Searching for that great Strat tone

[Chevy]

Hi guys,

I live in the sticks and don't have ready access to large stores where I can try a lotta guitars out... hoping you might be able to help me figure this out.

I'm trying to find/get a Strat that will be able to reproduce some great tones a la SRV, Jimi, and others I've heard. There is a certain "hollowness", chime, that I just don't hear on most if not all the Strats I've played. But every now and then I hear a song/ recording or sound byte and Woah Man!!! That's the shit! You can really hear this particular characteristic when SRV is playing at the 12th position, perhaps hits the G and B strings on the 14th fret and then does an aggressive vibrato on the G string (and perhaps B as well) at the 12th fret . Does this communicate?
I've owned a 2004 '54 Strat Anniversary Ash model, with '54 Custom Shop pickups, but it didn't have that tone I was looking for. Currently have a 2006 Ash Strat with '57/62 pickups, and I get some of that "hollowness" (if that's the word..?) I'm looking for.... but still not that really great tone....
Never had the chance to play a Fender SRV Strat..... seems "obvious" it should be able to get some of those tones out of it.... is that what I need to get? Or just Texas Special pickups? (I doubt that's the answer by itself).
I know the thing about the tone is in the hands, too, but hey, just about every guitar I've ever picked up has it's own personality, too.
Not sure if you know what I'm after..... if you do.... let me know!
Thanks kindly,
Chevy.

[eggle]

if yr after that "typical" strat tone then i wouldnt by an ash bodied guitar for a start, there going to sound a lot brighter. as for getting that KILLER tone, let me know when you do get it, as thats what all guitars players crave
A quality guitar helps but it will only help, tone is soooo many things, some things that u cant explain :-) peace

[eggle]

just for the record, after buying a blade rh-4 (thats a sen ash body) i wouldnt own a fender strat again, sooooooo many options via the VSC that im pretty sure you could get what ever strat sound you like. think of the best strat you have heard then give it steroids, then you have the rh4

[Robert M. Martinelli]

We could fill the forum' s server HDs trying to figure this subject out, but one thing must be made clear - for a guitar one thing is to possess a certain vibe, one completely different thing is to "simulate" other guitars' vibe by means of electronic devices such as preamps, equalisers and the like - Blade guitars are exceptionally well built and very versatile indeed, but the way their sound is built is considerably different from a Strat - Blade guitars have low impedance pickups ( to keep noise and hum down ) and then a preamp with filters to EMULATE various frequency responses - Strats have higher impedance pickups ( with all their pros and cons ).

Since you' re after "that old strat vibe" I' ll try to make clear some of the factors that create it.

First of all - forget for a moment about the mystique of vintage - Don' t misunderstand me, I am a collector so I like very much vintage guitars, but Jimi was playing stock strats bought new, in fact his most famous strats were late 60s ones ( '69 ), so the woods were not thirty or forty years old....

Secondly - a pickup behaves much like a RLC filter, so it can "emphasize" or cut some frequencies or others, and it' s all about compromise; Let' s analyze why:

The winding has a certain numbers of turns, but the wire resistivity is not zero, so the higher the number of turns, the higher the DC resistance ( which affects bandwidth, as we will see... ). Increasing the windings number to increase the output means you' ll have a higher inductance and parasitic capacitance, which in turn will lower the resonant frequency ( which we can think of as the pickup' s "preferred" frequency ).

Old Fender pickups sound "glassy" and "sparky" because they were designed ( by trial and error ) with low winding inductance/resistance/parasitic capacitance, thus having a very high resonant peak and a pretty narrow bandwidth ( which makes for "character" ). The drawback of such approach is that you need powerful magnets to get a decent output, this is the reason why on strats and the like strings have to be kept not so close to the magnets lest the attack/sustain/envelope of notes gets altered.

