Disturber Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 It's so damn hard to get a good strat tone. The stratocaster is the hardest guitar to tame. And then it works so good in a band situation, but on it's own... ...shrill shrill. How to go about to get that Gillmoure tone for instance? You strat players. How do you go about. What secret sauce are U using in yer recepie? Tell me about your set ups? Guitar, pups, boxes amps? What tone are you going for? Clean funky or overdriven and sexy?
princeofdarkness56 Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 Think the bridge pup gets replaced a lot.
edgar_allan_poe Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 IMHO Getting the best tone out of a strat all comes from the right hand. With my humbuckers I don't pick nearly as hard. Since getting my Strat I have had to seriously alter my picking style and it is now a lot harder than it was before. Also...gain down, volume up. A Strats pickups are not anywhere near as compressed as a humbucker and as such the dynamic range on them is outstanding.
Disturber Posted March 30, 2012 Author Posted March 30, 2012 Think the bridge pup gets replaced a lot.But that is the one that I like best. I just got tone melt down today. Guess I played to long today and got ear fatique, suddenly I thought everything sounded like ass. I'll try again tomorrow with fresher ears.
Hamer_SS_guy Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 I have 3 Strats, and I can get a nice Strat sound out of all of them. I was looking to get a good tone that works for me instead trying to capture the tone of someone else. One Strat has a poplar body, 3 Texas Specials and rosewood fretboard, another has an ash body, a Fender humbucker and two Tex Mex single coils with rosewood board, and another one has alder body, 3 Texas Specials and maple board. I also have two Kramer Focus 3000 which can get strat-like tones from the single coil pickups. I use Marshall and Fender amps. Bad thing is that the amp settings are completely different from the settings when using my main guitar (maple Cali with EMG's).
rj2858 Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 ^^^^ This is so often true.I've got a couple 'o' Daytonas - both Ash/Maple board, and in one I've got Fender Fat 50's p'ups, and the other has a Bill Lawrence 280/280/290 set.The Lawrence 290 has a tone closer to a P-90, so that may not be something that you want. 50's style p'ups will sound much different than a pickup that's designed to sound like a '65 'gray bottom' pickup - which is considered to be Fenders' "rock" sounding p'ups. I like both, and will put together another Daytona using mid-late 60's style p'ups, because that sound is great.I've suggested for years that if you roll the volume back just a hair on the bridge pickup, it'll take the shrillness out, and of course, I've always been from the "wire a tone knob to the bridge p'up" school.Want to get an idea of great Strat tone, as far as overdriven is concerned? Checkout Youtube videos by a guy named Gregor Hilden. He demos A LOT of guitars, and most are played through his '66 Fender Vibrolux, and generally will play them clean, with an Okko Diablo (great overdrive unit), and others. You can almost always tell what his volumes/tones are at, and see he uses a pretty simple recipe, and I love his tone. I love the tone I get through my Maz 18 Junior 2 x 12, and my Marshall 6101 Anniversary amps, and I'll go clean, maybe add a Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster, and for really "chewy" tone, use my old ProCo Rat (late 80's), but am awaiting delivery on a G&L Buckshot Overdrive from our friend Elduave at Rocketeria.
rj2858 Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 IMHO Getting the best tone out of a strat all comes from the right hand. With my humbuckers I don't pick nearly as hard. Since getting my Strat I have had to seriously alter my picking style and it is now a lot harder than it was before. Also...gain down, volume up. A Strats pickups are not anywhere near as compressed as a humbucker and as such the dynamic range on them is outstanding.Great advice, and I feel like a boob for not mentioning this in my post (composing it while you were posting yours, so I just saw this now).I've long been a volume UP on the amp for Strats, and let them sing - that control you get from the guitars volume knob will take you where you want to go.
Disturber Posted March 30, 2012 Author Posted March 30, 2012 I do crank the master volume when playing the strat, it needs that - it's true. And I have an 86 Proco Rat that sounds very good with the strat.What was frustrating me was that I think it's hard to get a good sound using no pedals and just letting the power tubes sweat. I guess a strat needs a fuzz to sound mean and not harsh. I have never succeeded in dialing a great overdriven sound through my Marshalls. I can get a great clean, or great slightly overdriven sound with pedals - but that mean, over the top Frusciante, Hendrix, J Mascis tone, just can't get it right.And I've seen Gregory Halden vids on youtube. I get kinda frustrated that he always plays at what seems like bedroom levels. He aint lettin the powertubes sweat, can't have the amps past two on the vol knob. You can't hear that tube rectefier sweat in that old Vibrolux, speakers hardly moving air. I get a similar sound he gets with that Okko with my Fulltone Catalyst, same kind of pedal that has no compression and high transperancy.I just want a great strat tone, power tubes melting, speakers thumping. It's hard, or perhaps I'm just a tone loser when it comes to strats.
