ItsaBass
New member
This guitar is now on it's third pickguard, and has been through a bunch of pickups and pickup orientations...but I've finally come up with something that is one of the best sounding Strats I've ever modded.
It came with a black HSS guard and pickups, and really didn't sound bad at all. The MIM Strats are good guitars even stock.
But I thought the black on black looked terrible. So I went to this, along with pickup swaps:
Many pickup swaps that were okay...but not quite right. I finally got sick of this beautiful guitar being not quite right, and took another stab. SDS-1 bridge, True Velvet middle, Red Velvet neck.
To sum it up: SUCCESS, FINALLY. It kicks MAJOR ass! The True Velvet middle is a chimey classic Strat pickup. The Red Velvet is a killer twangy and meaty yet articulate neck pickup. The SDS-1 sounds almost exactly like yummy Les Paul Junior goodness (though a bit hotter). It's so much better than any of the humbuckers that were there...and way better looking too. The Duncan equivalents would be Twang Banger, SSL-1, and an overwound StraBro90.
It's parts of Strat, Tele, and LP Jr., plus more, in one axe, without a bunch of complicated switching...though I did use some push/pulls. The middle knob pulls up as a neck-on switch. And with the bottom tone knob up, I can do the cocked wah sound to the bridge position with a switch (nice as an alternative to a bridge tone control).
A Callaham vibrato comes next. Tusq XL nut and vintage-style locking tuners after that. I'm gonna round over the fret bevels a bit and oil the fretboard. That should be about it. I don't think I'll ever let it go.
It came with a black HSS guard and pickups, and really didn't sound bad at all. The MIM Strats are good guitars even stock.
But I thought the black on black looked terrible. So I went to this, along with pickup swaps:
Many pickup swaps that were okay...but not quite right. I finally got sick of this beautiful guitar being not quite right, and took another stab. SDS-1 bridge, True Velvet middle, Red Velvet neck.
To sum it up: SUCCESS, FINALLY. It kicks MAJOR ass! The True Velvet middle is a chimey classic Strat pickup. The Red Velvet is a killer twangy and meaty yet articulate neck pickup. The SDS-1 sounds almost exactly like yummy Les Paul Junior goodness (though a bit hotter). It's so much better than any of the humbuckers that were there...and way better looking too. The Duncan equivalents would be Twang Banger, SSL-1, and an overwound StraBro90.
It's parts of Strat, Tele, and LP Jr., plus more, in one axe, without a bunch of complicated switching...though I did use some push/pulls. The middle knob pulls up as a neck-on switch. And with the bottom tone knob up, I can do the cocked wah sound to the bridge position with a switch (nice as an alternative to a bridge tone control).
A Callaham vibrato comes next. Tusq XL nut and vintage-style locking tuners after that. I'm gonna round over the fret bevels a bit and oil the fretboard. That should be about it. I don't think I'll ever let it go.
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