Typical values for old strat pickups are a number of windings around 7800 (AWG 42), a DC resistance around 5,7 / 6 KOhms, inductances around 2,2 Henries and parasitic capacitances around 100 pF. ( usually this last changes a bit between scatter ( "hand guided" ) wound and pickups wound entirely by automatic machines - no one - never - hand wound pickups by the letter, winding one this way is a shortcut to a major nervous breakdown, can you imagine winding THOUSANDS this way? ).

Overwound strat pickups tend to have a higher output, and to be fatter ( but muddier ), so I would not recommend windings over 9-10000 turns ( around 7800 in the stock strat pickup as stated above ). Jimi had a very young tech ( named Larry DiMarzio, does this ring a bell ?) doing such things; Texas specials follow the same principle, if you go over that the pickup will lose too much of its character, because the DC resistance increase will also lower the Q factor and the bandwidth will be larger.The inductance increases with the square of the winding number, so a 20% increase in the windings number yields a 44% increase in inductance, but the resonant peak frequency will be significantly lower.

The "hollowness" you talk about can also be heard when strat pickups are paralleled ( switch pos. 2 and 4 ) this is because the equivalent inductance gets to 1/4 and the equiv. resistance to half, and since the position of the paralleled pickups is different, some frequencies get attenuated being out of phase mechanically, thus creating this "hollowness" ( such effect can also be heard on Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler first albums ).

Woods - As said above, pickups act like filters, so it' s very important to understand pickups cannot "generate" a frequency that was not already there, but only let pass through the ones within their bandwidth and attenuate the ones out of it, so if you' re after SRV of Jimi, to get closer to what you need you' ll also need a Strat made of similar woods.

Lastly, remember load is a key factor for a pickup, because you have to add the amp' s input circuit constants to the equation, the cord is important too, remember that a 10 ft cord has a parasitic capacitance of about 330 Pf, and this means the longer the cord, the more highs will be attenuated ( it' s just like having a capacitor between the signal and GND ).

I know this description is far from being complete, it will not answer your question, but I hope I gave you some good points to get a good understanding of the key factors in creating a sound you' re after.

Best regards

Bob

[Regis]

Ok, I'm not trying to be facetious here, but this ain't brain surgery.

Get a strat with vintage pickups, there are a multitude of them on the market. Some say SRV had pickups that were slightly overwound, if you believe that then get those kind of pickups. I like a hot pickup in the bridge and vintage in the other two positions.

No one has mentioned what kind of amps, and that has a lot more to do with those tones than the guitar, IMHO.

A strat through a vintage AB763 Fender like a Super Reverb or Vibroverb will get you there. I know a guy that gets killer SRV tone through a Vibrolux. I have a Pro Reverb that can do it too. Don't forget the Tube Screamer!!

Hendrix used Marshalls, of course. Run your strat through a Plexi and there ya go. When he wasn't using a fuzz his tone was actually pretty clean compared to modern standards, for an example listen to "Castles Made of Sand".

Hendrix also used Fender amps, a lot of his tones attributed to Marshalls were probably coming from a Showman.

[jrfrond]

Without getting overly mystical here, I will say that all Strats have common characteristics, and then there are myriad subtleties, and THEN there are some that are just IT. Yes, much of the tone is also in the hands and touch of the player as well, in addition to the amp and effects used, if any.

I've built a lot of Strat clones over the years, and there are some things I have found necessary for a "good" Strat sound:

- Single-coil pickups, because all of the humbucking designs, no matter who makes them, just do not have the right vibe. Some come close, like Kinman, but you need the SC pickups for it to cook.

- Vintage, non-locking tremolo, the 6-screw kind with bent steel saddles and a GOOD, STEEL trem block. The current crop (crap?) of die-cast garbage trem blocks really ruins good tone. Get a complete Callaham tremolo system and don't think about it.

- Keep the headstock light too. Use the standard Kluson-style Safe-T-Post tuners, and forego cast or locking tuners.

- Part of the mellow SRV sound is also the rosewood fingerboard and heavy-gauge strings. The Strat is a chameleon of sorts. The Hendrix sound was toppier, with his affinity for maple neck and slinky strings.

