strat with balls

T

tskullt

New member
Hi everyone,
I need a bit of help here. I'm building an ash strat for a good friend of mine and what he describes he wants is a strat with balls. He's primarily a blues player and he's open to a HSS setup (probably with a split). What can you guys and gals reccommend for pickup combinations? It still has to end up sounding like a strat though!!!!
m.
 
Re: strat with balls

it's hard to choose the sound for somebody else. any idea which kind of sound
he likes? i'm asking for bands, songs .... which amp does he use?

i had some stock fender h-s-s set in my strat and she didn't sound very meaty.
since i put a california (ssl-1) set in there she fits much better for bluesrock.
you can't do anything wrong with an ssl-1 set imo.

fender texas special set would also be a nice idea. but i haven't tried it own my own so far.
 
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Re: strat with balls

Hey Baltar,
Thanks for the reply. Yeah, it is tough picking stuff for someone else, but I've been playing with him about 10 years so I kinda know what he's after. He uses GuitarRig for his setup with a Bassman model into an power amp with a 2 X 12 cabinet. So he's looking for SRV/Joe B. type tones.
As far as the Tex-Mex set, he had those in the guitar when he bought 'em. They were ok, but weren't hum canceling and still lacked 'balls' I thought they were much better than the stock set in the guitar, but not great....
m.
 
Re: strat with balls

the fender texas specials are not the fender tex mex pickups.
hum canceling? well i don't know if the fender texas specials have a rwrp
middle pickup, but the seymour duncan california set has.

i use to jump on the volume pedal in breaks - so it doesn't hum
very noticeable :laughing:
 
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Re: strat with balls

Hey Baltar,
Oh, thanks for the clarification on the Tex thing, I'll check 'em out. By hum cancelling I mean noiseless, not just reverse wound middle pup....
m.
 
Re: strat with balls

noise cancelling was never an option to me. they sound different.
due to it does only matter in my setup when playing higher gain, a rwrp
solution is enough for me. if anyone can recommend a pu which sounds
exactly like a ssl-1 ore overwound ssl-1 but noiseless, i'd be interested too
 
Re: strat with balls

Hey, another Buffalonian here. Yes, I'm a transplant. Y'all can keep the snow. :D

A Strat with balls, huh? Well, if he wants to stick with singles, IMO, the Texas Specials are the way to go. I've got a set in my Strat and they are far from thin. Still vintagey, just with a little more girth. My favorite single-coils. The middle pickup is RWRP, BTW.

If he wants pure noiseless, the Duncan Classic Stack Plus set is nice, so I've heard. The Fender Hot Noiseless is good too (think Jeff Beck).

If he wants to go the HSS route and be totally noiseless, Duncan Classic Stacks in the neck/middle and the JB in the bridge wired up to split with a push/pull pot, 250k pots throughout. That'll give him a great range to play with.
 
Re: strat with balls

The noiseless requirement kind of throws a monkey wrench into the works.

I'd second the classic stack plusses with a humbucker, for HSS.

For SSS, I'd suggest Dimarzio because of their ballsy noiseless bridge position offerings. Use Area61's in the neck and middle positions, and the Virtual Vintage Solo2 in the bridge position.
 
Re: strat with balls

Hey EricK,
Fort Worth to Buffalo, quite the culture shock! I spent a night at Billy Bob's, saw Conway Twitty, drank a bunch of beer!!!
Thanks for the suggestions, I'll check out the single coils you mentioned. I have a JB in a tele clone I built, and I think that might be too straight ahead rock 'n' roll for him, but I'll check out some clips....
m.
 
Re: strat with balls

assumeing he isnt just going to play blues, id sudgest a 59 or a JB. even though both of those pups are great for blues, they also rock out.
 
Re: strat with balls

If your friend is open to true single coil, then the Texas Hot Custom Bridge is a great beefy pure strat pickup. I don't have any problems suggesting the full Texas Hot set...but many guy here for pure strat tone love the Surfers for neck and bridge with the Texas Hot in the bridge spot. You can do serious blues and can totally rock out.


for hum cancelling...select a 2 or 4 notch position for neck+mid or mid+bridge, roll the guitars tone control back, crank the amp, and put a dirt pedal in there and you can do some serious heavy duty rocking. Then you still have access to beautiful pure strat neck tones if you want them for blues.
 
Re: strat with balls

tskullt said:
Hey EricK,
Fort Worth to Buffalo, quite the culture shock! I spent a night at Billy Bob's, saw Conway Twitty, drank a bunch of beer!!!
Click to expand...
Yup, by way of Pittsburgh, PA and San Jose, CA though. Been here for a little over 9 years though. I love it. Billy Bob's is a cool place. Saw Peter Framton there a couple years ago.

tskullt said:
Thanks for the suggestions, I'll check out the single coils you mentioned. I have a JB in a tele clone I built, and I think that might be too straight ahead rock 'n' roll for him, but I'll check out some clips....
m.
Click to expand...
The beautiful thing is the JB splits beautifully. It's a 16k pickup so when split, that one active coils is a little over 8k. With it split and in the notch position with a single-coil, the quack is still there.

If he'd prefer lower output and doesn't care for splitting, the '59 Model works great in Strats.
 
Re: strat with balls

Ultra Strat Mod. Wire it so between the bucker and where it hooks up to it's lug, there is an on/on/on (series/split/parallel). You'll have 6 mini switches, but a million tone possibilities, some of which would be quite good for blues. And almost all of them will have balls.
 
Re: strat with balls

59 in the bridge. Great pickup, it does unbelievably sweet cleans in an alder Strat. Fender wire their Standard Fat Strats so that their 4th position is middle + half the bridge. When I added my 59, I rewired it so that the full humbucker was used with the middle pickup in the notch positions. Great sound!
 
Re: strat with balls

Thanks everyone for your advice! I'm leaning toward the classic stack (middle and neck) and a JB or a 59 with the split. I'll have to check into that Super Strat Mod.
Thanks again!
m.
 
Re: strat with balls

My own recipe for a Strat with Balls: I've got a Fender American Deluxe HSS. It comes with Fender's SCN (Samarium Cobalt Noiseless) pups in the Neck and Middle positions, which I think are fantastic.

I swapped the boring stock humbucker for a Dimarzio Airzone, and the thing rocks like its got King Kong balls.

Nice thing about this guitar too is that its got fenders S1 switch, which just adds more pup combos as some of the previous posters also suggested (eg, series, parallel, etc). If you can do something like this, you'll have a kick butt guitar.
 
Re: strat with balls

miketala said:
My own recipe for a Strat with Balls: I've got a Fender American Deluxe HSS. It comes with Fender's SCN (Samarium Cobalt Noiseless) pups in the Neck and Middle positions, which I think are fantastic.
Click to expand...

yuck, i couldn't get along with them. sold them and bought ssl-1
 
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Re: strat with balls

did he specify the size of the desired testicles?

Bare Knuckle Sinner/Trilogy/Trilogy set

:firedevil
 
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