Recording a Fender Strat

Tadpui said:
On my amp, I have 3 gain stages. The first stage is the channel gain. The second is the channel volume. And the third is the master volume. I can crank the channel volume and the master volume and get a lot of distortion. I keep my preamp gain at about 10:00.
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Now it makes sense. If you had only a stock Bassman head with Volume, Treble, and Bass controls, then think of it as cranking a external distortion box full, but keeping the single amp volume low. The master being full acts as if it wasn't there, so this would be akin to your setup, and now I understand. So of course you think this will work for a 'phat' tone. But with all those 'one volume' control amps, or one volume and Master up full amps, it won't work at all without an extra pedal/preamp. Geez, it took me a while to get it. Not too clucking fever, am I? But all's well that ends well. No animals were harmed during this thread.
I used to play 'Have Love Will Travel' over and over until my wife would slap me and take the CD away while I was on the ground. Great song, great album. But that tone is just too compressed/gated/whatever. Very 'spitty'. I still like it, as an obvious effect for one song, but all night? I wouldn't be caught dead with that exact tone myself. It's a Fuzz Face or something similar where the transistors are biased into cutoff. Yuck. Well, not for me, but if you like it, fine. I just couldn't use that tone myself, and I appreciate the tolerance of someone who can have that tone all night for every song.
I have learned something, so to balance that I have to go kill some brain cells. Have a great New Year!
 
Just my opinion but if you use anything more than a Strat>cable>Fender Twin you are trying to get something other than a true Strat sound. All the debate over various amp settings and assorted efx has been very informative but it has all been about making a Strat sound like something it's not. Clean, crisp and a bit twangy is how a Strat is supposed to sound, if that isn't the sound you want then grab a different guitar.
 
Dani Pace said:
Just my opinion but if you use anything more than a Strat>cable>Fender Twin you are trying to get something other than a true Strat sound. All the debate over various amp settings and assorted efx has been very informative but it has all been about making a Strat sound like something it's not. Clean, crisp and a bit twangy is how a Strat is supposed to sound, if that isn't the sound you want then grab a different guitar.
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Ahem. Are you saying that a Strat only sounds like a Strat when it's played through one specific amp? :confused:

If I play my Strat through an AC30 am I trying to make it sound like something else? How about a Marshall Super Lead?
 
ranjam said:
No one disagrees attenuators change the tone, but who will stand up and say they make the tone better? I didn't think so.
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I will, with one caveat.

You'll probably discount my entire opinion because I'm a Mesa player, and play a Rectifier. However, while occasionally some of the stuff I write gets pretty heavily, I'm certainly not a "metal" player, and have some pretty bluesy influences. I mostly play a seven string Ibanez (and again, I'm really not a metal player, strange as this may seem), but also split time with a single coil equipped strat.

I think my Hot Plate makes my amp sound better. Hands down.

There's a big difference between a good tube amp that's barely moving air and one where the power section is moving a fair amount of juice. In my bedroom "studio," I can't open the thing up all the way without getting evicted and possibly pulverizing every bone in my body (these are crushingly loud amps). So, there's a very real cap on the maximum volume I can record at, and on its own the sweet spot of my amp falls quite a bit above that. The amp sounds thinner and buzzier at this lower, more practical volume (although, realistically, still pretty good - just not as good or as smooth as it could). Using a hot plate, however, allows me to lower the actual volume of the amp by quite a bit. Suddenly, that sweet spot where the amp really starts to come into its own IS something I can get in a bedroom without putting my lease or my physical safety at jeopardy.

But of course, the counteropinion here is "yeah, yeah, but because a Hot Plate isn't perfectly transparent, it's negatively impacting your tone." To which I say, so? What if it is? All I know is, given the constraints I have when recording (and being perfectly honest here, running a Rectifier wide open isn't necessarily feasible even at a pro studio), my rig sounds better WITH a Hot Plate in line and the master volume up a bit higher than it does without a hot plate and with a lower master volume setting, putting out the same decibel level. It may not be perfectly transparent, but it's still pretty clean and for my particular amp/my taste in tone, the improvement I get from turning up a couple of extra notches on the master volume is much bigger than any negative effect the hot plate may have on my tone. The net change in tone, in other words, is an improvement.

By the way, if you get a chance, try a Mesa Lone Star. One of the best clean channels I've ever played. That and a Tele is heaven.
 
Zaphod B said:
Ahem. Are you saying that a Strat only sounds like a Strat when it's played through one specific amp? :confused:

If I play my Strat through an AC30 am I trying to make it sound like something else? How about a Marshall Super Lead?
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Not at all. The point I was trying to make is a Strat has a very distinctive sound by itself. Anything beyond that "classic Strat sound" is more about efx and amps and the more that is added to the chain the less you hear the Strat.
 
