The title is speaking just from my own experience, I have no arguments with those who can get a good jazz tone from a strat. But I can't really - probably could get my strat to produce something "OK", but it's still kind of starting from the wrong place for me - too quacky, maybe too much in the upper mids, hard to describe... Nice tones, but just not right for jazz, which is a big interest for me. My tele, on the other hand - plug that in to my Polytone amp, and it sounds great for jazz on the neck pickup. Still a single coil tone, and not lacking in sparkle or detail, but it has that jazz kind of tone - again apologies, I find it nearly impossible to describe the difference in tone, but whatever it is, it makes all the difference to me.
Specs wise, the tele neck pickup is 7.0K, wound with 43 gauge wire, alnico 3 magnets, and has the metal cover (brass?). The strat pickup is 5.9K, 42 gauge wire, also alnico 3 magnets. Not sure how that compares in terms of number of winds, given the different gauge wire types used.
So, since I'm in the early stages of building a second strat, I'm wondering if I can't make the neck pickup better for jazz, and more like the pickup on my tele. If I had a strat pickup made to similar specs to the one on my tele (but no metal cover, so it still looked like a strat pickup) would that do the trick? I'm thinking alnico 2 or 3 magnets, and maybe 7 to 8K ish resistance with the 43 gauge wire.
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"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein