I'm looking for SUPER-fat sound out of the Strat pickups. And I'm not looking for super-hot pickups. I want something that will stay clean and have that great neck/middle smoothness (yes, Knopfler, among others), and I DON'T want Texas Specials, or anything that hot. The S-90 is really just because I would never use a standard Strat or Tele bridge pup, so if I'm getting that neck and neck/middle tone I want, I'd like something in the bridge I could use, as well. Either S-90, or a Seymour Duncan Lil' 59. It would give me a fairly versatile guitar, I could play some clean rhythm with the Strat pups, and switch to the bridge for some biting lead/riff work.
I was thinking the Fralin 54's would be the best for me, I'm just wondering if a noiseless or stack would give me the same tone without the buzz. Probably not, eh? The one Strat I played with the cobalts sounded really good to me... so, eh, I dunno. It would probably be really really hard to find just a set of Cobalt pups right now. And while the S-1 does add some interesting options, I just wouldn't use it... you know me, the simpler the better!
And yes, this guitar will begin life as a Nashville Tele, sans B-bender... but I'll stick with the stock 5-way switching (called "Strat-O-Tone" or something like that on the Nashville) just because.
...and if you don't like it, you can suck on an egg.
The question is, do they stay crystal-clear clean? Or do they push a little into drive? I want fat AND clean. Which is a tough line to walk.
not at all, you just have to have them built right. I can tell you for a fact the Fralins are fat and ringing. They stay clean with the amp.
something around 5.9 to 6.4K maybe original 54's with a 5% overwind would be perfect. So would the blues. As long as you stay under 7.5K or so you are golden.
don't overlook the Dimarzio virtual vintage pups either.
My Girlfriend said to me..."How many guitars do you need?" and I replied...."How many pairs of shoes do you need?" She got really quiet.
They just built a reputation with the speed-metal freaks and bad 80's guitarists. My big beef is their stuff tends to be tailored for hi-gain applications.
...and if you don't like it, you can suck on an egg.
i like your idea for the tele, mig. i've also got an idea for a crazy tele/strat hybrid project. I want to get a recent american series strat neck - maple fingerboard. add some schaller locking tuners. Put that on a warmoth tele body with the pocket cut for a strat neck. tummy cut. routed for a strat pickup in the neck, p90 in the middle, and humbucker in the bridge. i'm open to ideas for pickups. i was thinking maybe a fralin blues special in the neck, underwound fralin p90 middle, but i'm not sure about the humbucker. a SD '59 maybe? splittable maybe. 5 way selector with a couple other switches for different wiring options. something that'll give me a huge range of tones. for the body wood, maybe poplar? something that'll be a good balance for the pickup combo. i don't want a heavy body though. finish it in a solid red with black pickguard.
any ideas or recommendations?
my life...you electrify my life. let's conspire to reignite...all the souls that would die just feel alive.
i like your idea for the tele, mig. i've also got an idea for a crazy tele/strat hybrid project. I want to get a recent american series strat neck - maple fingerboard. add some schaller locking tuners. Put that on a warmoth tele body with the pocket cut for a strat neck. tummy cut. routed for a strat pickup in the neck, p90 in the middle, and humbucker in the bridge. i'm open to ideas for pickups. i was thinking maybe a fralin blues special in the neck, underwound fralin p90 middle, but i'm not sure about the humbucker. a SD '59 maybe? splittable maybe. 5 way selector with a couple other switches for different wiring options. something that'll give me a huge range of tones. for the body wood, maybe poplar? something that'll be a good balance for the pickup combo. i don't want a heavy body though. finish it in a solid red with black pickguard.
any ideas or recommendations?
cool, a drop top with a natural binding would be awesome. Check out some of Tom Anderson Don Grosh and John Suhr guitars for ideas.
an SD 59 would be great, I love the Fralin Blues and then maybe a Rio Grande Bastard or a HD Z-90.
not poplar. please, not poplar.
look through the warmoth wood list and peruse, then maybe call the guys at USA Custom Guitars for input.
I'd say 2 piece Alder would be perfect it would be gorgeous with a flame maple top and not to heavy.
Black or white "Korina" would be awesome too.
My Girlfriend said to me..."How many guitars do you need?" and I replied...."How many pairs of shoes do you need?" She got really quiet.
cool, a drop top with a natural binding would be awesome. Check out some of Tom Anderson Don Grosh and John Suhr guitars for ideas.
an SD 59 would be great, I love the Fralin Blues and then maybe a Rio Grande Bastard or a HD Z-90.
not poplar. please, not poplar.
look through the warmoth wood list and peruse, then maybe call the guys at USA Custom Guitars for input.
I'd say 2 piece Alder would be perfect it would be gorgeous with a flame maple top and not to heavy.
