Surfers for ash body, maple neck strat -- too bright?

[kulyokul]

I was wondering if anyone has tried putting in a set of surfers in an ash body maple neck strat. Will it be too bright and trebly?

I tried my friend's alder, rosewood neck strat with surfers and it's the best thing I've ever heard. After going through countless pups from various makers, I think this might be it. But I'm not sure if this will work well in my guitar as I've read in several forums that ash and maple are tonally bright. I tried using aps but it does not have the same tonal characteristics as the surfers.

I'd appreciate anyone who can chime in and shed some light on this.

Cheers!

 

[AlexR]

Re: Surfers for ash body, maple neck strat -- too bright?

Alder has a great neutral frequency response and a rosewood board also helps suppress some of the spanky highs that maple emphasises. Ash has a really combed tone which is almost like an A5 pickup itself (bit thinner in the mids). I would say the Ant Texas Hots would be just the ticket. Same output but with a softer A2 mag to push the mids and tame the highs a bit. I've got both sets and they sound really close.....both killer but the A2 versions are just a wee bit warmer.

 

[tc]

Re: Surfers for ash body, maple neck strat -- too bright?

HAHA! "Chime in"...nice pun!

Umm...yeah, so...back on topic. What kind of sound are you going for? Just a nice overall Strat tone or something more specific?

 

[jeremy]

Re: Surfers for ash body, maple neck strat -- too bright?

welcome to the forum!

ive had surfers neck and middle in a ash/maple strat and they sounded great. bright and plucky but great. the texas hots are wonderful pups too but with more mids and a chewier texture

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Surfers for ash body, maple neck strat -- too bright?

Gotta just try 'em out in your guitar. Some cuts of ash aren't as bright as you might expect and the surfers just may be what you want. It may possibly end up being a little brighter than your friend's guitar, but not so much that you can't compensate with your amp's EQ.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Surfers for ash body, maple neck strat -- too bright?

To my ears a one-piece maple neck is actually less bright than a rosewood board neck. And John Suhr seems to think the same.

It just so happens that people often compare them on complete guitars and as a general tendency maple necks are more often found on 50ties style Strats (with brighter pickups, V necks, small frets etc) and rosewood on 60ties (with fatter pickups, round necks and bigger frets).

I was convinced for a while that A5 is better in Alder and A2 (Texashot) makes for a better combo with basswood. But it turned out that body was Alder, too, so I have one Alder guitar where to by ears A5 comes out better and one Alder guitar where A2 comes out better.

 

[kulyokul]

Re: Surfers for ash body, maple neck strat -- too bright?

Thanks for the reply guys.

The texas hot sounds like the obvious choice as it would compensate for the ash/maple combo. However, my concern is it might be like Fender CS54 which has overbearing mids.

As for the surfers, if it's not too plinky then this might be the way to go. I tried the APS and they were very bright in my guitar. Too much kerrraaanngg than the rounder sound of the surfers in my friend's alder strat.

I wish I could try both in my guitar but the antiquities are not readily available from where I come from. I have to order it from the US so I'm mainly relying on info from this forum.

By the way, I normally play blues, classic rock and 90's alternative (Pearl Jam, RHCP). I run a slight pedal overdrive and only use few effects (delay, minimal wah and fuzz).

Hopefully, I can hear more opinion from you guys. Thanks.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Surfers for ash body, maple neck strat -- too bright?

There is a much bigger difference between Ant1 and Ant2 on one hand and between APS1 and SSL1 on the other hand. These aren't humbuckers where magnet matters much more.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Surfers for ash body, maple neck strat -- too bright?

im not sure i agree that magnets matter more in humbuckers

 

[MattPete]

Re: Surfers for ash body, maple neck strat -- too bright?

Years ago I built a swamp ash strat and used APS1 pickups, because folks suggested that the A2 pickup would compensate for the scooped sound of swamp ash. Frankly, the guitar was one-dimensional and boring. Luckily I had some SSL1s (a5) lying around from a 1980s Kramer, and so I tried those in the middle and neck positions, and lo-and-behold, the guitar sounded wonderful, with that unique swamp-ash spank. I later came to the conclusion that APS1s are for humbucker lovers who hate single coils, but feel that they need a strat-ish sound (but SSLs would be going to far in that direction).

Another way to look at it is this: I'm not sure why you would want to 'compensate'. Compensate for what exactly? When the swamp ash and alder strats rolled out of the factory decades ago, they had the same pickups. So the original tone that made swamp ash famous used the same pickups as the alder guitars, and IIRC, those pickups would have been nearly identical the SSL1 alnico 5 pickups (and surfers).

 

[dr.barlo]

Re: Surfers for ash body, maple neck strat -- too bright?



Surfer custom bridge, Fralin vintage hot %5 underwound middle (because I found the surfer middle not bright enough for the bridge-middle position which is sort of a must for me) and surfer neck... Surfer middle is ok, yet to me coupling it with the surfer custom bridge (which sounds to me exceptional on its own) the outcome did not have enough highs. Am thinking of Layla album, in particular "I've looked away"... Anyways, I replaced it with an underwound Fralin and have been very happy with this set for quite a while (more than 5 years) right now...

Ash body, maple neck.

And to me this guitar sounds wonderful.

B