What can 'do Strat' that isn't a Strat?

Zoolooter

This tele has a middle pickup. Not a bad approximation.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MESLzBSbPZk

Funkfingers

mark123 said:

JD50 said:

Nashville Tele?

this ^^^^

I have to disagree with this - especially after having tried several permutations of it.

The stamped steel T bridge and the characteristics of vintage-style T pickups alter the in-between sounds too much for them to be entirely convincing. (Yes, I am a fussy basket!)


ICBM has neatly encapsulated the compromises. The pickup types and positioning are key to the overall effect. This is why short scale Fender guitars, modified by adding a central pickup, fail to sound convincingly Stratty.

One thing that might fulfil the brief would be a Fishman Fluence humbucker, similar to the Devein Townsend signature model, only with the rod magnet polepieces on the inside coils for the sake of the split coils faux Stratocaster sound on a twenty four fret guitar. 

TTBZ

If it's gonna be your only guitar I would maybe look for something with humbuckers that split well. It won't sound the same as strat singlecoils but it'll give you that sort of feel. I may be in the minority but don't really think a standard SSS strat (or Tele for that matter) is that versatile. Yeah you can play all the stuff on it but it'll always have that twangy fendery sound which I find distracting. I find humbuckers to have more of a generic sound where it's harder to pinpoint the specific guitar used, which to my ear slots better into more genres.

HSH with some decent mid powered humbuckers (so the splits aren't too weak) would probably be the most versatile, or HSS if like me you're not that arsed about neck humbucker tones. My own strat will probably just get the H-S treatment when I get it back since I hate those 2&4 sounds and always catch my pick on a middle pickup.

Trude

Supro Hampton. 3 Gold Foil singles with a standard 5 way switch and two knobs (master vol & tone).
It gets great quack tones but without that springy sound from the trem, which is such a big part of the cliched Strat character. I bought one precisely because I also tire of actual Strats pretty quickly. This scratches that itch, and they're also pretty rare to see

imalrightjack

Bucket said:

Sassafras said:

Musicman Albert Lee with single coils?

Good shout... very good shout.

Agreed.

A PRS 513 or 509 will do a passable job.  But the woods are way different to a normal Strat.  I had a PRS DC3 which was very nice - and they really don't sell for silly amounts.

RaymondLin

PRS Brent Mason, 305?

5 way switch, volume, tone, 3 single coils, maple neck, 25.5 scale, trem.  The biggest difference is the thickness of the body and a set neck.

simonhpieman

TTBZ said:

If it's gonna be your only guitar I would maybe look for something with humbuckers that split well. It won't sound the same as strat singlecoils but it'll give you that sort of feel. I may be in the minority but don't really think a standard SSS strat (or Tele for that matter) is that versatile. Yeah you can play all the stuff on it but it'll always have that twangy fendery sound which I find distracting. I find humbuckers to have more of a generic sound where it's harder to pinpoint the specific guitar used, which to my ear slots better into more genres.

HSH with some decent mid powered humbuckers (so the splits aren't too weak) would probably be the most versatile, or HSS if like me you're not that arsed about neck humbucker tones. My own strat will probably just get the H-S treatment when I get it back since I hate those 2&4 sounds and always catch my pick on a middle pickup.

I agree with this to a point - I think having the bottom tone control wired to the bridge pickup helps a ton. You can then roll the tone off to around 7 and get some nice humbucker tones. The one Strat I've got accidentally came with that (I didn't do my research properly, obviously) but I can't see how having the tone controls set as normal can possibly be better.

GavRichList

I'll probably get shot down for this, but there are some strat-like tones to be got out of a Jaguar too. The thinner, sparkly end of a strat isnt too dissimilar to the both pickups sound of a Jag. 

Voxman

Tough one as Strats are so unique sounding especially in those inbetween positions. 

As @ICBM rightly pointed out, it's very difficult with split humbuckers.  I have three guitars that sort of do it. My PRS Cu24 with 5 way rotary (it captures one Strat like tone that isn't the same in the 3 position push pull variant), a Patrick Eggle Berlin Pro, and a Yamaha 611VFM which has a HB and  P90 (which is a single coil of course). All give a reasonably convincing and very useable approximation but none sound exactly like a Strat. 

ICBM

simonhpieman said:

I agree with this to a point - I think having the bottom tone control wired to the bridge pickup helps a ton. You can then roll the tone off to around 7 and get some nice humbucker tones. The one Strat I've got accidentally came with that (I didn't do my research properly, obviously) but I can't see how having the tone controls set as normal can possibly be better.

I like having the lower tone control connected to both the middle and bridge pickups, as modern US Strats come as stock. I don't like it *only* on the bridge pickup, with no tone control on the middle - that makes the middle pickup alone sound too shouty and unbalanced with the other two, and means that the two in-between positions are more similar to each other because the neck+middle no longer has both tone controls operating on it.

But it does work, depending on the rest of your set-up... I once heard someone get a very convincing Santana 'Smooth' tone - done with a PRS originally - using a USA Std on the bridge with the tone control rolled down, a Tube Screamer and a Boogie amp.

Snags

+1 to @JohnPerry's suggesting of the Reverend Jetstream 390. And mine's even been withdrawn from sale so it's not like I'm plugging it.

It's not a Strat, but it can do a passable imitation, and also cover much broader ground. The bass contour thing gives it a lot of flexibility.

