Help on fender strat

[stevenmace]

Ive been playing for about 3 years now and i currently own a westfield strat copy. I realy liked the sound of a les paul but after trying one, couldnt get on with the body shape or the weight of the guitar. Im thinking of buying a fender strat and putting new pickups on it. Would it be possible to make a strat sound like a les paul? If not what i realy want is a realy powerful sounding strat I was looking at seymour Duncan pickups, any recomondations? Ive heard about invader pickups - the type tom dolounge used on his strat but i cant find them anywhere and there not listed on the seymour duncan website. Can anyone help?

thanks

 

[Richard Monroe]

If you like the Les Paul sound, and have issues with shape and weight, consider an SG. No, it, doesn't sound exactly like a Les Paul, but neither does a strat with humbuckers. Try a couple if good ones out.-Richie

 

[JKestle]

Ive been playing for about 3 years now and i currently own a westfield strat copy. I realy liked the sound of a les paul but after trying one, couldnt get on with the body shape or the weight of the guitar. Im thinking of buying a fender strat and putting new pickups on it. Would it be possible to make a strat sound like a les paul? If not what i realy want is a realy powerful sounding strat I was looking at seymour Duncan pickups, any recomondations? Ive heard about invader pickups - the type tom dolounge used on his strat but i cant find them anywhere and there not listed on the seymour duncan website. Can anyone help?

thanks

I suggest staying with the fender "type" body, you don't have buy a new guitar if your just going to go ahead and customize it.

Chack these pick-ups out:
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=22670&item=3750620315&rd=1

Google this too: Hot Rail Pickup

These are the pickups your looking for. And remember, if you keep the westfield strat copy you'll want to consider shielding to maximize the performance of your pickups.

 

[AdrianFly]

Ive been playing for about 3 years now and i currently own a westfield strat copy. I realy liked the sound of a les paul but after trying one, couldnt get on with the body shape or the weight of the guitar. Im thinking of buying a fender strat and putting new pickups on it. Would it be possible to make a strat sound like a les paul? If not what i realy want is a realy powerful sounding strat I was looking at seymour Duncan pickups, any recomondations? Ive heard about invader pickups - the type tom dolounge used on his strat but i cant find them anywhere and there not listed on the seymour duncan website. Can anyone help?

thanks

Don't go with a Fender strat.. grab a different brand with a "Strat style body" instead. I had a 40th Anniversary strat many years back that I threw a hot-rail into to give it more overdrive. It did indeed have an overdriven tone but it was a thin one.. compared to my Les Paul Custom that is.

 

[schulteboy]

I just dropped Seymour Duncan Humbuckers in to my 40th Anniversary Strat--for exactly the same reasons: I love the shape and balance of the Fender, but I also love the Gibson sound. I don't like like the feel of a Les Paul because the guitar is so heavy. Unfortunately, all of that heavy wood is part of what makes the guitar sound great. I'm not sure exactly what type of Les Paul sound that you are looking for. For example do you want a wicked Zakk Wylde Les Paul sound or more of a Rolling Stones/Aerosmith rock sound? From my experience, the Hot rails or mini humbuckers are an improvement but they just don't do the trick. I'm getting a really fat Bluesy-rock sound from a Seymour Duncan SH-2n (in the neck position) and a SH-4 (in the bridge position). If you want something more metal-ish, there certainly are more extreme pickups out there.
Of course, I did have to buy a new pickguard and do some drilling to fit the pickups in my guitar. The easier thing to do is save your nickels and dimes to buy a Fender Double Fat Strat or any other Fender-shaped axe that comes with humbuckers.

 

[Scottgman]

I'm a purist when it comes to Strats. I think it's a cardinal sin to put a friggin humbucker in one. You will never get a Strat to sound like a LP so why even bother? The Strat "sound" is the single coil sound. If that's the sound you want, get a Strat. If it's not the sound you want, get something else.

If you can afford a PRS, they are a good compromise between a LP and a Strat. They are similar to a Strat in terms of weight and balance, yet they have a beefier tone like a LP. There are also many other makes/models of guitar that will give you the sound you want.

