Anyone have problems with Strat sound?

peteresat

peteresat

Member
I have a Gretsch G5122DC w/dual coil pickups that sounds fantastic with the Ultra right out of the box, but I just bought a new Fender strat American Special HSS with 1 Atomic Humbucking Pickup (Bridge), and 2 Texas Special Strat Pickups (Neck/Middle), and it sounds awful on just about every preset patch. It's just super hot and high-endy on just about every sound. Even after going in and adjusting EQ controls inside the presets, it takes forever to get a decent sound. I'm new to strats, and this guitar is brand new and was just setup by the guys at sweetwater sound for me...Anybody else experience this with a strat and find a solution?
 
peteresat said:
I have a Gretsch G5122DC w/dual coil pickups that sounds fantastic with the Ultra right out of the box, but I just bought a new Fender strat American Special HSS with 1 Atomic Humbucking Pickup (Bridge), and 2 Texas Special Strat Pickups (Neck/Middle), and it sounds awful on just about every preset patch. It's just super hot and high-endy on just about every sound. Even after going in and adjusting EQ controls inside the presets, it takes forever to get a decent sound. I'm new to strats, and this guitar is brand new and was just setup by the guys at sweetwater sound for me...Anybody else experience this with a strat and find a solution?
Click to expand...

*shrug* My Strat sounds great through the Axe-Fx. Brownface, AC30 and Plexiglas amp sims.
 
The strat is a completely different beast and I have a love/hate thing going on with mine for almost 20 years now. In my personal experiences if you have patches or even an amp dialed in precisely for a humbucking guitar it generally isn't going to sound as good with single coils....it may sound better, but it will definitely sound different. You're probably looking at reworking a lot of your patches.

Now with that said I always do my own setups because even as reputable as SW is, it's a matter of personal preference and there's a chance that they got it wrong. Strats can get really woofy sounding if the pickups are too high. You can actually get what they call....I can't remember if it's ghost notes or wolf notes or tones, but regardless of the name it sucks. So for me a good ballpark starting point for pickup height is to fret at the highest fret while placing 1 nickel on the pickup on the treble side and adjusting the height so that it just falls out on it's own. For the bass side use 2 nickels.

None of this is set in stone and everyone has different tastes, but for me it gets me out of the 'danger zone' if you will.

If you're worried about messing up the SW setup take a piece of cardstock and mark the heights of each pickup on the bass and treble side using the string as the guide and you can dial it back to the factory settings in no time.
 
As shasha said, the strat — and single coils in general — is a different beast from what you're used to. Over time, you may find that it expands your notion of what "good tones" can be. A tone that sounds strident and edgey in one musical context can sound lively and sparkly in another context.

Back in the day, I used to wonder why anyone would want single coils. When I'd throw the switch from humbuckers to single-coils, the single-coils sounded weak and strident in comparison. Once I stopped comparing and started using them, I realized that they're ideal — even necessary — for certain tones.

Listen to some early Dire Straits for wonderful clean tones that can only be achieved with single-coil pickups. Listen to some Stevie Ray Vaughan for great single-coil sounds with some dirt.

I noticed that you're also switching from a hollow-body to a solid-body guitar. That will give you radically different sound all by itself.

Give it time, and keep on tweaking. Once you've wrapped your mind and ears around the tonal possibilities that single-coils bring, I think you'll discover their mojo and start smiling.
 
^^yeah, I know that I get to where one sounds like crap after playing the other for a while. You do start to get what I wouldn't call ear fatigue, but perhaps overly familiar.

The tone controls on a single coil do a lot more to shaping your tone than on a HB in my opinion as well. You've got a lot more high end to start with.
 
First thing I would suggest is to turn your tone knobs down to about 5, and then adjust your input on the Axe-Fx until you can just barely light up the red input on a loud open string chord with the bridge pickup. Single coil pickups aren't going to have that full, warm sound you're used to on medium-high gain patches, they're really better suited for lower gain, so adjust your expectations accordingly.
 
Well, it sure would be nice to get the editor software going then, because I could have two totally different banks for each guitar (you guys both replied to my other thread discussing editor problems) which would be great. Hey, do you either of you know, I thought I read a post saying that they're weeks away from an even newer version for the editor?
 
His new Strat has a humbucker in the bridge, and even if it is a little hotter than his Gretch humbuckers, I wouldn't expect it to sound so drastically different (in a bad way) through the Axe-FX, y'know?
 
I've got an older American Special with the mahogany body. The Texas Specials are real string pullers. I was getting warbling on the bass E and G strings and general difficulty setting the intonation. To get rid of the knarlyness I had to lower the pickups. I had to drop the middle pickup almost to the pickguard to be able to leave the neck pu close to where I wanted it. The humbucker is not as much of a factor, but I did have to lower it as well to match the SCs.

When I got rid of the wolf tones and was able to set the intonation properly, it turned into a pretty sweet guitar, although it's quite a bit darker than my alder Strat. A nice plus is that the "S1" switching is actually useful to get some beefier tones when you need them. The only remaining issue is that the output level is now fairly low compared to my other guitars.