Dani Pace said:
Just my opinion but if you use anything more than a Strat>cable>Fender Twin you are trying to get something other than a true Strat sound. All the debate over various amp settings and assorted efx has been very informative but it has all been about making a Strat sound like something it's not. Clean, crisp and a bit twangy is how a Strat is supposed to sound, if that isn't the sound you want then grab a different guitar.
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I can't quite agree with that although your description is accurate if you play a strat thru a twin.
But arguably one of the most iconic strat players would be Hendrix and he didn't sound like a 'twangy' strat sound much at all.
 
Dani Pace said:
Not at all. The point I was trying to make is a Strat has a very distinctive sound by itself. Anything beyond that "classic Strat sound" is more about efx and amps and the more that is added to the chain the less you hear the Strat.
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There is also something very distinctive about the way a Strat pushes (or relatively speaking, doesn't push :D) a big overdriven tube amp, and the sound you hear is completely unlike the pristine, twangy sound that I think you're describing.

Think "southern rock," for example, and how two guitarists, each using cranked Marshalls but one with a Strat and one with a Les Paul, are absolutely distinguishable by their sounds.

It's always about the guitar + amp. You can't take an electric guitar and say that it only has some quintessential sound when played through a certain type of amp.
 
By the way, something that I can't believe hasn't come up yet...


To the OP - you said once, you were able to get a sound you liked in a studio. Do you remember anything about how that recording was made, and does anything stick out at you as being different? An unusually good sound in the room? A mic that looked different than the ones you'd used before? Anything unusual the guy did in the mix?

And, is it possible that you could post a mp3 of this tone you got you liked, as well as a mp3 of the tone you didn't like? Odds are, if you used the same guitar and amp rig, and once you got something you dug, then the engineer did something different that time. If you could figure out what that was, you could probably recreate it.
 
Zaphod B said:
There is also something very distinctive about the way a Strat pushes (or relatively speaking, doesn't push :D) a big overdriven tube amp, and the sound you hear is comp
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Completely. For me the "strat" sound isn't the twangy clean sound you get out of a twin, but the vocal, responsive, and clear sound you get out of a Strat's neck pickup running into an amp set for a moderate amount of touch-sensitive distortion. The way your pick attach can work the sound of the amplifier, anywhere from a bright clang to a dark smooth attack, is magical.
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
Completely. For me the "strat" sound isn't the twangy clean sound you get out of a twin, but the vocal, responsive, and clear sound you get out of a Strat's neck pickup running into an amp set for a moderate amount of touch-sensitive distortion. The way your pick attach can work the sound of the amplifier, anywhere from a bright clang to a dark smooth attack, is magical.
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Agreed. A Strat can sound very.....articulate, for a lack of a better term - much more than an LP in that situation.
 
Zaphod B said:
Agreed. A Strat can sound very.....articulate, for a lack of a better term - much more than an LP in that situation.
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Actually that's a very good term.
You can get away with being sloppy on a paul but a strat will highlight those same imperfections to where you sound like crap.
It's a very revealing guitar and you'd best play fairly precisely on one if you want to sound good.
 
Sorry guys. I didn't mean to ruffel anyone's feathers by seeming to imply that a Strat is or should be limited to one particular sound. With the variety of amps, efx, processors, vsts so readily available it is just so easy to get caught up in the trap of what can I do to enhance the sound that we (myself included) sometimes forget the real magic is in the hands of the player. And unless you are a better player than I am (yes, I'm one of those sloppy players who are more at home on a Paul than a Strat) all the efx in the world just can't make that magic happen.
 
no ruffled feathers ...... just additional opinions.

I don't think it's always the case that people disagreeing means conflict.
Sometimes it's just equally knowledgable people disagreeing.
Those are often the most interesting enlightening conversations.

:)


BTW ...... I do know what you meant about strats. When I play a strat the first thing I want to hear is that 'strat' sound you were describing.
And, strangely enough, not all strats have that sound. I had an absolutely beautiful strat in LSU purple with gold hardware and anodized gold pickguard (LSU colors) signed by Nick Saban.
One of the finest looking strats I've ever seen ....... but it really didn't have that magical sound and I got rid of it.
I currently mainly play a 'partscaster' with GF p'ups and it's a strat is a strat is a strat! An awesome git ..... strats are funny guitars in that way.
 
i like a similar sound and use a strat too...everyone else has already given some good ideas but the setup i use is: strat, into wah-wah, into big muff, into music man 65, into cab with 12" JBL D-120 and i feel like it produces that "classic rock" vibe
 
Dani Pace said:
Sorry guys. I didn't mean to ruffel anyone's feathers by seeming to imply that a Strat is or should be limited to one particular sound.
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No sweat, Dani, it's all good. :)

Lt. Bob said:
BTW ...... I do know what you meant about strats. When I play a strat the first thing I want to hear is that 'strat' sound you were describing.
And, strangely enough, not all strats have that sound.
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My Xaviere XV-850 has it in spades. :D

My friend's (actual, not reissue) 1964 Strat does not. :D :D
 
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