My new Tele...My new Strat!

[Lewguitar]

Ha! I've had this GREAT 1980's Japanese Fender Stratocaster forever and have had many different pickups in it over the years.

But this is by far its best incarnation ever! Sounds fantastic!

Duncan Custom Shop '53 Style Tapped JB for Tele bridge pickup - an alnico 2 version of the Duncan Hot For Tele Tapped.

Same pickup that Jeff Beck uses in his Tele and used to record Cause We've Ended As Lovers.

Fralin Vintage Hot Strat neck pickup. I'd have used an Antiquity Surfer if I had one but I didn't - so I used the Fralin and it sounds great too.

Neither pickup is RW/RP. I prefer the tone with both pickups having the same polarity.

5 Way Switch wired for: 1. Hot Bridge Pickup 2. Hot Bridge Pickup & Neck Pickup 3. Neck Pickup 4. Neck PU & Vintage Bridge Pickup 5. Vintage Bridge Pickup

Fresh refret and I just put a new Tusq nut in it last week.

What a great guitar! Resonates and sustains so much better than it ever did with three pickups! The difference is amazing.

I'm absolutely thrilled with the way it turned out!

Someone else should make one just like it - I'm not kidding.

 

[ratherdashing]

Re: My new Tele...My new Strat!

Ooh I like that. Mint pickguard is the icing on the cake!

It's interesting that you find the non-hum-cancelling pickups to have better tone when combined. I wonder why that is. I've never really tried it.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: My new Tele...My new Strat!

Ooh I like that. Mint pickguard is the icing on the cake!

It's interesting that you find the non-hum-cancelling pickups to have better tone when combined. I wonder why that is. I've never really tried it.

TGWIF feels the same way about RW/RP pickups. It's not that humcancelling is a bad idea - it's a great idea. But I've been doing a lot of experimenting with the way the magnets in pickups pulling on the strings affects the tone of my guitars.

(We're all aware of Strat-itis, BTW. The way if the pickups are to close to the strings in a Strat the magnets will pull the string out of tune and create double tones and what not. )

I've pretty much concluded that the strings vibrate very differently with three pickups under the strings than with two pickups...or one pickup.

One big reason a Tele with three pickups doesn't sound like a Tele is because three pickups affect the way the strings vibrate so the strings vibrate differently and sound different than if there were only two pickups under the strings.

In order to have humcancelling when two pickups are combined one pickup has to have the polarity reversed relative to the other one. So if a bridge single coil has the south poles facing up, the other pickup has to have the north poles facing up in order for the two to cancel hum when they're combined.

Having one pickup pulling on the strings with south poles and the other pickup pulling on the strings with north poles affects how the string vibrates and makes it vibrate differently than if both pickups had north poles up or south poles up.

The sound of a vintage Strat from the 50's or 60's is the sound of all three pickups having the same polarity.

It sounds different. Maybe not better or worse - but different.

And this Strat with two pickups sustains better than my Strats with three pickups and sounds......different.

I'm taking it to a popular blues jam in Denver this Sunday to show it off.

I'll see what the other guitarists think. They're always curious about what kind of new crazy stuff I've discovered.

None of them knew what a Klon was until I showed up with my Klones. The main guy there asked me if I had a preamp in my Strat the first time he heard me with the Klone.

 

[ratherdashing]

Re: My new Tele...My new Strat!

Hmm ...

We are totally on the same page re two pickups versus three. The magnetic pull of that extra pickup is definitely affecting string vibration.

As for the magnet polarity being an issue, I don't see how that's possible. It would make sense if the strings were magnetized, but that's not the case. A non-magnetized piece of metal will be attracted to the north pole of a magnet just as strongly as the south pole. You can easily test this by putting a bar magnet on your fridge. The magnet doesn't care which side is facing the fridge - it will be attracted just as strongly regardless. The same principle applies to guitar strings.

