Graham50 Posted December 25, 2025 Posted December 25, 2025 I’ve never owned a Strat, but on the occasions I’ve played one I find the position of the volume knob is right in the way and I alter the volume probably turning myself off as I play. I am only a strummer. So it’s definitely not on my wish list.
EdwardMarlowe Posted January 11 Posted January 11 On 15/12/2025 at 14:58, EliasMooseblaster said: I wouldn't worry: I have the same problem with Jazz basses. LOTS of players - be it people I know, or well-known bass-heroes - have played great basslines on them. But I can't seem to make the sound work with my playing style. Give me a Precision or a Thunderbird and I'll be happy as Larry, but for reasons I can't fathom, I've never been satisfied with the tones I get out of a Jazz. It's just something I've had to accept! That said, have you ever tried a "super-strat"? I've seen H/S/S setups, and twin HB setups - the former might do something for that "shrill" bridge pickup, and you still get the look and feel of a Strat. I hear you. I'm definitely a P Bass man.... but that neck on a J bass.... My first bass (still owned) was a Squier Precision Bass Special. I realised quickly I can well live without the J pickup, as long as the single split P pickup has a decent tone knob, but the J-style neck on that guitar is a joy. One day I would adore to build a P bass with a J neck, P-set-up, and a firebird or RD shaped body (but other than shape, entirely in the Fender P style).
EdwardMarlowe Posted January 11 Posted January 11 On 19/12/2025 at 09:59, ezbass said: Filter-trons are an interesting ‘bucker option. Unlike PAF types, they don’t have that muddy honk. Oh, yes. A couple of Gretsches are very much on my wants list, but it's gonig to be a while before I can raise the cash. 5xxx series - I doubt, shy of a stupid lottery win, I could justify the 6xxx series.
ezbass Posted January 11 Posted January 11 2 hours ago, EdwardMarlowe said: 5xxx series - I doubt, shy of a stupid lottery win, I could justify the 6xxx series. Same. To be fair, the 5 series are really, really good and the price difference between a 5420 and 6120 is huge and the law of diminishing returns says you’ll not be getting an awful lot more. 5420, plus some TV Jones pickups and you’ll be pretty much 95% of the way there, for a fraction of the cost. 1
Kiwi Posted January 13 Posted January 13 On 12/10/2023 at 14:22, randythoades said: In an attempt to gain some genuine insight (as well as to stir up a discussion that no side can win), I am interested in how people use and get good sounds out of a Stratocaster... I love a strat, for me they embody the epitome of guitar design, sleek and still look space age after all this time. All my favourite players played strats and coaxed amazing tones out of them. BUT, I have had (genuinely no lie) more than 40 strats of various makes in the 35 years that I have been playing, 10 Fender USA, 7 Mex, 6 Squier and 11 MIJ Fender and a splattering of other makes (Gordon Smith, Greco, Aria etc). I lust after strats all the time but cannot make them work for me musically. I can make a telecaster work in almost every situation I am in, but not a strat (hence my building my own tele in a strat hardtail body). I always find the neck pickup too muddy, the bridge pickup too thin and shrill, so I stay on the middle pickup for the most part but keep catching it with my plectrum. I have tried out every make I could find on after market pickups and wiring looms to no avail. The only strats I can get to work for me to some degree are single humbucker strats in the vein of EVH, when I play rock orientated stuff, but even that isn't really my style for the most part, they don't have the snap that I like. I have had dozens of amps (a lot of different era Fenders to be fair, with some Roland, Peavey and Marshall) and effects units, preamps into PA, software amp modelling etc but always the same issues however I try to tweak it. I feel like the strat is like the Emperor's New Clothes... so many players seem to love them and use them but they just don't work for me. I know that I am the common denominator here and it is something about my style and how I approach it, but really... what am I missing? I don't have an unmodified strat. I see them as a modding platform primarily. The ones I have built are all HSS or HSH apart from the Nile Rodges sig. I'm not a fan of the bridge pickup and the older strats I've heard are so weak sounding that I have to adjust the entire rig around them. So my approach has been more about lifting the weaknesses of the strat up to the standard of my other guitars so using them doesn't reqiure so much faff. I like the neck pickup sound in my strats but they have dimarzio, seymour duncan and EMG pickups - apart from the Nile strat which has vintage Fender noiseless (and they are also a little feeble sounding even after they replaced some faithful replica fifties pickups which were so anaemic they were next to useless...so I won't be using them again).