zenmindbeginner Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 I have 3 Strats, and I can get a nice Strat sound out of all of them. I was looking to get a good tone that works for me instead trying to capture the tone of someone else. One Strat has a poplar body, 3 Texas Specials and rosewood fretboard, another has an ash body, a Fender humbucker and two Tex Mex single coils with rosewood board, and another one has alder body, 3 Texas Specials and maple board. I also have two Kramer Focus 3000 which can get strat-like tones from the single coil pickups. I use Marshall and Fender amps. Bad thing is that the amp settings are completely different from the settings when using my main guitar (maple Cali with EMG's).+1000 on the Texas Specials and Fender single coils in general.IMHO Getting the best tone out of a strat all comes from the right hand. With my humbuckers I don't pick nearly as hard. Since getting my Strat I have had to seriously alter my picking style and it is now a lot harder than it was before. Also...gain down, volume up. A Strats pickups are not anywhere near as compressed as a humbucker and as such the dynamic range on them is outstanding.I always pick hard and I totally agree that the strat offers up some xtra benefits to a more muscular pick attack. It's why I like the JB as a humbucker, it has a strat like twang that responds well to a more pronounced and angled pick attack.An angled pick is going to scrape the strings like a cello or viola bow and give off a really textured sound. String scraping is also VERY F**KING important when playing a strat, do it as much as you can and you will be very happy. SRV scrapes into nearly every note on some songs and it sounds stellar through his Fenders and Dumbles.Also,I'm of the school that to get the very best strat tone, you need to play Fender pickups in a Fender guitar out of a Fender amp or get as close to it as you can.I have resisted Fender single coils for years now... tried a bunch of single coils the past couple of years only to be underwhelmed until I tried actual Fender pickups.The noiseless DiMarzios are fantastic for high and moderate gain, but clean, they are not full bodied.SSLs = yawn, Fralin = too polite and polished soundingPlaying Fender single coils gave me instant good strat tone.Good shielding is important. That little strip of foil glued to the underside of the pickguard isn't nearly enough. The cavities musty have copper shielding and an aluminum pickguard shield must be in place.I did my strat recording in my build thread seated within two feet of THREE running computers (one with a CRT monitor), a running box fan and three feet away from an air conditioner.I used the 2nd position which is noise canceling and my recording is fugging CLEAN as a whistle... my humbuckers can't get anywhere near a CRT monitor, so my new strat is significantly more quiet than my humbucker equipped guitars.It's all due to the shielding and grounding I did... twisted single coil cable leads, twisted grounds both add to the whole equation, having a good signal to noise ration is important when getting a good strat tone.And,Embrace the 2nd and 4th positions, they are the quintessential strat tones and yield the most quack and chime... forget about the 1, 3 and 5. You'll thank me later.
django49 Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 "How to go about to get that Gillmoure tone for instance?" If I am not mistaken, David Gilmour made a lot of his classic recordings with a Strat with EMG pickups. Then, he had two EMG "built ins" (pots) that allowed variable tone mods on the fly. One was a mid-boost that fattened up the sound to emulate HB sounds. The other boosted highs AND lows, sort of a "reverse scoop" on the EQ. I know there was a guitar mag writeup on it years ago. Probably would not take to much searching. In the meantime, here is a link to the EMG hype.
serial Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 I like the 1980-1982 X-1 pickups in the bridge of the Strats that had them. They made a believer out of me after years of fighting to like Strats. Love everything about them except the sound. I prefer the 70s Fenders to most, but the X-1s are great for the higher gain stuff I play. 80s Tokai Strat (grey bottoms) are really good too. I played my mid-80s Tokai for a decade or more and really dug it.
MCChris Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 I gots to have a full-size humbucker in the bridge of a Strat, which I suppose make it no longer a Strat anymore, but everything else (look, scale, ergonomics) totally floats my boat.
backinit Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 I play some very hot import pickups in two of mine (entwistle XS62Ns) I get everything from almost humbucker-ish tones to near vintage tones when I turn it turn down and shift to the quack positions.
Ting Ho Dung Posted March 30, 2012 Posted March 30, 2012 I can chime in on the Gilmour tone and the Gilmour EMG-DG20 pickups. The DG-20's are cool but the tone controls are replaced by an EXG mid boost and a SPC treble and low boost. It sounds like they counter act on each other on paper. But they don't. It's a long story about my guitar but I'll tell you very quickly; I got a coveted Zion birdseye maple neck on a shit body with the DG-20's. Purchased a signature Jimmy Vaughn body and the Wilkenson VSV that is on the Daytonas. This thing sings now. It took me a while to get used to the EXG and the SPC but they can do such a full strat sound all the way to humbucker, with no noise. The DG-20's came out when Gilmour was on the "Delicate Sound Of Thunder" tour. He has since gone back to his "Black" strat, which incidentally is the color of my Jimmy Vaughn body (unplanned and turned out so cool and weird with major mojo and karma). But his favorite strat is the "Black" strat. It doesn't have the EMG's. It has 60's fender in 1 and 2 and a seymour duncan in the bridge. He used to have a switch that would enable all 3 pickups but that has since been removed. Okay, so by now you've figured out that I'm a DG freak. Yes. To me, he is one of the most eloquent people to speed to and he plays his guitar with that same charm.On to the DG tone: Pick attack is very important. Vibrato both with the finger and with the trem, the trem when used properly sounds like a rotovibe. Very slight moving of the trem arm. Lots of volume and little gain. I'm still not able to get his gain sounds like in "Time". Something to work on in the future. You can watch this video DG kicks Phil Manzanerra's ass (sorry if I butchered his name) who is playing a LP Custom 3 pickup. It comes in at 17:35 with Phil. You really should listen to the whole video though. I watch it all the time on DVD and try to play along. Oh, and DG rarely uses position 2 and 4 on the switch. Not to knock the above post but just talking about DG.http://youtu.be/Jxi6c3dYNdcI hope this helps you a bit.
