Getting more beef out of Strat bridge pickup

['63-Strat]

The most important thing to do is make sure the rear tone pot is wired to the bridge pickup. Makes all the difference. Roll it back to about 7 and you'll be shocked at how fat a stacked bucker sounds. I like the Dimarzio Virtual Vintage Heavy Blues 2 and my new favorite is the Dimarzio Paul Gilbert Injector. Very big, ballsy, loud and open. GREAT pickup.

I already have the tone pot wired to the bridge pickup, that does help some, it just still sounds a bit thin and weak for my liking. The point of having this strat is having one with 3 single coils as I have other strats with humbuckers in the bridge. I want this one to be different in that way as I like the middle/Bridge setting a lot.

If I change out the bridge pickup to a noiseless SC, I am going to change them all. I see the issue I am describing is common on strats. Even though I consider myself a strat guy, I always felt like I was cheating by having humbuckers in the bridge. That is why I bought this SSS strat in the first place.

Here is a picture of my strat family. The One in the middle is the SSS obviously....

I'm a hardcore Strat guy and I've never had a real single coil in the bridge position of a Stratocaster for longer than a week. They don't work for me. They never will. I don't feel like i'm "cheating".

A guitar is a tool and it needs to do a job. Do whatever you need to do to it to get the job done.

Agreed. I know a lot of guitarists that seem to have this aversion to using what works or is easy. There is no one keeping score on who is "cheating" or not. If you get what you want out of a strat with a humbucker in the bridge I say all the power to you and use that

 

[Chris6870]

Try a Dimarzio Fast track 2. Nice and beefy. I had one in my S/S/S strat for a while. I ended up just buying a new H/S/S pickguard and dropping a real humbucker in it and have not looked back.Thankfully my USA deluxe already had a humbucker route at the bridge.

 

[blackba]

I'm a hardcore Strat guy and I've never had a real single coil in the bridge position of a Stratocaster for longer than a week. They don't work for me. They never will. I don't feel like i'm "cheating".

A guitar is a tool and it needs to do a job. Do whatever you need to do to it to get the job done.

Agreed. I know a lot of guitarists that seem to have this aversion to using what works or is easy. There is no one keeping score on who is "cheating" or not. If you get what you want out of a strat with a humbucker in the bridge I say all the power to you and use that

Sometimes I get too caught up with what is supposed to be the 'right' configuration. I have read posts where people act like putting humbuckers in strats should be a crime.

I was playing the Strat last night through a JCM800 112 2 channel combo I am fixing and the bridge pickup alone sounded great.

 

[blackba]

APC 400 bridge or Fralin SP42 or 43. That'll bring the beef while you will still know its a SC.

Also, what worked for me as I was in the same boat as you was the Super Midrange kit I bought from Torres Eng. years ago. If they are still around, they should still have it. If not, I'm sure you could find the plans for these somewhere. It's just an inductor and resistor. Turning this thing up adds a bit of mids and smooths out the highs. I wired it directly to the bridge pickup so it's only on that pickup, but you could wire it for all (the standard way). This is nice because you can turn it down when you want to get clean and still get some twang if you want. All the way up is a mid boost, middle is stock tone, and lower than that pulls some mids out.

The effect is subtle, but is all you really need. Just take the edge off that SC. A regular tone control didn't do it for me, but this did. Cheap too so if you don't like it, you're not out much. Passive also. If you like the Fender noiseless it's worth checking it out on that pickup before swapping to something else. May be all you need.

I did check with Torres and they still have the super midrange kit for $20.

 

[ratter]

I think you either love it for what it is, or just go with a bucker and screw what others think. But if you look at EJ for example not only does he route the back tone control to his bridge pup, but he also eq's his lead amp real dark. So much so that you rarely if ever hear him play lead on the neck pickup. When he does it's very dull/mushy. That's the compromise he makes to get a fat lead tone out of a single coil bridge pickup.

 

[Greazygeo]

Something you might try is one of the EMG SPC pot deals. I put one in my Ibanez Talman with Lipstick pickups. With it you can have the "stock" sound then roll any amount of fatness you like. It's pretty freakin' cool!

 

[blackba]

Something you might try is one of the EMG SPC pot deals. I put one in my Ibanez Talman with Lipstick pickups. With it you can have the "stock" sound then roll any amount of fatness you like. It's pretty freakin' cool!

Is this what you are thinking? http://www.emgpickups.com/products/index/131/144/4

They go for about $45 and would require drilling an extra hole in the pickguard or would I just replace one tone pot?

 

[Badronald]

I have read posts where people act like putting humbuckers in strats should be a crime.

Any time you need a good laugh, go to The Gear Page and post that you put a humbucker in a Telecaster and state it's the best Telecaster tone you've ever heard.

The ensuing comments are hysterical. Believe me.