- Alder is many times a better choice for Strats than swamp ash for "that" sound. Swamp ash is great wood, but to me, it is better suited to Tele's.

If you are going store-bought, you just have to keep trying Strats until you find one that has "it". If you are assembling one, just be aware that, even if you buy all premium wood parts, tremolo, pickups, etc., you might make a good guitar, maybe even an excellent one, but you won't know if it has "it" until you string it up and give it a whirl. It may, and it may not. That is why tone monsters like SRV have their "babies" that cannot be replaced. Also note that "it" is VERY subjective, and varies from player to player.

[Chevy]

Killer tone.... yes

Guys,
Thanks loads for the info and feedback..... didn't know if I'd just get a few smacks upside the head and be sent on my way , so the info is appreciated!

Ok, first off, yes, I'm after a killer Strat tone.

Eggle; some sagely words. I'd like to try a Blade for sure, but that's the kicker... no way to just try it here unless I buy it first.

Vox Rules; lots of good info, thankyou! The Texas Specials seem to fall right into the neighborhood you describe: Bridge DC Resistance: 6.50K - 7.10K
Inductance: 3.58Henries, Middle Pickup: DC Resistance: 6.5K Inductance: 2.6Henries, Neck Pickup: DC Resistance: 6.2K, Inductance: 2.4Henries. Does that mean that with these pickups, an alder body, and the right amp, I "should" be able to get the tones I'm looking for? I've noticed nobody has offered up a certain combo of pickups, specific guitar, and amp that would get me to sonic nervana.

Regis: I've heard plenty of "nice" sounding Strats and recordings, but not so many with that killer tone I'm looking for. So, it might not be brain surgery, but then again it's not all that common an occurrence either, from what I gather. FYI I've got a '68 Bandmaster (and '70 Vibrolux as well). (I also was using Van Zandt Vintage plus pickups in an old MIJ strat I have as well. This was no killer tone... ).
Good point about the Tube Screamer.... not sure, but Stevie didn't have his on all the time, did he? This friend of yours with the great SRV tone out of a Vibrolux, can you tell me what the signal chain is from pickups to amp (including make up of Strat)? Thanks!

The things that really puzzles me is I had that nice 2004 Ash '54 Anniversary Strat with '54 pickups, and it sounded very bright and thin in comparison to other Strats, and no killer tone I was after. Pronouncedly thin sounding. Other than the Ash body, it should've really been the ticket, no? This guitar was supposed to emulate the '54's.

I've also played a new John Mayer strat off the rack at G.C; very resonant, very bright and chimy, but again not that magic tone I was after. Perhaps the amp I played it thru was a dog...I forget.... and then you know, I've heard one of John's onstage live recordings, getting some very cool old school Strat "hollow, chimy" tones out of his guitar. Perhaps close to what I'm after.

I really dig the full-range sound, lots of high end but not biting, lots of lows but not too mushy or muddy. Plus that "hollowness" and chime that I don't know any other way of describing. You guys have me thinking about fooling with the tone settings a bit more, perhaps a screamer or clone.
Any comments about the Van Zandt Vintage + pickups? Any other specific pickups that would do the trick? Fralen? Lollar? Anyone try the SRV Strat (stock)...... any comments?

Thanks loads, gents!!!!
Have an awesome weekend.

[Chevy]

Thanks JR....

Thanks John,

That's the sorta info I was looking for.... your experiences with putting Strats together is phenomenal. Nothing like doing it a hundred times to learn about it. Very interesting that you can put one together just as you want, and it still doesn't have "it".
That totally makes sense that certain pros have a guitar that's their "baby" as well (although Hendrix used to go thru them like cordwood.... but perhaps he also went thru a bunch in the studio to find a good one).
And I need to try a bunch to find one that has some magic. I kinda already resolved I needed to do that, but being in the sticks I was hoping for some other recourse...
Very cool about the trem block! I kinda figured out the Alder thing....

OK, I now have something to work with. Much appreciated!