Black or white "Korina" would be awesome too.
what don't you like about poplar? isn't it similar to alder, but slightly heavier? alder was my first thought though. thanks for the suggestions. i'm probably just going keep the body standard with a solid finish.
my life...you electrify my life. let's conspire to reignite...all the souls that would die just feel alive.
what don't you like about poplar? isn't it similar to alder, but slightly heavier? alder was my first thought though. thanks for the suggestions. i'm probably just going keep the body standard with a solid finish.
I guess poplar is fine, I just cringe when I hear it because I think of chinese squires. (laminated poplar) the stuff from warmoth would be better.
If you wanted to go cheaper basswood might be worth a look. It's soft, and will dent easily but it sounds pretty good to me all in all Mahogany is an option to but it gets kind of heavy.
In the end I'm just throwing crap out anyway. The best thing to do would be to see if you can't find a whole bunch of different wood guitars in the guitar shop, kind of like what you want and try it out. Some times it works, sometimes it's better on paper.
Bob would be the man in this thread.
My Girlfriend said to me..."How many guitars do you need?" and I replied...."How many pairs of shoes do you need?" She got really quiet.
I guess poplar is fine, I just cringe when I hear it because I think of chinese squires. (laminated poplar) the stuff from warmoth would be better.
If you wanted to go cheaper basswood might be worth a look. It's soft, and will dent easily but it sounds pretty good to me all in all Mahogany is an option to but it gets kind of heavy.
In the end I'm just throwing crap out anyway. The best thing to do would be to see if you can't find a whole bunch of different wood guitars in the guitar shop, kind of like what you want and try it out. Some times it works, sometimes it's better on paper.
Bob would be the man in this thread.
i guess this is the question to best ask. with the maple neck & fretboard, what wood along with combination of pickups will give me the best balance of getting the glassy, chimey sound from the neck strat pickup, growl from the p90, and warm, hard-driving sound from the humbucker? of course, my best option would be to just make three guitars, but this is much more fun and rare to have.
i'll have to set up a meeting with the bob.
my life...you electrify my life. let's conspire to reignite...all the souls that would die just feel alive.
i guess this is the question to best ask. with the maple neck & fretboard, what wood along with combination of pickups will give me the best balance of getting the glassy, chimey sound from the neck strat pickup, growl from the p90, and warm, hard-driving sound from the humbucker? of course, my best option would be to just make three guitars, but this is much more fun and rare to have.
i'll have to set up a meeting with the bob.
well, essentially, alder is probably the peanut butter and jelly wood. That guitar actually sounds pretty awesome with advanced electronics and switching options, it'd look killer too especially with a 1/8 inch thick drop top.
Tops that thin let the body wood tone come through.
you know what else would be badass....incorporating the uni-phase into the guitar too.
My Girlfriend said to me..."How many guitars do you need?" and I replied...."How many pairs of shoes do you need?" She got really quiet.
i guess this is the question to best ask. with the maple neck & fretboard, what wood along with combination of pickups will give me the best balance of getting the glassy, chimey sound from the neck strat pickup, growl from the p90, and warm, hard-driving sound from the humbucker? of course, my best option would be to just make three guitars, but this is much more fun and rare to have.
i'll have to set up a meeting with the bob.
I don't think we need a meeting,,, I think we need a road trip to find wood!!
It's tough to tell what wood will sound good anymore. New growth wood isn't as dense as old growth wood, so , since we've managed to decimate our landscape of all the good stuff, they try to sell newer and more inferior wood. For the most part, older wood has more resonance to it than newer.
If you really want a piece of wood to be right, you have to feel it and bang on it to get that "ring". In my basement, I have some old nicely figured Maple from an old bench, and some old Mahogany, recycled from a boat.It's just waiting for me to get cracking with a jigsaw and a sander to make something. I think that's where the best guitar wood might be now. Reused stuff. I don't want to use rainforest wood, because I've seen how much of the forest has disappeared! :eek:
How about this, Telesonic: A 2 piece slab for the body, glued end to end. A piece of alder for the front half neck connection for the stratlike neck pickup, up to the middle of the middle pickup with the p-90,,, then a thinner piece of mahogany from the middle of the neck pickup to back half of the body. That'll be half and half for the middle p90 and mahogany for the humbucker Then put like a half inch of Maple on the back half, and a 1/4 inch on the front half of the top. Poifect!!! A StratsPaul!
You know,,,,,,,,,, hmm,,,,,,,, that actually ain't a bad idea!
The other difference is that a Strat gets some of that ring from the tremelo and the springs, where some of the power of the Tele and Les Paul are from the solid connections where the strings meet the body. I gotta think about that one!