 

[Greazygeo]

Something you might try is one of the EMG SPC pot deals. I put one in my Ibanez Talman with Lipstick pickups. With it you can have the "stock" sound then roll any amount of fatness you like. It's pretty freakin' cool!

Is this what you are thinking? http://www.emgpickups.com/products/index/131/144/4

They go for about $45 and would require drilling an extra hole in the pickguard or would I just replace one tone pot?

Thats the one. I just took out my tone pot and put it there instead. Never use the tone pot anyway...cept on my real tele anyway.

 

[blackba]

I have read posts where people act like putting humbuckers in strats should be a crime.

Any time you need a good laugh, go to The Gear Page and post that you put a humbucker in a Telecaster and state it's the best Telecaster tone you've ever heard.

The ensuing comments are hysterical. Believe me.

Gotta love TGP

 

[guitup too]

I played a buddy's strat that had Lollars through a Soldano Hot Rod that I liked a lot and I'm like you I never like a strat single by itself. I belive it was the "rock" Lollar or something like that.

 

[JTyson]

I'm in the same boat, I have a cool rails in the bridge of my strat now, and its better, but not much beef. I tried the hot rails, and they are plenty hot and quiet, but they dont sound like a strat at all. I believe because the 2 coils are picking up signal from 2 different spots, and end up being not near as focused as a pup that gets signal from only 1 spot on the strings (SC)
I've tried the EMG- SA's and liked them a lot, but not really a strat tone either.. kinda a mix between HB's and SC's, leaning towards SC's..
I really like the tone Doug Aldrich gets with those lil' 59's (I think) in the vid where he wears the funny hat, that actually sounds almost perfect to me - its fat but focused, hot, but not too much so.. I've been thinking about trying those, but have not done so yet.
Very curious to see where you end up with this, keep us posted

 

[MrDan666]

I really like the tone Doug Aldrich gets with those lil' 59's (I think) in the vid where he wears the funny hat, that actually sounds almost perfect to me - its fat but focused, hot, but not too much so.. I've been thinking about trying those, but have not done so yet.

Doug was using modified Duncan Classic Stacks in that video (it was called a Mojo Stack at the Custom Shop). But i have been researching his tones for many years and can tell you that the SSL-6 will get you real close to that tone for sure. You'll need 250k pots for that sound, and since the pickups are fairly low/medium output, you might have to spank the front end of the amp with a boost. But the tone will be really similar..

I use those SSL-6's in the bridge position of my Strat and it flat out nails the Aldrich Strat tone

 

[JTyson]

I really like the tone Doug Aldrich gets with those lil' 59's (I think) in the vid where he wears the funny hat, that actually sounds almost perfect to me - its fat but focused, hot, but not too much so.. I've been thinking about trying those, but have not done so yet.

Doug was using modified Duncan Classic Stacks in that video (it was called a Mojo Stack at the Custom Shop). But i have been researching his tones for many years and can tell you that the SSL-6 will get you real close to that tone for sure. You'll need 250k pots for that sound, and since the pickups are fairly low/medium output, you might have to spank the front end of the amp with a boost. But the tone will be really similar..

I use those SSL-6's in the bridge position of my Strat and it flat out nails the Aldrich Strat tone

Thanks Dan, that will be next on my list Wonder what k pots come stock in a strat??
You da man

 

[blackba]

I'm in the same boat, I have a cool rails in the bridge of my strat now, and its better, but not much beef. I tried the hot rails, and they are plenty hot and quiet, but they dont sound like a strat at all. I believe because the 2 coils are picking up signal from 2 different spots, and end up being not near as focused as a pup that gets signal from only 1 spot on the strings (SC)
I've tried the EMG- SA's and liked them a lot, but not really a strat tone either.. kinda a mix between HB's and SC's, leaning towards SC's..
I really like the tone Doug Aldrich gets with those lil' 59's (I think) in the vid where he wears the funny hat, that actually sounds almost perfect to me - its fat but focused, hot, but not too much so.. I've been thinking about trying those, but have not done so yet.
Very curious to see where you end up with this, keep us posted

One cool thing with the mini humbuckers, is to wire a switch or push pull pot to switch them from series wiring to parallel wiring. The Hot rails I have in my MIM strat sounds like a hot SC when you wire it in Parallel, pretty cool sound and option.

Strats also typically come with 250k pots.

Right now I am keeping my MIA SSS strat as is. Got to sell some things before I have some money to tweak. Right now I am just going to try to use some pedals to thicken up the sound. The HBE plank cranker did that nicely, but I think I have a switch going out on it that I have to check out, so its been off my board for a while....

 

[MrDan666]

Thanks Dan, that will be next on my list Wonder what k pots come stock in a strat??
You da man

Jim, 90% of the time Strats come stock with 250k Vol and Tone pots. But double check what you have in yours.

They are the key to getting the SSL-6 pickups to sound beefy and fat IMO. With 500k pots those pickups lose the fatness and become brighter/twangier.

 

[Progbusters]

boost pedal