My Texas Special Dilemma (tone is apparently not only about pickups) - advice needed

alexreinhold

alexreinhold

New member
I have a Charvel DK-22 that came with 500k pots, a Hot Rails in the bridge and SSL-6 in neck and middle. It's a great guitar with a very skinny maple neck and an alder body (Gotoh trem).

My only problem was that I really didn't like the SSL 6. So i sold them and took out the Texas Special Neck and Middle pickup from my 2002 alder Strat with Rosewood neck (which sound absolutely great on the Strat) and put them in the Charvel with 500k pots. To my surprise, it was unbearably ice-picky. So I decided to go for 250k pots (like in the Strat). It got a bit better but the sound in the neck pickup especially is really not nice - way too bright.

I bought brand new Lollar Blondes for the Strat (which obviously sound great) - so that guitar is settled. But what will I do with the Texas Specials in my Charvel? I was thinking of only replacing the neck (because position 4 sounds OKish) with something like an Antiquity Surfer (i.e. lower output) or a DiMarzio Cruiser (medium output but not as hot).

What do you guys think? Any other pickups in mind that could work? Any opinions on leaving the Texas Special in mid position and getting a separate neck? Really curious..
 
If the Texas specials are to bright and you want singles look at the Alnico II Pro flat set for the neck and middle. Softer feel and a rolled back high end even with 500K's.
 
Ascension said:
If the Texas specials are to bright and you want singles look at the Alnico II Pro flat set for the neck and middle. Softer feel and a rolled back high end even with 500K's.
Click to expand...

This is what I was going to say, but I also want to ask What neck pickup tones to tend to really like?
 
I tend to like strat sounds a lot, i.e. airy, high attack and just straty I guess. I love Lollar products and also digged the Texas Specials in the Strat. The guitar itself shall be used for straight rock and roll and some metal though (hence the hot rails in the bridge) but in leads and for clean stuff I always like a more bluesy vibe.

The reason I'm toying with the DM cruisers is because I guess I'm aiming for something along the lines of Andy Timmons neck sound if that makes sense
 
Look at the Classic Stacks for a louder, Stratty sound that has great cut, and still has quack. They will be brighter than the Hot Rails, but they should sound good together. And they are noiseless.
 
Those look interesting. Would you absolutely get two new pickups or will it suffice if I only replace the neck? I've always wondered about that tbh
 
I think some Charvel are coming with STK-S7 in the neck and humbucker in the bridge. You can try those if you find the STK-S4 too bright with 500k pots.
 
Maybe that guitar just needs different EQ settings than what you're used to? The Texas Specials and SSL6s are both nice pickup sets, and you ran the Texas set with 250k pots. I'd be surprised to hear that it's too bright, except Strat single coils are just so dang bright in general. I'd play with that tone knob and your other EQ settings before swapping to another set of probably bright single coils. Or maybe what you're wanting to hear in your head is more of a mini-hum, P90 type tone rather than a traditional Strat single tone (or heck, a humbucker). When I think Andy Timmons, I think about a little more mids and chunk than the tradiitonal Strat single tone.
 
I don't know about the brightness. It could be just strong upper mids. A one piece maple neck will often give a mid-focused sound. Although some people call it bright, I call it mids.

Texas specials have a reputation for the same problem. They have strong mids which comes across a lot when playing the G-String. Especially as the stagger pattern has very tall poles on the D and G strings. IMO that's a bad combination with a Charvel guitar that has a compound or 16" fingerboard radius which brings the D and G strings even closer to the pickups.

To fix the problem I'd actually avoid warm or overly-middy sounding strat pickups. You may be better off with pickups that have reasonable top-end brightness and a bit less in the mids. Even the Stack plus S4 is slightly warm, but at least it has a flat-er stagger pattern that is more suited to a charvel fingerboard.
 
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Teleplayer said:
I don't know about the brightness. It could be just strong upper mids. A one piece maple neck will often give a mid-focused sound. Although some people call it bright, I call it mids.

Texas specials have a reputation for the same problem. They have strong mids which comes across a lot when playing the G-String. Especially as the stagger pattern has very tall poles on the D and G strings. IMO that's a bad combination with a Charvel guitar that has a compound or 16" fingerboard radius which brings the D and G strings even closer to the pickups.

To fix the problem I'd actually avoid warm or overly-middy sounding strat pickups. You may be better off with pickups that have reasonable top-end brightness and a bit less in the mids. Even the Stack plus S4 is slightly warm, but at least it has a flat-er stagger pattern that is more suited to a charvel fingerboard.
Click to expand...

That's a very insightful post, thanks Teleplayer! To be very honest, I have no clue if mids or treble is the culprit but they sound shrilly af. This morning I tried to play around with the height and they keep on sounding horrible (and I think most - regardless of taste - would agree).

Assuming I want to keep 500k pots and achieve some sort of balanced Strat sound (i.e. more towards SSL 1 than to SSL 6), do do you think the Classic Stack Plus will be the right fit? What about the DiMarzio Cruisers? I've been eyeing them for a while because Andy Timmons makes them sound very pretty and "full" and I personally quite identify with that sound (though I am not even a big fan of Andy Timmons).
 