hardheartedbill Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 Use 2 ods in series. One like a TS on all the time RAT for screamin tone.
triodecr Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 It's all due to the shielding and grounding I did... twisted single coil cable leads, twisted grounds both add to the whole equation, having a good signal to noise ration is important when getting a good strat tone..ZMB,can you explain this a little more? You're twisting the all the hot wires together and twisting all the grounds together? Thanks!
Ting Ho Dung Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 I can tell you about twisting wires. He used retro / old stock wire with cloth. Cloth over wire is what they used in the 50's. Twisting wires reduces hum. Look it up on youtube. Amplifiers have twisted pairs. CAT5 is called twisted pairs. Look at Youtube. It's the answer for everything.
zenmindbeginner Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 It's all due to the shielding and grounding I did... twisted single coil cable leads, twisted grounds both add to the whole equation, having a good signal to noise ration is important when getting a good strat tone. . ZMB, can you explain this a little more? You're twisting the all the hot wires together and twisting all the grounds together? Thanks! When I worked in the telecommunications field as a young guy, we had to make cables from time to time for clients and the old school dudes who taught me how to punch and terminate, always made me twist pairs together when making custom cables. I twisted the pickup leads so that they had some noise reduction passing along the underside of the pickups in the pickup wire carriage. You can also see that the black leads from the pickups that go to ground are twisted together as well. It's no big deal, but when you put it with the aluminum shield, shielded cavities and everything being grounded... there is maximum shielding just short of wearing a tin foil hat. The signal to noise ratio of this shielded strat is much better than my Pre-wired Fralin pickguard that was expertly installed in my Daytona. Like I said, in the 2 and 4 positions, it has less noise than my humbucker equipped guitars.
Ting Ho Dung Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 Sorry, didn't mean to answer for you. Just thought I'd chime in if you were away. You have a much better way of explaining it.
Jakeboy Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 I like my Strat straight into my NMV classic amp circuits.....clean or dimed. I LOVE the bridge tone, always have as I grew up on 70s rock. The key to taming the bridge as is is to wire the tone control to the bridge......roll it to 7 or 8 and the shrillness goes awy and it gets fat. I have typical Fender single coil pups and am currently running a Rumpel 1957 lassie low wind strat set that is very responsive. I manhandle my Strat and play it very hard.....it seems to like that.....
anotherfreak Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 "I think it's hard to get a bad Strat tone. " Agree! I've been using the D'marzio Area pickups and a Visual sound RTE 66 and can cover tons of range reguardless of the amp.
Disturber Posted March 31, 2012 Author Posted March 31, 2012 I think it's hard to get a bad Strat tone. What are you using to get it over the top? A musician friend of mine has a killer strat tone, using custom shop fender pups and an old strat into a fuzz face and old 100 W Marshall amp.I think I need to check out a Fuzz face to see if that'll do the trick. And I'll play some more with the Catalyst. Getting a clean to semi-clean/overdriven great strat tone is not my problem. It's the Marshall (or Fender) amp melting, power tubes sweatin´ tone I can't really dial in. My bridge Texas Hot Ant Duncan alsways sounds killer, but the neck is sensetive to height and angle. I got the neck pretty okay yesterday. But the kvack positions loose their bite on the low strings when I go into the red. Perhaps I should just live with the 2 and 4 position in funk mode - clean to semi clean - and stick with bridge and neck when I'm going over the top..... Edit: this is were I want to go. Can't get there with my Marshalls. I think Conny's got an ordinary strat pup in the bridge, it's a vintage strat, 60s I believe. I'll need to experiement some more. Love this kind of strat tone.
Jakeboy Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 My Marshall 18 watter clone will get my Strat over the top all by itself. I hate pedals....that being said, for some of my other amps, I use an MXR eq pedal just for my Strat to use as a boost and to bump the kids a bit. My Rumpel set is vintage wound so they are fairly low in output. My Brown Deluxe clone gets my Srat there too, come to think of it.....and the tweed Deluxe ODs quite nicely with just a cable and a Strat...Lou know I have dimed my Marsall Bluesbreaker with P90s, my tele, and all my bucker guitars....but I don't think my Strat has been dimed through it.....I'll report back....I did run a fuzz face for a while....sounds great but it makes everything sound like a fuzz face.....I like it straight in!
polara Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 Gilmour's sound is so different I kinda don't think of it as Strat. It's just him. For a good hard rockin' Strat sound I like a Tube Screamer kind of pedal into a Deluxe Reverb but that's kind of my formula for anything. And never use the bridge pickup alone unless you're Dick Dale.
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