EricTheWeary

EricTheWeary said:

https://i.imgur.com/nxu5GIF.jpg

There is a kind of serious point to these which as the DePintos are used by Los Straitjackets who were previously strat players and if the OP finds strats a bit dull well these aren’t. 

https://youtu.be/1H75hBXvjsw

Sync

The blunt reality is; if you want that mid in between pickup vibey fender straty twang, even the low end squier strats can do it better than some very expensive competition trying to do it all.

Otherwise, if you want the same sound but not fender on the headstock, plenty of luthier / bespoke superstrat options specced with sc pickups, strat spacing / wiring etc. Just don't expect much change from a decent ££££. 

Pabcrane

The Ibanez Yvette Young

thegummy

ICBM said:

thegummy said:

I'd wonder if the 24 fret neck pickup position would stop the split coil sound like a Strat neck.

A bit, but not as much as the 22-fret position stops the split inner coils sounding like a Strat in-between. The spacing is quite critical for that, without extra JD-type trickery.

The other big problem with splitting humbuckers is that they just don’t really sound the same as Fender-type single coils. There are some humbuckers that get around this by being like two Fender pickups - eg Duncan Stag Mag, Oil City Brassknuckle - but they don’t sound like normal humbuckers when not split.

Basically it depends which sound is your priority and which you can accept an approximation of. If you really want true Strat neck and neck/middle sounds, you need true Strat-like pickups there, whatever is at the bridge.

The first "adult" guitar I got was an SE Custom 24 and at the time I loved the coil splits cause I could only compare them to the full humbuckers. I actually liked the outer coils in the middle position though.

But when I got a Strat I couldn't then go back to the coil splits, they just seemed like poor imitations of the Strat pickups.

thegummy

gazrichards said:

What is it about strats you don’t like?
I’m in a similar position in that I don’t like trems really, don’t like the 3 pot system on a strat, a master tone and vol would be way better and less in the way and don’t really like the jack input on a strat. 

I used to have a musicman cutlass that was brilliant but I didn’t use it enough to justify the real estate value of it. I now use a charvel dk24 which is brilliant too but I’m maybe having similar thoughts about if I can justify keeping it

As much as I love Strats - they're by far my favourite guitar - I do agree about the 2 pots vs 3 looking better and preferring the functionality and also with the jack being the unusual thing separately on the body rather than on the pickguard or, even better, on the side like a Les Paul.

The Nick Johnson Schecter has both those changes and they do look a lot better in practice.

thegummy

ICBM said:

simonhpieman said:

I agree with this to a point - I think having the bottom tone control wired to the bridge pickup helps a ton. You can then roll the tone off to around 7 and get some nice humbucker tones. The one Strat I've got accidentally came with that (I didn't do my research properly, obviously) but I can't see how having the tone controls set as normal can possibly be better.

I like having the lower tone control connected to both the middle and bridge pickups, as modern US Strats come as stock. I don't like it *only* on the bridge pickup, with no tone control on the middle - that makes the middle pickup alone sound too shouty and unbalanced with the other two, and means that the two in-between positions are more similar to each other because the neck+middle no longer has both tone controls operating on it.

But it does work, depending on the rest of your set-up... I once heard someone get a very convincing Santana 'Smooth' tone - done with a PRS originally - using a USA Std on the bridge with the tone control rolled down, a Tube Screamer and a Boogie amp.

That's actually interesting to hear - the main reason I like a master tone is to keep it simpler but I assumed a secondary benefit would be to avoid one of the notch positions going through two tone controls. But I think you're saying you actually like what that does to the sound as it makes it more of a variation between the two?

Might need to try out the separate tone controls at some point in that case.

ICBM

thegummy said:

The first "adult" guitar I got was an SE Custom 24 and at the time I loved the coil splits cause I could only compare them to the full humbuckers. I actually liked the outer coils in the middle position though.

But when I got a Strat I couldn't then go back to the coil splits, they just seemed like poor imitations of the Strat pickups.

With the extra resistors PRS fit in the DGT, it’s closer - but it will still never be the same if you know what a real Strat pickup sounds like. The Stag Mag/Brassknuckle type pickups are very close though... but you then lose the true Gibson-type humbucker sound.

merlin

Sassafras said:

Musicman Albert Lee with single coils?

+1. I have a hardtail versionand it is bloody fantastic.

@DrCornelius has this back up for sale. 

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/174393/back-fs-final-price-drop-john-page-classic-ashburn-special#latest

TTBZ

simonhpieman said:

TTBZ said:

If it's gonna be your only guitar I would maybe look for something with humbuckers that split well. It won't sound the same as strat singlecoils but it'll give you that sort of feel. I may be in the minority but don't really think a standard SSS strat (or Tele for that matter) is that versatile. Yeah you can play all the stuff on it but it'll always have that twangy fendery sound which I find distracting. I find humbuckers to have more of a generic sound where it's harder to pinpoint the specific guitar used, which to my ear slots better into more genres.

HSH with some decent mid powered humbuckers (so the splits aren't too weak) would probably be the most versatile, or HSS if like me you're not that arsed about neck humbucker tones. My own strat will probably just get the H-S treatment when I get it back since I hate those 2&4 sounds and always catch my pick on a middle pickup.

I agree with this to a point - I think having the bottom tone control wired to the bridge pickup helps a ton. You can then roll the tone off to around 7 and get some nice humbucker tones. The one Strat I've got accidentally came with that (I didn't do my research properly, obviously) but I can't see how having the tone controls set as normal can possibly be better.

Yeah, I remember that being a good compromise when I had my old SSS strat. Actually can't wait to get my strat back now so I can mess with this stuff again been listening to loads of Pearl Jam and want that McCready lead tone.