I as a player, I know everyone has their personal preferences. I settled on Strat style bodies, Fender Channel Bound necks with locking tuners and either Floyd Rose Rail Tail or Gotoh 510 tremolos. Each of these builds are pretty basic, nothing fancy, but they are all setup exactly identical play-wise to my own calibrations. The only difference between all is the pickup sets. A variety of different Seymour Duncans and DiMarzios. If you were blindfolded and playing one unplugged, you wouldn't know which one you had in your hands. Which is what my goal was. Thanks to Warmoth, getting a quality body (and other parts) has been a great experience.
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- Thread starter J Sharp
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Being that my playing style is on the bit heavier side and I have all thumbs for fingers, I lean toward higher output pickups. Most are similar enough where a slight tweak of the amp and/or pedals can get them pretty close to a sound I prefer. But some stand out better than others and are easier to zero in on. When I play and not experiment, I tend to reach for either the SD Quarter Pound set (candy blue) or SD Hot Rails set (black with white pickups).
I am swapping pickups out regularly and trying various combinations. But it's a tedious process and frustrating at times having to constantly adjust their height as well as amp and pedal settings. That along with the fact I have an attention span of a 2 year old. Anyhow, below is a list of a few I am currently focused on.
SD Hot Rails
SD Quarter Pounds (not staggered, the raised poles interfere with my picking)
SD JB JRs
SD Little '78s
SD Little '59s
DM Pro Track
DM Fast Track 1 and 2
DM Super Distortion
DM Chopper
DM Cruiser
As mentioned before, everyone has their own preferences and I am no expert. But I have found I have a much harder time getting a preferred sound out of DiMarzios than I do Seymour Duncans. But I eventually do get one I like. I dabbled with Lace pickups, but had to scrap the brand because I was getting too overwhelmed.
The SD set you are looking at is their Everything Axe. Great set. I actually have two of them, where one is currently installed in the satin candy red strat in the above picture. It's always a favorite go to. The 59 neck dialed in has a great sound when emulating YJM style playing and the JB Jr is a solid staple bridge.
As far as the DiMarzio set, the gloss red dye above has a Pro Track neck, Fast Track 1 middle and Fast Track 2 bridge. That set is pretty bright and I tend to try and dumb it down. It makes me want to play a much heavier metal style when I reach for it (which is fine by me at times). I have the Cruiser and Chopper coming, but DiMarzio's fulfillment is so slow, so who knows when I'll see those.
PFDarkside
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Are these all Warmoth bodies/finishes? If so, what colors?
Spud
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I find the fast track T to be similar sounding to my Wilde/Lawrence L-48TL. However the Wilde is better IMO in every way. I also have a Wilde L45S that sounds fantastic in a strat style. If you like sweet sounding clarity and hi-fi kinda sounds you might dig em. Both are twin blade style but sound very single coilish and sing with overdrive too.
The top 4 are Warmoth bodies (Red Dye Gloss, Candy Red Satin, Purple Frost Satin and Candy Blue Satin). The bottom two are Fender Player bodies I gutted and repurposed. I am in the process of finishing a Capri Orange body from Warmoth, which is really cool looking with black accents. Those pictured are my collection of builds, but I have quite a few other Strats of various years I leave stock for nostalgia. Not really a fan of the "made to look old/used" customs, I (try to) keep them all clean and scratch free.
PFDarkside
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Awesome, very nice. I’m surprised with the Candy Red and Candy Blue that the Purple wasn’t Candy Purple!
Strat Avenger
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I had a Dimarzio Chopper in the bridge position of a Strat and it sounded terrible. I now have a "Super Distortion-S" and it sounds great. I have 2 guitars with a Fast Track-1 in the neck position and they sound decent.
Spud
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Certainly the fast track sounds good! Just the Wilde/Lawrence sounds better to me. YMMV
I'll give the Wilde a try, adding it to my to do list. I generally pit 3 equal builds with different pickup configs against each other. I crank out a series of riffs and sequences up and down the neck, drop one, grab another, etc. And what happens is, I lose conscentration on what I am trying to do because a particular pickup sound is forcing my brain to play in a different style and if I try to stay focused I sound to robotic. Like avoiding tinny sounding highs so much though the lows and mids are great. So I guess my point is, it's hard to pick when I am pitting 3 against each other. Even if I flat line all amp and effect settings, one slight tweak on an EQ or drive and it completely changes the effort and I have to start over. It's like, now this one sounds better than that one, where before that one sounded great and before that.... I have to ask myself am I looking for a sound based on how I naturally play or am I tinkering with a particular new sound to play differently. Then I say why am I overthinking this and just want to bury everything in the backyard.
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