YJM's Fury for Blues / classic strat sound

[varjao]

Hello gentleman,

I'm not a big fan of strats since I have small hands, I prefer thinner necks with 24.75" fretboard length, but I think everybody who plays guitar needs to have a strat, it's such an indispensable tool in any guitar player tool set. Some of my favorite players use strats so I love the sound, it's just a matter of comfort and hand grip.

I have had a couple strats before and ended up selling them, now I'm looking for another strat, it's gonna be made in a custom shop so I can choose whatever I want for woods, hardware, pickups, etc..

It will definitely be deeply scalloped (maple) and since I'm a big Malmsteen fan I thought about a fender's yjm clone, with 22 frets though.

I read some interesting things about these pup's, but nothing about how it handle different styles. I understand the purpose they were made and that most people looking for them are looking for a hard rock/neoclassical style but if you have a little versatility it doesn't hurt. Usually strat fans have many strats for different tones, tunnings, etc...that won't be my case, so I'm afraid in case these pickups are a little too hot for a clean blues tone. I love SRV and Hendrix, that type of bluesy sound.

I heard that they are not hot humbuckers and that Malmsteen required them to be on the strat territory, but he always play with drive, I would like to know more about how they behave without drive.

Thanks for any input.

daniel

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: YJM's Fury for Blues / classic strat sound

The YJM Fury pickups do indeed make a fine choice for a "Rock/Metal" Stratocaster. I have to confess that I have never bothered trying them for outright clean sounds. I tend to set my valve amp crunchy and wind back the guitar's volume pot to reduce valve saturation. Things rarely get totally clean.

If true-to-vintage single coil bite is required, I reach for a Fifties or Sixties re-issue.

 

[Farkus]

Re: YJM's Fury for Blues / classic strat sound

I don't know about Blues per se, and classic Strat depends on who you ask, but I use them for Deep Purple and that type of stuff quite a bit. I even get away with STK-4's playing DP stuff, but the Fury pups are extra fun. The neck is a little hot for my taste but the bridge is fantastic for overdriven and full on distortion tones.

 

[UberMetalDood]

Re: YJM's Fury for Blues / classic strat sound

I have 2 guitars with YJM Fury pickups. One is a strat loaded with them and the other is a neck and middle paired with a PATB-1. My YJM Fury loaded strat is very versatile. I can play a variety of music with it. I personally think the Dimarzio YJM's are better if you were only to play blues, but the YJM Fury pickups have a lot going for them as blues pickups too. They've got a lot of low end and strat-like cut, but in a way remind me of a Little 59'. I kind of hate the Little 59', but I love the YJM Fury pickups. The neck pickups was love and hate at first until I switched to 500k pots. Now I'm quite happy with them. Blues is going to be smoother and with a pretty big low end with the YJM Fury. The HS3/Dimarzio YJM has more of a single coil sound and a really, really cool kind of sweep from bass through treble frequencies. The YJM Fury has a lot more output and can actually push your amp a little so in that respect, you can coax a better blues breakup with them.

I have an audio comparison laying around somewhere that I recorded with the YJM Fury neck & bridge vs G&L CLF-100 single coils. I think it shows a pretty good comparison and the versatility of the YJM Fury.

 

[LonePhantom]

Re: YJM's Fury for Blues / classic strat sound

YJMs are very good for dirty blues tones and classic rock.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: YJM's Fury for Blues / classic strat sound

Today, as a test, I tried my YJM Fury equipped Strat through the clean channel of a valve amplifier. Next, I tried the same thing with my Seymourised Fender AVRI '62 Strat. I didn't want to go back. When I eventually did, I was disappointed. For my tastes, true single coils are the only serious choice.

 

[varjao]

Re: YJM's Fury for Blues / classic strat sound

yeah I forgot to mention what kind of blues tone since it's not that simple, blues tone and period. There's a vast range of tones inside this lovely style, but I'm more to this texas, dirty blues, SRV, Gary Moore. I like John Mayer's tone too for a clean tone.

I don't like Clapton's, BB King, very thin tone IMHO.

Already bought the set of YJM, gotta wait a few weeks for the deliver though.

 

[Scott Marceau]

Re: YJM's Fury for Blues / classic strat sound

I think you'll be really pleased with the YJM's! They have tight articulation but are very Strat-y. I've heard artist in here use them for Blues plenty of times and they sound great.

 

[AlexR]

Re: YJM's Fury for Blues / classic strat sound

It all depends on what you want. They sound 'single-coil like', but similar to all stacks they are missing some dynamics and depth. The more drive you put on the signal, the less this will matter.

 

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: YJM's Fury for Blues / classic strat sound

They're supposed to be a vintage hot type of strat output with a more lively response. Should work great, I was advised that they could pull off Hendrixy and Blackmorey tones out of them.

 

[UberMetalDood]

Re: YJM's Fury for Blues / classic strat sound

Eh, YJM Fury for Texas Blues and John Mayer, no. Kinmans might be more his tastes, but still noiseless. I have been on a big Lollar single-coil kick lately. Their single coils are magical, some of THE best blues tones I ever had.

 

[IMENATOR]

Re: YJM's Fury for Blues / classic strat sound

I have an HSS so I look for versatility so I know I have to approach pickup selection in a different way. The fury in the neck is a fat sounding singlie coil tone, I put a SSL-1 in the middle, I play chords with middle or notch position then I engage into the neck for a good EQ contrast (fatter sound) and soloing so if you look for tender and sweet sound it is not what you need. I think the word in english is "chime", the fury neck does not have "chime" but I have never tried it in split mode in position 5 for true single coil mode. By the way I am not using a tone pot with it, not like I hated the 250k tone, I was trying to solve some noise issue that really had nothing to do with it and after that I neverd conected it, is is already a fat single coil so I don't need to cut the treble from it.

My next option would be the STK-S6 Custom Stack (a noiseless SSL-5 ot 6), sounds more like a single coil, not as fat as the fury and notch position with a true single coil is very nice, during the time I was using it definitly it sounded more traditional bluesy to me compared to the YJM. I sticked with the YJM however because I liked its tone for high gain playing better in my HSS combo with a JB and I do like to use the middle pickup alone. This pickup should work fine with a tone pot imho.

 

[LReese]

Re: YJM's Fury for Blues / classic strat sound

There's a demo out on youtube - Sounded nice on the video.

 

[varjao]

Re: YJM's Fury for Blues / classic strat sound

thanks for the answers

Talking about woods, I know Yjm uses Alder, but I'm not a big fan, I was thinking about an ash body, would that give too much emphasis on high frequencies?