Also recall the iron filing experiment from school:

Same field on both sides of the magnet.

I'm not saying there aren't differences in tone with in-phase-in-polarity pickups, just that those differences can't be explained by polarity affecting string pull.

 

[ErikH]

Re: My new Tele...My new Strat!

That looks cool. Several years back when you had mentioned having a Tele bridge pickup in a Strat I had thought about doing that myself but ended up selling that Strat. And I totally agree with the 3 vs. 2 pickups configuration. Less magnetic pull on the strings = the strings ring out longer = better sustain. These days I'm running just a single humbucker in my Frankenstrat. In fact, the 3 electrics I have (sold a handful recently) all have one bridge pickup; 2 with a humbucker and one with a tapped P-90. Keepin' it simple.

 

[d1dsj]

Re: My new Tele...My new Strat!

That looks real cool Lew and the 2 pick up v 3 pick up tone comparison makes a lot of sense. I have only just gotten my G&L Legacy sounding nice and now you got me rethinking it all over again! Cheers.... Lol. Maybe I'll just lower the middle pick up right down and see if I can hear any real noticeable differences. Great guitar and info as always though :fing2:

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: My new Tele...My new Strat!

Hmm ...

We are totally on the same page re two pickups versus three. The magnetic pull of that extra pickup is definitely affecting string vibration.

As for the magnet polarity being an issue, I don't see how that's possible. It would make sense if the strings were magnetized, but that's not the case. A non-magnetized piece of metal will be attracted to the north pole of a magnet just as strongly as the south pole. You can easily test this by putting a bar magnet on your fridge. The magnet doesn't care which side is facing the fridge - it will be attracted just as strongly regardless. The same principle applies to guitar strings.

Also recall the iron filing experiment from school:

Same field on both sides of the magnet.

I'm not saying there aren't differences in tone with in-phase-in-polarity pickups, just that those differences can't be explained by polarity affecting string pull.

You could be right. I'm a guitar player not a scientist. LOL

Something's up with the RW/RP middle pickup though.

My newer Strat's started sounding like my '63 Strat when I got rid of the RW/RP middle pickup and the hot bridge pickups and went to three "neck" pickups.

Wonder what it is?

With the RW/RP middle pickup a great Strat still sounds great...but with three neck pickups that are all the same wind and the same polarity I right away hear the sound of a 50's or 60's Strat rather than a modern Strat.

Any ideas?

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: My new Tele...My new Strat!

That looks cool. Several years back when you had mentioned having a Tele bridge pickup in a Strat I had thought about doing that myself but ended up selling that Strat. And I totally agree with the 3 vs. 2 pickups configuration. Less magnetic pull on the strings = the strings ring out longer = better sustain. These days I'm running just a single humbucker in my Frankenstrat. In fact, the 3 electrics I have (sold a handful recently) all have one bridge pickup; 2 with a humbucker and one with a tapped P-90. Keepin' it simple.

Eric, you played this guitar in an earlier incarnation in Dallas. I think back then I had three Fralins in it.

 

[Juanhanglo]

Re: My new Tele...My new Strat!

Nice mod!
All that white real estate on the pick guard is odd looking. My eyes and brain need to see a tele bridge.
I will be following suit soon when I put a tele bridge on my hard tail parts strat.

Not sure if I will put a middle pickup in though.

I like the way the strat sits on a strap. But I find that I like the tele sound and functionality more than a strat. What better way to get what I want?

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: My new Tele...My new Strat!

Not sure if I will put a middle pickup in though.

Don't. Especially don't, if you already have one Strat you can keep set up like a Strat.

 

[Juanhanglo]

Re: My new Tele...My new Strat!

This IS my only strat.