Chevy

[Sweetfinger]

The "it" that you're looking for is that cool growl that SRV's number one had, right? You can't plan for that or buy a guitar that has that sound consistently, you have to stumble across, or search for one. It shows up in weird places, too. I have a '76 Gibson SG in the shop. Got it set up for the customer and went to play test it earlier today. Dead on SRV tone. I NEVER would have expected it from this guitar. I have one 'strat' style guitar that has the growl ...get ready... it is a Baltimore, which is Johnson's BUDGET line! The body is Chinese mystery wood but it has the tone. Years ago, I played a Danelectro made single pickup amp-in-case Silvertone that also would do 'Flooding Down in Texas' just like the record. I wouldn't get hung up on what wood the body is made of, IMO you're just as likely to get lucky with Ash, Alder, or Poplar, so try 'em all.
When you find one of the 'magic' guitars, it won't matter what pickups are in it, that sound quality will come through, but you can push a guitar closer to where you want to go with certain pickup choices.
I can tell you that you're likely to get closest with some Texas Specials, or Don Mare pickups. The custom shop '54's ain't gonna satisfy. They are to be avoided!
Regarding the Tubescreamer: I think most players don't 'get' it. They dial up too much gain and lose all the dynamic range. IMHO the key to using a Tubescreamer is to turn the distortion way down and use the pedal as a sort of filter before a Fender blackface or silverface amp.
Also remember that Stevie's #1 had been routed extensively under the pickguard, which contributed to the 'hollow' sound. My cheep-o Baltimore also has a huge, deep universal rout which may be part of the magic.
......And finally.....
You can't find the tone in any Strats you've played? The horrible truth may be that your 'finger tone' is not the tone you want, but may be the tone you are stuck with. I realized a long time ago that it didn't matter what guitar I played, because it always sounds like ME! A while back, I was working on a guitar for a player that I admire and whose style and sound I am familiar with. I played a few licks and handed him the guitar to check out. I was really startled when he played some licks and it sounded like a completely different guitar! In fact, it sounded... just like he ALWAYS sounds on stage and record.

You can conciously change the way you pick, strum, and finger notes, but it is a LOT of work because so much of the mechanics of playing is at the sub-concious level. My $.02

[David Schwab]

Blade guitars have low impedance pickups ( to keep noise and hum down ) and then a preamp with filters to EMULATE various frequency responses - Strats have higher impedance pickups ( with all their pros and cons ).

His website says the RH-4 has V-3 Stacked Coils. They are hum canceling pickups, so that's what keeps the hum down. That has nothing to do with low impedance. All the preamp does is have bass, mid, and treble EQ.

You will never make a low Z pickup sounds like a high Z pickup. For instance, people think EMG's are low impedance, but they aren't. Regular high Z coils. They wind a lot of wire on there. Low Z pickups have the resonant peak too high to sound like a regular Strat pickup. (I've been making real low Z pickups for the past three years).

But as you were saying, for a good neck pickup tone you don't want it too hot. About 5.7K is real nice. The neck is all you need for that hollow tone. The neck and middle give that notched tone, which is similar but different.

Here's that hollow tone from a neck pickup. This happens to be a noise canceling design, but it wounds like a single coil. Excuse the "fake" amplifier.

Neck pickup

a little cleaner (and way sloppy... just making it up as I went along)

Neck 2

[olddawg]

I think much to much emphasis is placed on equipment. Tone is in the hands. Hendrix frequently played a Flying V through Showmans. Hendrix, Clapton, Santana, Page, SVR, etc would still sound like themselves through any decent setup. If you want to get an inexpensive Strat that is generally exceptional with a few upgrades look into finding a 1983 - 1985 Japanese Squier Strat with an alder body. I personally like the black headstock models. With a pickup/electronics change most of these will blow you away. To check out a perspective Strat, play it unplugged with new strings in a quiet room and listen for resonance and sustain.

