Tone control for Vintage Hot STK-S7 stack plus

[Teleplayer]

I have a STK-S7 vintage hot on order to go in the bridge of my strat. I like a warm sound, so my strat is currently setup with a 250k master tone. Is the STK-S7 going to be much less bright than a regular single coil, such as SSL-1? There don't seem to be any audio samples for this pickup on the SD website so far.

What tone controls have people tried with the STK-S7 in the bridge?

 

[jeremy]

Re: Tone control for Vintage Hot STK-S7 stack plus

welcome to the forum!

it will be a little less bright than the ssl1. i would use a 250k tone control

 

[Teleplayer]

Re: Tone control for Vintage Hot STK-S7 stack plus

Thanks for the reply.

I'm expecting the stack pickup to be less bright which isn't really a bad thing. I will just have to try it and see. I'm probably going to try an extra resistor in series with the tone control. That way I won't loose quite so much much top end from the bridge pickup (Refer to my diagram below).

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Tone control for Vintage Hot STK-S7 stack plus

Expect the Stack to be less bright but in a good way. The bridge position benefits from a pickup with a little more midrange and a little less glassy edge.

+1 for 250k pot. I would go with a .022uF capacitor.

 

[Teleplayer]

Re: Tone control for Vintage Hot STK-S7 stack plus

Just got my STK-S7 today and installed it already. I combined it with SSL-2 in mid, and SSL-2 (RWRP) in the neck position. I found the magnet polarity of the STK-S7 is North-out, just like the RWRP version of SSL-2. That's why I'm now using the RWRP SSL-2 in the neck position and the standard SSL-2 in the mid position. I'm a big fan of the SSL-2's warm vintage tone so I intend to keep them in the neck and mid position. I used the 250k master tone with a 0.022uF cap and a 68k resistor as shown in the diagram above.

Before now I had a Dimarzio Area 61 in the bridge which I found to be too bright for my taste even with the 250k tone control. So far I haven't done a lot of playing, but my first impression is the STK-S7 is noticeably warmer sounding than the Area 61. More importantly the STK-S7 has a richer tone across all the strings. Even the high E string has a subtle thickness to the sound, where I found the Area 61 was thin and bright.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Tone control for Vintage Hot STK-S7 stack plus

very cool! glad you like what youve heard so far