 

[Light]

A Strat will never sound like a Les Paul. There is a lot more to the sound of an LP than the pickups. In fact, you can not get that sound without the weight. A large part of the LP sound is from the thick mahogany body, and mahogany weighs a lot more than alder, plus LP's are thicker. Add to that the maple top on LP's (which is a very heavy wood), and you are looking at a guitar which is going to be heavy. That weight is a big part of the sound.

Strats also have the wrong scale length for the LP sound (Strats are 25.5 inches, and LP's are 24.65 inches). Though it is often overlooked by many people, this makes a huge difference in the sound of a guitar. Additionally, the bridges are very different, which makes a big difference in the sound.

Without major modification, you can not even get a humbucker sound out of a Strat, as they won’t fit the pickup cavities. The single coil sized humbuckers will not do it. The problem is the length of string which the pickup "picks up," so to speak. With a full sized humbucker, the pickup senses about twice as much of the string, which leads to a variety of phase cancellation issues in the upper end harmonics. (If you think harmonics are just those bell like tones when you barley touch a guitar string, Google the "Harmonic Overtone Series." It is something you should know.) The single coil sized humbuckers can not recreate that sound, because they do not pickup as much of the string.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like the sound of a Strat with humbuckers. They just don't sound anything like a LP. I mean, starts with humbuckers is basically what I build, and is what I play.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

 

[jimistone]

I'm a purist when it comes to Strats. I think it's a cardinal sin to put a friggin humbucker in one. You will never get a Strat to sound like a LP so why even bother? The Strat "sound" is the single coil sound. If that's the sound you want, get a Strat. If it's not the sound you want, get something else.

I agree. To me there is nothing that looks as out of place as a strat with humbuckers....very awkward and ugly guitar IMO. I don't understand somebody WANTING the humbucker sound...but that is me

Gibson Sg's are the worst balanced guitars in the world...I don't care for the way they play either. I just sold one.

 

[JKestle]

I'm a big fan of the sound and style customization of guitars. There was nothing like taking my first mexican tele apart and rebuilding it from the ground up (bigsby to boot).

That being said, I understand and ultimately respect the "purist" argument, no one makes a fender like fender.

 

[stevenmace]

thanks for all the replys what i should have said is what im after is a realy powerful sound simeler to tom dolonges sound or maybe greenday. I was considering buying a fat strat and changing the pickups to sum seymour duncans - ive heard about invaders but can't find them any where. I'd only be buying a strat realy.
Im only 14 so the purist side of things doesnt realy bother me

thanks

 

[sile2001]

You may want to take a look at ESP's LTD EC-1000. It's basically a Les Paul clone, but with better hardware and better pickups than most real Les Pauls come with, and for a fraction of the price.

Also, the body has some contours cut into it (like a strat) and weighs less than a normal Les Paul, so it is much more comfortable.

They make it in two configurations. One has EMG81 active pickups, but those were much too harsh and sterile for me. I chose the the Duncan JB59 pickup set and it sounds wonderful! I play in front of about a 1,000 people once a week, and this guitar is my main workhorse. The neck pickup gets some nice almost chimey tones, the bridge can put out some searing lead sounds, but one of my favorite tones is on both pickups with the bridge pickup volume rolled back just a bit and the neck pickup almost all the way back.

http://www.espguitars.com/ltd_deluxe.htm

It's the first guitar on the list. the black and black cherry models have the EMG81's and the amber sunburst has the JB59's

 

[ibanezrocks]

what im after is a realy powerful sound simeler to tom dolonges

you could look for a used fender tom delonge signature. I think they just stopped making them last year. They had only one pickup, which I'm almost certain was a seymour duncan model, in the bridge position. I never tried one, but they basically looked like a strat with a more powerful humbucker at the bridge. hope that helps

 

[JasonBird]

hey there,
I have an american fat strat with the texas special pickups, and it is a very sweet sounding git. To me it sounds pretty close to some of the gibsons that i've tried. To me the gibson sound is smoother and doesn't have an edge to it like my strat. But I have a real hard time justifying the money for a new or even used Gibson ES . Someday though....I've had many a player tell me that if they could only have on git, it'd have to be a strat. So versatile.....
Just my .02 .
Jason