[Robert M. Martinelli]

His website says the RH-4 has V-3 Stacked Coils. They are hum canceling pickups, so that's what keeps the hum down. That has nothing to do with low impedance. All the preamp does is have bass, mid, and treble EQ.

David,
I was talking 'bout both hum and noise - and they' re different - You can cancel hum with stacked coils, hum has a known behavior ( usually a sinewave at mains frequency, so it can be cancelled pretty easily if the coils are well balanced electrically ) but you cannot cancel noise ( I' m referring especially to thermal noise coming from the pickup ) which is associated with the pickups' electrical constants, but mainly with the windings' resistance, and there' no way to cancel that, because it is a sort of white noise which amplitude is constant over the whole spectrum. This means the higher you go with the number of turns, the noisier the pickup will be.

This is usually not a big problem if you go straight to the amp, but when you start putting some stompboxes between the guitar and the amp, ( e.g. compressors and fuzz boxes ) this becomes more than an issue, it becomes a hassle, and since I HATE noise gates, I always try to keep noise as low as possible in my designs.

As to the "amp" factor, in my previous post ( which of course could not be exhaustive ) I made it pretty clear that the load is a very important factor for pickups, the sound will not be different solely because the amp sounds different, but also because the amp' s input circuitry changes the pickups' resonant frequency and bandwidth; Since the choice is a matter of taste, I tried not to push the choice towards an amp or another, but I rather tried to explain some of the principles that "lay behind" in a simple manner, hoping that this could help Chevy to achieve the sound he is after, without influencing him. Hope I managed to do so....

Best regards

Bob

[David Schwab]

David,
I was talking 'bout both hum and noise - and they' re different - You can cancel hum with stacked coils, hum has a known behavior ( usually a sinewave at mains frequency, so it can be cancelled pretty easily if the coils are well balanced electrically ) but you cannot cancel noise ( I' m referring especially to thermal noise coming from the pickup ) which is associated with the pickups' electrical constants, but mainly with the windings' resistance, and there' no way to cancel that, because it is a sort of white noise which amplitude is constant over the whole spectrum. This means the higher you go with the number of turns, the noisier the pickup will be.

I've never heard any mention of thermal noise with passive coils. I can find no mention of it anywhere... resistors, caps, active devices, yes. Coils or inductors? No. Coils are antennas, there's where the noise comes from. It's electro-magnetic noise. Hubuckers cancel the electric fields (hum), but not magnetic fields (that high pitched buzz), since it's the magnets producing the differential nature of a humbucker. Magnetic noise bypasses that entire system. It doesn't matter if it's a stack or standard side-by-side humbucker. Stacks are actually quieter because they also cancel some of their own low frequencies. Shielding helps with the noise.

Shot noise is like white noise... we all hear it with amps... just turn them up and hear the hiss. That's thermal noise. Pickups don't hiss. They hum and buzz. That's external interference. A well shielded hum-canceling pickup is nice and quiet, and still no shot noise.

Low impedance pickups generate less noise because it's less turns of wire to act as an antenna. The more turns of wire, the noisier the pickup, and also the louder the string signal too. More winds equal more output, regardless to what that output is.

EMG's are quiet because of the coils feeding a differential op amp circuit, and also because the pickup is enclosed in a brass screen Faraday cage. It's not because they use a low number of winds on the coils.

This is usually not a big problem if you go straight to the amp, but when you start putting some stompboxes between the guitar and the amp, ( e.g. compressors and fuzz boxes ) this becomes more than an issue, it becomes a hassle, and since I HATE noise gates, I always try to keep noise as low as possible in my designs.

You are taking about single coils? Humbuckers are very quiet into a high gain amp. Yeah, lower impedance single coils are quieter, but no single coil is absent of noise.

As to the "amp" factor, in my previous post ( which of course could not be exhaustive ) I made it pretty clear that the load is a very important factor for pickups, the sound will not be different solely because the amp sounds different, but also because the amp' s input circuitry changes the pickups' resonant frequency and bandwidth; Since the choice is a matter of taste, I tried not to push the choice towards an amp or another, but I rather tried to explain some of the principles that "lay behind" in a simple manner, hoping that this could help Chevy to achieve the sound he is after, without influencing him. Hope I managed to do so....

