Tonal differences between Strat and Mustang pickup locations?

[strattyguy]

I hate the bridge position on my strat. I never use it. I can't stand the overly metallic and jangly tone. I plan to remove the bridge pickup (Lace Sensor Blue) and use it as the neck pup in another guitar. That leaves me with the neck and middle pickups only. I can leave the guitar exactly like this of course, but I am curious about ordering a custom strat pickguard with 2 pups in the mustang style (bridge and neck pups closer to the middle, compared to a strat, and both being slightly slanted).

I have never played a mustang so not sure if the pups locations contribute to any significant difference in tone? I play neck+middle 90% of the time.

 

[freefrog]

In my mind, the sound of a Mustang is far to depend only on the location of its pickups: short scale and tremolo unit are to consider, there.

That being said: yes, the closer a bridge pickup is to the neck, the warmer it will sound, in any guitar. Without changing the basic character of the guitar and pickup involved, IME and IMHO.

What surprises me in this case is the bridge pickup being a Lace Sensor Blue: it's a pickup with a fairly high inductance, in the P90 range. It should sound warm, even in the bridge slot, at least compared to a conventional Strat PU.

But it's still a passive transducer, so its sound depends largely on external parameters: resistance of the pots, capacitance of the cable. I'd try to tune these factors first. After all, that's what Hendrix or SRV did to obtain warm sounds from their Strats (by using long and/or curly cables whose high capacitance was softening their tone).

A simple and cheap resistor and/or capacitor between hot and ground of the bridge PU might solve the issue in such a situation. Or dedicating one of the tone pots to the bridge pickup instead of the mid one... Or mounting a SC sized humbucker with a higher inductance than the Lace. @ +/- 12H (twice the inductance of the mentioned Lace), I doubt a Hot Rails would sound too jangly, for instance...

Do what you want and be happy. Good luck in your quest.

 

[freefrog]

NOTE - Let's share two links to put things in perspective when it comes to pickups location vs electrical factors:

https://youtu.be/Br-qeNztYow?si=nmKzzmQLc2cEX2aE

https://youtu.be/4BmkaS91NHQ?si=esrV1wzyVbM4pqwa&t=560

...knowing that the tone due to 100 ft of cable could be obtained from a small cheap 3.9nF capacitor from hot to ground of a passive pickup...

 

[jeremy]

make sure you have a swimming pool rout under the guard if you are going to put things in non-traditional places

 

[Chistopher]

Also consider Lace Sensors are designed to be put REALLY close to the strings.

 

[jeremy]

interesting they suggest keeping the middle pup further away than the others

 

[Mincer]

As far as your Strat goes, it might just be the wrong pickup, too. There are lots of warmer variations of a Strat pickup that don't cut like normal bright bridge pickups.

 

[Clint 55]

Yes, the pickup locations do affect the tone a lot. The strat single bridge can be quite clanky. Moving the pickup forward would help. You could also try a hotter pickup. Or you could do HSS instead of a single in the bridge. A slanted humbucker isn't clanky because the bass side is farther away from the bridge. Note if you use neck + middle on a strat 90% of the time and go to mustang layout, the middle position will sound vastly different.

 

[zionstrat]

A steel plate can also help tame a bright bridge strat however I don't know how that would work with a lace...

 

[strattyguy]

make sure you have a swimming pool rout under the guard if you are going to put things in non-traditional places

Yes I pool all my strats.

 

[strattyguy]

Yes, the pickup locations do affect the tone a lot. The strat single bridge can be quite clanky. Moving the pickup forward would help. You could also try a hotter pickup. Or you could do HSS instead of a single in the bridge. A slanted humbucker isn't clanky because the bass side is farther away from the bridge. Note if you use neck + middle on a strat 90% of the time and go to mustang layout, the middle position will sound vastly different.

Thanks to everyone for all your thoughtful comments. I'm going to just keep my strat pickguard and leave the bridge slot empty. Maybe I'll put in a dummy single coil cover just to keep dust out.

 

[Clint 55]

I'd recommend getting an HSS pickguard from Warmoth with a slanted humbucker. It's pretty warm because the bass side of the pickup gets moved farther from the bridge.

 

[Mincer]

I'd recommend getting an HSS pickguard from Warmoth with a slanted humbucker. It's pretty warm because the bass side of the pickup gets moved farther from the bridge.

But the treble side moves closer.

 

[Clint 55]

In my experience, slanted from Warmoth is much warmer. I don't remember how the treble side compares. Maybe I have some old pickguards that I can dig out.

 

[freefrog]

A steel plate can also help tame a bright bridge strat however I don't know how that would work with a lace...

I've never tried an inductance plate under such a pickup but if I can share something... in a Lace Sensor, there's already a metal housing around the coil / under the magnet, FWIW. And the magnetic field is not as strong as with a Fender single coil (hence the advice to set them closer to the strings), nor shaped in the same way. So, a steel BP would most probably not produce the effect noticed with regular single coils.

 

[Chistopher]

You would most likely have to mangle the bridge plate seeing as most if not all Lace Sensors have their leads coming from underneath the pickup, rather than to the side.

 

[marcello252]

interesting they suggest keeping the middle pup further away than the others

I think for practical use, the middle could interfere with pick movements

 

[hamerfan]

The OPs problem is one of the problem I am working on since 30 years. I did a lot of things mentioned here like baseplate, magnet changes, humbuckers, booster pedals, degaussing the magnets. Best solution was what I call the Hendrix solution, that means mimicking the coily cable Hendrix used.
Get a 1nF cap (or lower) and solder it hot to ground. You can also use the lower tone pot to dial it in.

 

[freefrog]

+1 about the "Hendrix solution", since it was mentioned in my first post above then sonically exemplified by a link in the following one... and a switchable 1 nF cap is exactly what I have for ages in my Strat number one.

To "Give back to Caesar the things that are Caesar's​", it's not as if we hadn't been sensibilized to this question in the past:

http://www.billlawrence.com/Pages/All_About_Tone.htm/CableandSound.htm

https://www.marshallforum.com/threads/cesar-diaz-the-last-great-interview-srv.77833/#post-1273520

...not to mention how cable capacitance becomes an external tool for EQing and even for gain structure with a Fuzz Face, a Big Muff and a boatload of other OD/dist pedals (mostly with the cable plugged at the output, in fact and in a possibly counter-intuitive way)...

 

[marcello252]

so, a 2n2 cap (approximating the 2.4 cited in the article) between central lug of the vol pot and ground and, voilà , the hendrix coil cable trick is served, right ?