Stratocaster Tone

menamestom

ICBM said:

CasperCaster said:

As someone who always uses a bit of dirt I forgot a very cheap mod - a tubescreamer (or clone). 

If I remember rightly, Chris Rea said he was shocked at how weak his famous 60s Strat sounded when he heard it without his Tube Screamer and Boss compressor, after decades of always using them...

Yes but I bet the cheap Chinese ceramics would have sounded weaker.

Imo, you can get a decent tone out of any alnico rod strat style pickup around 6k ish but the ceramics are never going to sound the same, Tubescreamer or not.....

JayGee

I have no idea what pickups went where when, but, if Caspercaster is right about this particular guitar having the ceramic bar magnet pickups then it would certain explain the “brittle and thin” bit. My (somewhat older) Japanese Strat had something which very much like that fitted and certainly fitted that description sound-wise... Fortunately when I had the opportunity to A-B it against some much, much, much more expensive guitars in Peach, explained what I was looking for, and bemoaned the fact that my guitar felt perfect for me but what a shame it was that it sounded like fingernails on a blackboard John saw fit to explain how and why the pickups in my guitar we’re Just Wrong and suggested that it might be worth trying out something like a set of Bare Knuckles Slowhands in my guitar rather than immediately dropping £1500-£2000 (it was quite a few years ago) on a Custom Shop Strat...

And he was absolutely right, my guitar became the guitar I’d always wanted it to be overnight.

Fortunately you don’t have to pay BK (or S-D, or whatever) money these days to get a better than decent set of Strat pickups, there’s a lot of choice, Iron Gear will get you 90% of the way there for very little money or someone like Ash at Oil City will do you something as good as you’ll find anywhere for a bit more.

Have a look under the pickup covers, if what you see doesn’t look right (there are loads of pictures around of what a Strat pickup should look like, @TheGuitarWeasel’s Oil City site is a good start) then you need to sort that out before you look at anything else... 

HPurser

Lots of great info here. Rewiring to master vol and master tone is a must, IMO. That also frees up the third pot for fading in the nonselected pickup, for Tele-ish bridge+neck tones.

If you try all of the excellent advice in the previous posts and it turns out the pups just suck, I highly recommend The Creamery 'Extra Width' set for P90 levels of bass. Forget 50s sounds if you go that route, however. 

prlgmnr

stimpsonslostson

Thanks for the help folks. 
It's good to hear that my plan of action is reasonable & that there might be a good solution. 
I’ll work through the options gradually & see what help, as I said Im keen to keep the stratty character- i bought it as I’ve been listening to RHCP, Pearl Jam, SRV & Biffy Clyro so I KNOW the tone I’m hearing in my head is in a strat somewhere!

For now. I’ll dig out my Bad Monkey OD and see how much that helps.Then a bridge tone control is going to be a must & I’ll stick some heavier strings on at the same time, once that’s done I’ll start adjusting pickup heights. 

Im not averse to putting in new pickups if it’ll help (there are a couple of interesting sets in the classifieds), but think that option will wait until I’ve exhausted the other options. 

HAL9000

ICBM said:

CasperCaster said:

As someone who always uses a bit of dirt I forgot a very cheap mod - a tubescreamer (or clone). 

If I remember rightly, Chris Rea said he was shocked at how weak his famous 60s Strat sounded when he heard it without his Tube Screamer and Boss compressor, after decades of always using them...

^ This.

Strats can have a tendency to sound somewhat ‘thin’ - particularly through a clean or cleanish amp. It’s just the way Strats are. To my mind it’s both a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that they can do fantastic clean sounds, especially in the middle position. The flip side, though, is that often Strats can lack any real ‘punch’ to their sound unless there’s a bit of overdrive in there somewhere.