Nostalgic Distortion
New member
I'm really not sure why it's taken me so long to get this done? This layout was always the original plan but for whatever reason I never felt like opening up both guitars until today. Now that I have, both of them sound WAY BETTER!!!!
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Basically all I did was move the pickups that I had installed in the white 94 40th anniversary 54 reissue into my Flame Top & vice versa? You wouldn't think it would change much but the difference in their tonal characteristics was actually quite drastic! I'd imagine it's got a lot to do with the fact that these two Strat's are very different from each other when you look under the hood. They've both been completely gutted & I've built custom harnesses to go along with their Duncan replacement pickups....
For the 54 Reissue I did a Jeff Beck style harness. (I.E. both tone knobs affect all 3 of the singles) It's made out of 3 read & matched 250K CTS pots, cloth pushback wire, a very nice PIO capacitor, & its all built on top of a aluminum grounding plate in an effort to get it as close to a Pre-CBS 50's Stratocaster as humanly possible. As for the pickups, up until today I had a LIL 59N in the bridge & SSL-1's in the neck & middle slots. This combination of the pickups and harness sounded really good & to be honest I was a little scared to mess with it? Gladly I finally did!!!
The Flame Top has a pretty typical Stratocaster harness in it, albeit made with top notch components!!! LOL, It's made up of a read 300K CTS volume pot and two read & matched 250K Duncan potentiometers for the tone pots. It's also got cloth pushback wire, an upgraded switch, and I used a Black Candy capacitor in this one.
The Flame Top was my "Stacked Strat" for quite a while, I had it loaded with STK-7's but I grew tired of them & bought some Texas Antiquity's. The Antiquity's were intended for the white Strat but because I was hesitant about messing with the lil 59/SSL-1 combo they ended up in here instead...
Now that I've got the Antiquity's in the 54 Reissue, attached to the 50's style harness, & the other set of pickups in the other guitar they both sound exponentially better! That harness, along with the Maple neck, really woke up the Antiquity's in a most positive way!!! They were a little bit on the dark side in the Flame Top but now they've got this wicked S.R.V. vibe going on, dare I say Strat Nirvana!!!
The Flame Top benefited equally... Having the lil 59N (way better bridge pup than the lil 59B IMHO) running off the 300K/250K combination harness & Black Candy capacitor has allowed it to sound even more like a actual full size 59 & even better, when I had the SSL-1's in the other guitar they seemed a touch thin? Not bad, just a little brighter than I typically like? Now they seem to have a little more edge & fullness to them? Plus the guitar as a whole just sounds tighter & thicker now! Probably at least in part because of the Rosewood fingerboard?
Aside from the sonic benefits of today's adventure I personally think that both guitar have benefited aesthetically! The 1994 50's Reissue has a really nice natural "light relic" thing going on already (naturally worn satin neck, slightly dirty Maple fingerboard, Exc.) but I furthered it by using coffee on some of the plastics. I also had to do this, along with a few other things like using cigarette smoke to relic the middle pickup cover? I bought the pup used, it was a R.W.R.P. Texas Antiquity but for whatever reason the guy sent it to me with a cheap white cover that he had spray painted black? I was a bit pi$$ed at first but now that I've done my best to match it to the neck & bridge I kinda think it actually looks better than the other two!!!
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View attachment 73230View attachment 73231
Basically all I did was move the pickups that I had installed in the white 94 40th anniversary 54 reissue into my Flame Top & vice versa? You wouldn't think it would change much but the difference in their tonal characteristics was actually quite drastic! I'd imagine it's got a lot to do with the fact that these two Strat's are very different from each other when you look under the hood. They've both been completely gutted & I've built custom harnesses to go along with their Duncan replacement pickups....
For the 54 Reissue I did a Jeff Beck style harness. (I.E. both tone knobs affect all 3 of the singles) It's made out of 3 read & matched 250K CTS pots, cloth pushback wire, a very nice PIO capacitor, & its all built on top of a aluminum grounding plate in an effort to get it as close to a Pre-CBS 50's Stratocaster as humanly possible. As for the pickups, up until today I had a LIL 59N in the bridge & SSL-1's in the neck & middle slots. This combination of the pickups and harness sounded really good & to be honest I was a little scared to mess with it? Gladly I finally did!!!
The Flame Top has a pretty typical Stratocaster harness in it, albeit made with top notch components!!! LOL, It's made up of a read 300K CTS volume pot and two read & matched 250K Duncan potentiometers for the tone pots. It's also got cloth pushback wire, an upgraded switch, and I used a Black Candy capacitor in this one.
The Flame Top was my "Stacked Strat" for quite a while, I had it loaded with STK-7's but I grew tired of them & bought some Texas Antiquity's. The Antiquity's were intended for the white Strat but because I was hesitant about messing with the lil 59/SSL-1 combo they ended up in here instead...
Now that I've got the Antiquity's in the 54 Reissue, attached to the 50's style harness, & the other set of pickups in the other guitar they both sound exponentially better! That harness, along with the Maple neck, really woke up the Antiquity's in a most positive way!!! They were a little bit on the dark side in the Flame Top but now they've got this wicked S.R.V. vibe going on, dare I say Strat Nirvana!!!
The Flame Top benefited equally... Having the lil 59N (way better bridge pup than the lil 59B IMHO) running off the 300K/250K combination harness & Black Candy capacitor has allowed it to sound even more like a actual full size 59 & even better, when I had the SSL-1's in the other guitar they seemed a touch thin? Not bad, just a little brighter than I typically like? Now they seem to have a little more edge & fullness to them? Plus the guitar as a whole just sounds tighter & thicker now! Probably at least in part because of the Rosewood fingerboard?
Aside from the sonic benefits of today's adventure I personally think that both guitar have benefited aesthetically! The 1994 50's Reissue has a really nice natural "light relic" thing going on already (naturally worn satin neck, slightly dirty Maple fingerboard, Exc.) but I furthered it by using coffee on some of the plastics. I also had to do this, along with a few other things like using cigarette smoke to relic the middle pickup cover? I bought the pup used, it was a R.W.R.P. Texas Antiquity but for whatever reason the guy sent it to me with a cheap white cover that he had spray painted black? I was a bit pi$$ed at first but now that I've done my best to match it to the neck & bridge I kinda think it actually looks better than the other two!!!
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