Right the larger the load, the lower the resonant frequency, and also the lower the Q. But just about all amps on the market have fairly standardized high impedance inputs. Same is true of stomp boxes... they are probably even higher.

So the difference from amp to amp is marginal as far as input impedance is concerned. The brand of cable you use has more to do with the sound of your pickup than the input of the amp.

So then it's up to the pickup. Lower winds will give a brighter tone with a higher cutoff/resonant peak. Too low will not give you what you would call a bright tone. The resonant peak is so high that you don't hear it as an element of the pickup's tone. It's much smoother and flat. This is why EMG winds high Z coils, even though they are feeding them to an op amp.

My passive high impedance bass pickups actually sound brighter than my active low Z pickups, even though the low Z pickup's top end extends much higher. But the high Z pickups have a larger peak, and lower in the upper mids/highs, and that's what you hear.

Getting back to the original question... DiMarzio make some very nice noise canceling Strat pickups that get that cool SRV hollow neck tone. Two that I've had experience with in customer's guitars are the Virtual Vintage Solo and Solo Pro. The Solo pro is really meant for the bridge position, but gets a great neck tone too, and works well with high output humbuckers at the bridge. But they both sound like real single coils, and get that tone.

Here's a track I used a guitar I build for a customer on. It has a Solo Pro at the neck, which is the pickup I used for all the guitar tracks.

These are low impedance bass pickups (about 2.5K) with JFET buffers.

Bass Head

[Sweetfinger]

( I' m referring especially to thermal noise coming from the pickup ) which is associated with the pickups' electrical constants, but mainly with the windings' resistance, and there' no way to cancel that, because it is a sort of white noise which amplitude is constant over the whole spectrum. This means the higher you go with the number of turns, the noisier the pickup will be.

This is usually not a big problem if you go straight to the amp, but when you start putting some stompboxes between the guitar and the amp, ( e.g. compressors and fuzz boxes ) this becomes more than an issue, it becomes a hassle, and since I HATE noise gates, I always try to keep noise as low as possible in my designs.

HUH? I'm with Dave on this one. I've NEVER heard anyone in person or print talk about thermal noise in a guitar pickup. It does exist, but is sort of like the outer planets in the solar system...they exist, but you need specialized equipment to detect them, and they have absolutely no effect on your everyday life here on earth. You say that it only becomes a problem when you start putting stompboxes in the signal chain. I'd say you're not hearing as much thermal noise from the pickup as you are from the stompbox circuits, which are injecting hundreds of times the noise that your pickup does. A single transistor, or vacuum tube in your amp will have MUCH more noise than your pickup. ANY test that would be able to measure the thermal noise of a passive pickup would just confirm that induced hum (even in the quietest humbucking design) is going to be by FAR, the primary cause of noise. Some quickie calculations showed that for the audio spectrum(or the chunk of it that guitars/amps use) - the noise level does not appreciably increase throughout the commonly used impedance ranges for guitar pickups. We're talking a noise component in the nano-volt range riding along with the pickup's output- probably around a tenth of a volt.
Basically:
Thermal noise, in relation to passive guitar pickups, is essentially a non-issue. It cannot be eradicated, but exists at such an inconsequential level, that no one cares. If you're listening to remnants of the big-bang in deep space, amplifying microvave transmissions, or have 40 pounds of copper wrapped around an earthquake sensor, that's when you care. I kinda think that not winding higher impedance coils because you're concerned about thermal noise is like constantly waving your arms to scare away elephants.

[David Schwab]

I kinda think that not winding higher impedance coils because you're concerned about thermal noise is like constantly waving your arms to scare away elephants.

Right, and lower impedance pickups have much lower output. So you need to boost them up, and there goes your signal-to-noise ratio (assuming they are single coils).