Crossover Wiring
So that's... Duncan-loaded Strat.