It was originally set up as an hsh super strat with lace pickups. One day, I had the idea to try it's all maple neck on my warmoth tele (first build, body and neck didn't gel) and apart it went.
I obviously hit a home run and am now getting unbelievable fat single coil tones out of it that I couldn't get before the neck change.
Funny how I thought I was more of a humbucker guy, but always seemed to gravitate toward ones that had some of the single coil snap and response. I now know why.
I will keep my 2 Ibanez RGs with their buckers . But my carvin holdsworth is getting bucker sized p90s.

It turns out that I also am not much of a strat sound guy either. I never use the middle pickup or the 2 and 4 positions. I love the shape and ergonomics though. I even built it up with a tele headstock. I now realize that a ballsy p90/beefy single coil sound is where I need to be.

The only reason I hesitate removing the middle pickup is the offhand chance I might get into it someday. I guess I could always buy another pick guard.

Thanks alot for giving me the push to get this project going.

 

[jimijames]

Re: My new Tele...My new Strat!

I look at this and I think "yes that would be fantastic" - but then again I have gotten some fantastic sounds from the strabro 90 in the middle position of my HSS strat. If you start playing with your fingers and attacking the strings a certain way you can cop this very smooth and sing-y lead sound that doesn't have all of that (admittedly fantastic) harmonic content of a neck single coil.

And, those 2 and 4 positions on a typical strat are very necessary for bright, punchy funk rhythms. I mean, not necessary, but definitely nice to have.

I've got a squire SSS strat that I would consider doing this with however, mostly because the screws holding up the middle coil are stripped anyway. But I would need a telecaster single coil for the bridge. I already need another for my tele build that recently picked up steam.

 

[the guy who invented fire]

My new Tele...My new Strat!

Great guitar Lew!

I went through a lot of work to get my Strat sounding like I felt that it should so I get your struggle.

I love that bridge pickup and have been using one myself for 10 years now in my main Telecaster!

Enjoy that bad boy!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ratherdashing]

Re: My new Tele...My new Strat!

You could be right. I'm a guitar player not a scientist. LOL

Something's up with the RW/RP middle pickup though.

My newer Strat's started sounding like my '63 Strat when I got rid of the RW/RP middle pickup and the hot bridge pickups and went to three "neck" pickups.

Wonder what it is?

With the RW/RP middle pickup a great Strat still sounds great...but with three neck pickups that are all the same wind and the same polarity I right away hear the sound of a 50's or 60's Strat rather than a modern Strat.

Any ideas?

I don't know for sure. My best guess would be that there is some very subtle phase cancellation occurring when a standard and RWRP pickup are combined. This seems like the kind of thing Seymour himself would know.

EDIT: One other thing that might be a factor: pre-CBS Strat pickups were all wound to roughly the same spec. They just pulled all three from the same part bin when wiring up the pickguard. No consideration was given for compensating for wider string movement further from the bridge, as is done today by winding the bridge a bit hotter than the middle, and the middle a bit hotter than the neck.

So, if you put all three of the same pickup in a Strat, like they did back then, the result would be that the middle has a bit more output than the bridge, and the neck has a bit more output than both of them. That's how early Strats are, and it would definitely have a big impact on the tone of the notch positions, and the guitar as a whole.

That has nothing to do with phase and polarity though - it's about the strength of the pickups relative to their position.

 

[AlexR]

Re: My new Tele...My new Strat!

Its maybe not the way that the strings are affected, but the way the opposing polarity magnetic fields interact and alter each other. Lets face it, the signal is generated based on the way the strings move in the field. If you alter the way the field works, you pick up a different type of signal.

 

[Top-L]

Re: My new Tele...My new Strat!

I've pretty much concluded that the strings vibrate very differently with three pickups under the strings than with two pickups...or one pickup.

You can hear this with humbuckers too The closer they are to the string, they reduce highest frequencies. Some humbuckers sound better farther away from the strings. This is why EMGs have so much harmonic content, they use very very weak magnets that are amplified. I think you are noticing the same phenomenon. 3 pickjups put more drag on the strings than two.

I never use the middle pickup, and think a guitar should only have a 3-way and a coil tap.