EdwardMarlowe Posted Wednesday at 14:30 Posted Wednesday at 14:30 On 13/01/2026 at 07:05, Kiwi said: I don't have an unmodified strat. I see them as a modding platform primarily. The ones I have built are all HSS or HSH apart from the Nile Rodges sig. I'm not a fan of the bridge pickup and the older strats I've heard are so weak sounding that I have to adjust the entire rig around them. So my approach has been more about lifting the weaknesses of the strat up to the standard of my other guitars so using them doesn't reqiure so much faff. I like the neck pickup sound in my strats but they have dimarzio, seymour duncan and EMG pickups - apart from the Nile strat which has vintage Fender noiseless (and they are also a little feeble sounding even after they replaced some faithful replica fifties pickups which were so anaemic they were next to useless...so I won't be using them again). I've never cared for the "noiseless" pickups as to my ear the ones I've tried just felt somehow sterile. The idea of vintage noiseless seems odd to me.... I suppose the idea is the compromise of the earlier sound without the hum, but the real joy of a vintage style pickup for me is stuff like the hum. Unless you're going for full on hard metal, I think a lot of folks overemphasise hot-winding in pickups, but it's definitely true there's quite the wide range in singled coils - especially the early, hand-wound stuff where more variation happened. 1
EliasMooseblaster Posted yesterday at 15:52 Posted yesterday at 15:52 On 18/02/2026 at 14:30, EdwardMarlowe said: Unless you're going for full on hard metal, I think a lot of folks overemphasise hot-winding in pickups, but it's definitely true there's quite the wide range in singled coils - especially the early, hand-wound stuff where more variation happened. I used to have a set of "hot" humbuckers in my SG...not bad for coaxing more distortion out, but the clean tones never sounded quite right! A producer once told me that overwound pickups seemed a bit of a waste of time to him, "when there are so many easy ways to hit a preamp harder these days." I could have gone on about how the higher impedance changes the centre frequency of the circuit and therefore the overall tone, but I thought [a] he had a fair point, and [b] the people enthusiastically refitting their guitars with hot pickups probably weren't thinking about the nuances of LRC circuits... 1
EdwardMarlowe Posted 6 hours ago Posted 6 hours ago 18 hours ago, EliasMooseblaster said: I used to have a set of "hot" humbuckers in my SG...not bad for coaxing more distortion out, but the clean tones never sounded quite right! A producer once told me that overwound pickups seemed a bit of a waste of time to him, "when there are so many easy ways to hit a preamp harder these days." I could have gone on about how the higher impedance changes the centre frequency of the circuit and therefore the overall tone, but I thought [a] he had a fair point, and [b] the people enthusiastically refitting their guitars with hot pickups probably weren't thinking about the nuances of LRC circuits... What stuck with me from many years ago was an editorial in UK Guitarist magazine (I think now long gone; the last time I went looking, only "Guitar Techniques" still seems to exist). The essence of it was that these things are a trade off. As I recall, the exact phrase was "sure, that super-powered deathbucker in your lignium vitae plank will tear your brain out, but in term of following your every slap and tickle like a good Strat, forget it." A lot of it is, of course, horses for courses. The guitar a guy in a covers band who does whatever the equivalent of the top forty is now every weekend for paying punters likely has need of somewhat more versatile gear than a guy in an original metal band who has highly specialised stuff for his specific niche. The big revelation for me, though in the "sometimes less really is more" vein was back in the 90s when I first got my Sovtek Big Muff (one of the green ones, branded "Sovtek-Electro Harmonix" and made in Russia. Still got it in mint condition in the wooden box, I gather they're quite the collectible now. I suspect the only bit of gear I've ever bought that, adjusted for inflation, is worth more now that it was when I bought it!). I was initially horrified, thinking it was unusable, sounded nothing like the Hendrix sound and the rest of it. Then I turn it way down so it was basically a clean boost (which it does surprisingly well), and upped the gain just enough to suddenly find the magic. That's when I also started listening more closely to the guitar tracks on a lot of my favourite stuff, and realised that there's a whole lot less distortion gonig on there than I'd always assumed.
ezbass Posted 1 hour ago Posted 1 hour ago 4 hours ago, EdwardMarlowe said: That's when I also started listening more closely to the guitar tracks on a lot of my favourite stuff, and realised that there's a whole lot less distortion going on there than I'd always assumed. ^Very true. With regard to fuzz, I discovered that you can have it set up for searing, violin type lead sounds (I’m think Eric Johnson here) but, back the volume on the guitar off and it delivers a very nicely, slightly overdriven tone and most stops in between. In short, classic fuzzes clean up really nicely.