Be kind, man
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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Comments
I was thinking the Fralin 54's would be the best for me, I'm just wondering if a noiseless or stack would give me the same tone without the buzz. Probably not, eh? The one Strat I played with the cobalts sounded really good to me... so, eh, I dunno. It would probably be really really hard to find just a set of Cobalt pups right now. And while the S-1 does add some interesting options, I just wouldn't use it... you know me, the simpler the better!
And yes, this guitar will begin life as a Nashville Tele, sans B-bender... but I'll stick with the stock 5-way switching (called "Strat-O-Tone" or something like that on the Nashville) just because.
The question is, do they stay crystal-clear clean? Or do they push a little into drive? I want fat AND clean. Which is a tough line to walk.
cool, the quarter pounds would be cool too I'd think.
The duncan stacks would be perfect in an S-1 style system.
they are 4 conductor right?
not at all, you just have to have them built right. I can tell you for a fact the Fralins are fat and ringing. They stay clean with the amp.
something around 5.9 to 6.4K maybe original 54's with a 5% overwind would be perfect. So would the blues. As long as you stay under 7.5K or so you are golden.
don't overlook the Dimarzio virtual vintage pups either.
yes they are.
I don't do DiMarzio.
Yes, I'm an elitist bastard, and yes, they make good pups.
But I have principles.
they're as clean as the amp is. i don't find them muddy. i just find them rich.
what's up with Dimarzio that maybe I should know?
They just built a reputation with the speed-metal freaks and bad 80's guitarists. My big beef is their stuff tends to be tailored for hi-gain applications.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=38083&item=7308995977&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
any ideas or recommendations?
cool, a drop top with a natural binding would be awesome. Check out some of Tom Anderson Don Grosh and John Suhr guitars for ideas.
an SD 59 would be great, I love the Fralin Blues and then maybe a Rio Grande Bastard or a HD Z-90.
not poplar. please, not poplar.
look through the warmoth wood list and peruse, then maybe call the guys at USA Custom Guitars for input.
I'd say 2 piece Alder would be perfect it would be gorgeous with a flame maple top and not to heavy.
Black or white "Korina" would be awesome too.
what don't you like about poplar? isn't it similar to alder, but slightly heavier? alder was my first thought though. thanks for the suggestions. i'm probably just going keep the body standard with a solid finish.
I guess poplar is fine, I just cringe when I hear it because I think of chinese squires. (laminated poplar) the stuff from warmoth would be better.
If you wanted to go cheaper basswood might be worth a look. It's soft, and will dent easily but it sounds pretty good to me all in all Mahogany is an option to but it gets kind of heavy.
In the end I'm just throwing crap out anyway. The best thing to do would be to see if you can't find a whole bunch of different wood guitars in the guitar shop, kind of like what you want and try it out. Some times it works, sometimes it's better on paper.
Bob would be the man in this thread.
i guess this is the question to best ask. with the maple neck & fretboard, what wood along with combination of pickups will give me the best balance of getting the glassy, chimey sound from the neck strat pickup, growl from the p90, and warm, hard-driving sound from the humbucker? of course, my best option would be to just make three guitars, but this is much more fun and rare to have.
i'll have to set up a meeting with the bob.
well, essentially, alder is probably the peanut butter and jelly wood. That guitar actually sounds pretty awesome with advanced electronics and switching options, it'd look killer too especially with a 1/8 inch thick drop top.
Tops that thin let the body wood tone come through.
you know what else would be badass....incorporating the uni-phase into the guitar too.
I don't think we need a meeting,,, I think we need a road trip to find wood!!
It's tough to tell what wood will sound good anymore. New growth wood isn't as dense as old growth wood, so , since we've managed to decimate our landscape of all the good stuff, they try to sell newer and more inferior wood. For the most part, older wood has more resonance to it than newer.
If you really want a piece of wood to be right, you have to feel it and bang on it to get that "ring". In my basement, I have some old nicely figured Maple from an old bench, and some old Mahogany, recycled from a boat.It's just waiting for me to get cracking with a jigsaw and a sander to make something. I think that's where the best guitar wood might be now. Reused stuff. I don't want to use rainforest wood, because I've seen how much of the forest has disappeared! :eek:
How about this, Telesonic: A 2 piece slab for the body, glued end to end. A piece of alder for the front half neck connection for the stratlike neck pickup, up to the middle of the middle pickup with the p-90,,, then a thinner piece of mahogany from the middle of the neck pickup to back half of the body. That'll be half and half for the middle p90 and mahogany for the humbucker Then put like a half inch of Maple on the back half, and a 1/4 inch on the front half of the top. Poifect!!! A StratsPaul!
You know,,,,,,,,,, hmm,,,,,,,, that actually ain't a bad idea!
The other difference is that a Strat gets some of that ring from the tremelo and the springs, where some of the power of the Tele and Les Paul are from the solid connections where the strings meet the body. I gotta think about that one!
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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