Help getting good strat sounds

[guitarmike2107]

I have a cheap 50th anniversary squire strat that I bought a few years ago, It sounds great clean but is just a blatty mess distorted, particularly the neck pickup.
I have changed the pickups to Seymour Duncuns SSL1 for the mid and neck and an SSL5 for the bridge.

I have been working on the Strat again recently to try and make it a more usable guitar, I found they had used 500k pots, so I changed those out to 250k pots which has helped the harshness, but it is still bright.
And the guitar is still really “plucky” and the bass side still turns into mush unless I turn the highs up allot, which then just overpowers the bass and doesn’t help the highs
It also seems really sensitive to any fret buzz.. so I guess I need to try and raise the action.

The pickups have staggered pole pieces, so I wondered if they were not great for distorted tones, but then quickly noticed many strats with the same set up

Anybody got any thoughts to help me or is this Strat destined for the bin.

Also its probably important to note that I have always been a LP player, I also own an SG with P90 fitted , both guitars sound great through any amp.
I also recently bought a Fender Telecaster and this thing sounds great compared to the Strat.

[pdf64]

Have you tried heavier strings on it? 9s can sound horrid on a strat. At least 10s, ideally 11s, tuning down to get acceptable string tension as necessary. An increase in string tension will often enable the action to be lowered, as the strings don't have to be pushed as far across (to reach pitch) before they fret out (due to fretboard radius).

[guitarmike2107]

Thanks

It came with 9's fitted, I have since fitted 10's. Something to try anyway.

Thanks

[cbarrow7625]

Does it have a trem bridge? Have you tried pulling the trem bridge tight against the body by tightening the claw and/or using more springs? I find that it really tightens up the sound for me. I second the motion for heavier strings and higher action. Gotta get that fret buzz out of there. What about pickup height? Have you tried adjusting the pickups to different heights & tilts? It might help to shield the control & pickup cavities as well. You never know what the guitar is picking up from your playing area.

[David Schwab]

Turn down the treble when using it distorted! That's why it sounds "blatty". You can't use the same tone setting clean and distorted.

Strats sound fine distorted as you can hear on the many thousands of recordings done with them.

String gauge and action and trem springs have nothing to do with any of this. You only tighten the springs to counteract the tension of the strings.

The problem is using too bright a tone distorted. This is why humbuckers sound smoother distorted. Tone controls help, but of course the Stat doesn't have one on the bridge pickup, which is dumb.

[guitarmike2107]

thanks guys, I am not a "strat" player so thats good advice about turning down the tone control, thanks.

I have it sounding much better, with all the advice here, raised the action, ended up putting a block behind the vibrato plate, so thats never moving agian, I still need to try the tone control turned down on the neck pickup to see how that works... over all its getting there, the bridge pickup is sounding good actually, I have wired the lower tone control up for the bridge pickup

cheers

Michael

[guitarmike2107]

Just to let you know, further improvement has been gained by dropping the pickup heights a little, I didn’t know that humbuckers are constructed differently to single coils.

Its actually starting to sound good

Mike