I don't have first hand experience with the stack plus S4, but I used the S7 in the bridge. I don't see why the S4 wouldn't work for you. I have experience with the Dimarzio Area 58 and Cruiser DP186. Area 58 is probably lower output than the classic stack plus, because they have weaker magnets, being Alnico 2.

I have doubts about the Cruiser unless you are changing the bridge pickup. Cruiser only gives slightly better output than single coils, so I don't expect it will balance the level of the hotrails bridge. Fast track 1 DP181 neck would be closer, but still not really balance with the hotrails bridge. Fast Track 1 has similar tone profile to the Cool Rails. Duncan Coolrails may have an advantage because the curvature is more suited to 16" fingerboard radius. Both of these need 500k tone and volume controls.

I wouldn't use Dimarzio Area 58 unless you get the "special order" version with flat poles to match your Charvel radius (Banjo Mike has them). They are similar output similar to Cruiser BTW. Generally best with 500k tone and volume.

The main options I would look at are:
1) Duncan stk-s4 in neck and middle. (I have not used this one)
2) Duncan Coolrails neck, then maybe put the stock SSL6 into the middle position. (In my case I used Coolrails neck with Dimarzio ISCV2 middle pickup)
3) "Area 58-Special-order" flat pole version, but I'm not sure what bridge pickup you would like.
 
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alexreinhold said:
What do you guys think? Any other pickups in mind that could work? Any opinions on leaving the Texas Special in mid position and getting a separate neck? Really curious..
Click to expand...

Late in the party but I lacked of time - and to be honest, I was hesitating to answer: some things appearing to be very difficult to communicate clearly on the WWW...

Anyway: what I think is that pot resistance is defiinitely not the only parameter to take in account with passive PU's.

Instead of starting a long tedious lesson, I'll just suggest to watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2sjeVQpS94

If nothing in this video illustrates a desirable tonal step, just feel free to ignore my reply.

If you feel that tone gets more to your liking in some part(s) of this demo, let me know and I'll explain a really simple way to obtain the same tonal effect without varying the lenght of cable...

What kind of wire do you use between your guitar and its first "host", BTW? Lenght and brand?...

Footnote: when you have 500k and need 250k controls, changing the pots is not mandatory unless you consider the taper of your pots as a critical parm... A low cost resistor will do the job as well. See there ( and scroll down): https://www.fralinpickups.com/2018/10/17/using-resistors-in-guitars-101/
 
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alexreinhold said:
CORDIAL Fair Line 3m cable. It's fairly new and all other guitars sound really great. [/QUOTE]

Ok, thx.
i don't doubt that your other guitars sound great through this cable.
What I question is how the acoustic resonance of the host guitar might enhance the resonant frequency of your Texas Special's, making them "ice peaky" (knowing that the location of a "resonant frequency" in the spectrum is partly due to the cable used).
And what I invited to consider is that "resonant peaks" of passive pickups can be shifted towards other frequencies thanks to a different capacitive load. hence the vid that I've shared: do you hear the sound as "better" in a part of this demo? Again, feel free to ignore my contribution if your answer is "no" (and keep in mind that I'm not discarding other advices: there's interesting and helpful posts above... I'm just evoking something else that our fellow members haven't mentioned until now).

Food for thoughts, anyway: [url]http://www.billlawrence.com/Pages/All_About_Tone.htm/CableandSound.htm[/url]
Click to expand...
 
ive never found a vintage output single that i like with 500k pots. if you like the texas special in the middle, its fine to leave it and just change the neck. if you tried running the texas specials in this guitar with 250k pots and still found it too bright then obviously the guitar is playing a part in your troubles since you loved them in your strat. so now you are trying to compensate for 500k pots and a naturally bright guitar. the stks7 might be a good choice, i love that pup in the bridge with 250k pots but have never tried it in the neck or with 500k pots. it might suit your needs well. the crusier doesnt sound like a strat pup to me but if you like that tone, maybe it would work for you.
 
Another reason why your pickups my be unusually bright: The Pro-Mod DK22 specs on their website say it has a "no-load" 500k pot as the tone control.
I suggest to take out the "no-load" tone control and replace it with a normal 500k pot. I would order a spare 250k Linear taper pot that you can use for a volume control if needed.
 
alexreinhold said:
That's a very insightful post, thanks Teleplayer! To be very honest, I have no clue if mids or treble is the culprit but they sound shrilly af. This morning I tried to play around with the height and they keep on sounding horrible (and I think most - regardless of taste - would agree).

Assuming I want to keep 500k pots and achieve some sort of balanced Strat sound (i.e. more towards SSL 1 than to SSL 6), do do you think the Classic Stack Plus will be the right fit? What about the DiMarzio Cruisers? I've been eyeing them for a while because Andy Timmons makes them sound very pretty and "full" and I personally quite identify with that sound (though I am not even a big fan of Andy Timmons).
Click to expand...

How does it sound when you roll back the volume to 8.5-9? Does it sound a lot better or not much difference?
 
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