JWW
 
I've got two Warmoth Strats, both with Kinmans.
Whenever I dial in a good sound for humbuckers and I plug in the strats, I'm in Blackmore territory.
It's harder to play but the tone is so much more versatile.
Then I have a Fender 35th anniversary Strat.
With this one I can go from sparkly clean to fat leads.
No problems here but you've got to take a Strat for what it is.
And by a strat I don't mean the ones with humbuckers in the bridge position.
It has a broader sonic palette than any humbucker equipped guitar and lets you play differently.
But it's a lot more choosy about the amps it's plugged into.
And don't think it can't sound fat. How about Blackmore's fat strat on Smoke On The Water?
Maybe try some of these: (ignore the mixer since I use this with a piezo equipped Brian Moore)
 

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Single coil guitars sound just as awesome on the Axe as they do on an amp when the amp/Axe is dialed for the single coil's input level. HBs and SCs sound night and day different on an Axe, just like they do on any good amp.
 
I had the same issue when I first received the Ultra. I read all these wonderful things about the device, plugged my 20 year old Strat Plus Deluxe with Dimarzio Area pickups, called up the presets - horrible. Shrill and way too bright. Almost sent the thing back.

However, it took the advice of some others on the forum and started to dive into the unit. It took a little time, but I started from scratch, built presets by ear, and that changed everything. I get great sounds out of almost all the amps (still working on a Bassman with a little crunch that doesn't get flabby on the low end - but works great clean with a tubescreamer).

Give it some time and start from scratch, you should get something extremely useful.
 
I own a LOT of different guitars, and I have a set of patches built for several different ones.....I'll be the first to tell you that some of the sounds I have for eg, my strat, sound HORRIBLE with another guitar's set of patches, like my ibanez. And my carvin hollowbody would sound REAL nice on it's set of patches, but sound AWFUL with the patches for my carvin solidbody.

different beasts, so you'll just have to tweak accordingly. The axe is even more responsive than a tube amp in terms of which guitars it plays well with and which it doesn't IMHO
 
I once had a Strat with Texas Specials that sounded awful with just about every amp
I owned at the time, long before the Axe was even a gleam in Cliff's eye.

"super hot and high-endy on just about every sound" pretty much nails it...

Some folks love 'em, not me...

Currently I have a semi-homemade Strat with Don Mare Super Sports and there's no "icepick" in the top end at all.
 
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Congrats on the Gretsch!...I would love to have one. I have a 25 year old American Strat. Seymor Duncan at the bridge, and Kinman's in the center/neck positions. I use the same amp blocks as xrist04 does. There is no magic solution, you gotta tweak bro. The Axe WILL do it. I personally use a good amount of compression right up front, Compression lets me knock down some of "icepick" dynamics that are intrinsic with the strat. Sasha is right bout pick up height. The weird overtones (AKA, dissonant harmonics) are called "stratitice".Comes with the price of the guitar.:)
 
I have a great strat that I've had for years now. I sadly never gigged with it or even played it much at home because I thought it sounded terrible (harsh, trashy, strident top end). I know those too statements seem to cancel each other out, but it's the best way I know to describe it. The guitar resonates like a dream, feels perfect in my hands, is balanced, and just has that mojo that is hard to put into words. Plug it into my amps or Axe-FX patches, and I hated it. I had played HB guitars for years and just couldn't figure out how to wring a decent tone out of that thing. It was completely foreign to me.

Learn to use the guitar controls, IMO, that's where the magic is with a strat. Once I got really good at adjusting the controls on the fly (most importantly the tone controls and pickup selection), I "got it." I've gigged a strat exclusively for almost six months now. That's something I literally never thought would happen. I had it for the two or three times a year I wanted a tone that I just couldn't get with any other guitar, but now it's my #1.

Turn the tone controls way down, around 5ish, if you want to use it with patches that were built around HB guitars. That usually doesn't work as well as building a patch just for the strat, but it's the way that I learned to exploit the strat and get good with it. I can't guarantee it will work for you, but take a patch you know and love with your Gretsch and use the strat with the tone controls rolled back to around 5 and start making small control adjustments - make sure your input gain on the Axe is set properly though (occasionally hitting the red). That worked for me and now I'm convinced my strat is the most powerful, expressive, and versatile guitar in my collection. My PRS McCarty, LP, Gretsch, Tele, Godin, etc are sitting alone in there cases feeling very neglected now...

Oh, and I've gotten great high gain sounds with the strat as well. Not the same tones as with the other guitars, but great nonetheless and they rock live which is all I'm really concerned with. I'm primarily playing live with my Matchless (clean), Top Boost (somewhere between clean and mid-gain), and 1987X (driven Plexi) patches, but the strat also wails on my favorite Euro Red patch.

Getting the proper input gain set and rolling the tone controls way down was the thing that flipped the lightswitch for me. Now, I can hardly imagine a more perfect guitar.

D
 
I have a Suhr that's extremely bright. More than my Fender Strat.
With FR I need to tame those highs using a PEQ to make it usable.
It's the way FR works.
I'm too lazy to keep separate versions of my presets for different guitars. I take the middle road.
 
My USA 89 Strat, 2008 DLX USA Strat both sound great. I mostly use brownface, USA -all models, all the other fender amps and Shiver. Couldn't be happier
 
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