Need help from the vintage Strat guys.

[DangerousR6]

I'm going to go with the alder body, flame maple top, maple neck and ebony board.

:doh:

Tell me how you truly feel!!   :laughing7:

There's no ebony on stratocasters.....("There's no crying in baseball"),,,,,, :guitarplayer2:

And no Floyds on Teles either.  :laughing7:

you read my mind..... :glasses9:

 

[Paul-less]

I like your decision.

I was completely with superbeast.

As for fear of being "too bright",

tone control: not just for getting the woman tone

 

[Strat Avenger]

The SS frets being "too bright" thing is a myth. I have SS frets on my Warmoth Soloist, and it sounds warmer than all my other electric guitars, which have standard nickle frets.  They all have alder bodies with maple necks, rosewood fret-boards, Floyd Rose bridges, and the same pickups,  so it's a pretty accurate comparison. 

 

[Patrick]

i love those vintage strats with flamed tops :laughing7:

 

[Death by Uberschall]

i love those vintage strats with flamed tops :laughing7:

I said, "I want to build a vintage style Strat with a few modern touches"  :toothy11:

 

[nathan a]

I know I'm a little late to this chat, but I support the decision to avoid mahogany/korina in either the neck or body. Aside from all that folks have already mentioned, I think an important part of a vintage-y strat is the weight. I won't make any guesses about tone there, but the FEEL just isn't right if the thing weighs a ton. A strat should be pretty lightweight.

 

[NLD09]

I can hear a slight difference with stainless steel frets. It's not so much a brightness thing more than a presence thing. The sounds are slightly more snappy and immediate to my ear. Also concerning the overall brightness the general consensus here is that you can't add brightness, but you can add bass and mids, which i find untrue. You can't really add bass and mids either, which is why my strat doesn't sound like a les paul when i turn the treble off, and turn the bass all the way on. I don't think an ebony board will make a huge difference. If you're worried use overwound pickups.

 

[Dan025]

I can hear a slight difference with stainless steel frets. It's not so much a brightness thing more than a presence thing. The sounds are slightly more snappy and immediate to my ear. Also concerning the overall brightness the general consensus here is that you can't add brightness, but you can add bass and mids, which i find untrue. You can't really add bass and mids either, which is why my strat doesn't sound like a les paul when i turn the treble off, and turn the bass all the way on. I don't think an ebony board will make a huge difference. If you're worried use overwound pickups.

you can add mids, it's a matter of electrical resonance. just roll that tone back all the way, but the optimal effect would be with a smaller cap like the setup tfarny uses. it wont sound like a les paul too many differences is wood, mass, scale, magnetic field, phase cancelation from mixed coils..... but it can work in a similar situation.

larger value volume pots will let the resonance be heard more. but the amount you can add is more limited than the amount you can take away with filtering.

but since we are talking about EMG p/ups that isnt really the case, i think the tone is after atleast one stage of amplification and only subtracts, well i guess it can add but isn't part of the same resonating system as the pickup and doesn't cause a peak in response, or impedance.

 

[Cagey]

I'm going to go with the alder body, flame maple top, maple neck and ebony board.

Maple and ebony are both very hard woods, so using ebony will just feel and look better. Stainless frets don't change the sound for typical playing, but they do help out bit with articulation and dynamic range if you do a lot of hammers/pulls/slides. They also feel a lot better. An ebony neck with ss frets is a glorious thing.

Original Strats didn't use alder, they used swamp ash. But, it got to be increasingly difficult to get good inexpensive swamp ash, so Fender changed to alder. When you spec the body, get the lightest one you can afford or have it chambered so you get a nice resonant body. Although, you can get good swamp ash at Warmoth. It's just a tad more expensive. On my last build, I used a light swamp ash body and chambered it, both. Now that I think of it, the current build is the same way. I like a figured wood on top, so the chambered swamp ash compensates.

I'm not a fan of the 6 point vibratos. It's just not a good design. A 2 point makes a better and more predictable/reliable connection to the body. But, that's not vintage, so...

To really sound vintage, you'll have to find some weak, noisy ceramic pickups. That'll get you much closer to that "vintage" sound than your wood/hardware choices.

 

[ORCRiST]

I guess the ebony board and SS frets are what made me think it could be too bright.

It was my understanding that for a fretted instrument, the fretboard material makes very little tonal difference, right?

I don't know about stainless steel frets though. I've never paid much attention to what was said about nickel versus stainless.

Eddie Van Halen put SS frets on the new Wolfgang. He said in an interview that he regrets not going to SS earlier than this. I have SS on both of my Warmoth's and I love them. They feel great, don't wear down, and I don't notice any huge difference in tone with them. Take my opinion for what it's worth though.

Quick edit. EVH didn't say anything about regretting not going to them earlier but he did praise them highly. Fret talk starts at 4:50

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU7WHAAPi6A[/youtube]
MULLY

You know, I think thats the first time I've ever heard Eddies voice... wierd. I smoke, and the whole time I was like "Dude, you should really quit..." Lol.

 

[DangerousR6]

What's so funny about Ed, is that he said the exact same thing when he joined with EB to make a signature guitar, only difference is that the EB made a good guitar. The wolfgangs are junk, at least the ones I've picked up and played on...

 

[The Norwegian Guy]

You better not choose black!
The next black vintage strat on this forum is my tribute to dad-caster!
I'll be keepin' me eyes on you, my friend! :glasses9:

 

[Death by Uberschall]

You better not choose black!
The next black vintage strat on this forum is my tribute to dad-caster!
I'll be keepin' me eyes on you, my friend! :glasses9:

Don't worry, it won't be "all" black.  :toothy11:

 

[mullyman]

What's so funny about Ed, is that he said the exact same thing when he joined with EB to make a signature guitar, only difference is that the EB made a good guitar. The wolfgangs are junk, at least the ones I've picked up and played on...

Yeah, there's going to be a certain amount of bullcrap coming out of any artists mouth when they have a sponsor breathing down their neck. This time around though I think Ed had more of a hand in the design of this guitar. I haven't played one of these new Wolfgang's but I didn't see anything wrong with the ones from Peavey. I'll agree that they aren't/weren't as nice as the Music Man's but I wouldn't call them junk by a long stretch. I owned like 5 of them over a period of years. The Peavey Wolfgang Specials with the solid colors were garbage. I thought the maple capped ones were pretty nice though.
MULLY

 

[Superlizard]

Edward hasn't had really good album tone since... 1984.

Funny that Ted Templeman (producer) wasn't on the next album (5150)... and only sporadically (with collaboration) afterwards.

And then playing around with new gear (Peavey etc).

His tone went downhill.

Moral of the story:  If ya got a good thing goin', don't change it.

 

[oldmanatc]

I was origionally going to build my strat with the DG-20 system, and eventually I'll have a guitar with it. All the electronics with it are included as you probably know so the posts about pots and pickups are null. Pick the woods you want, EMG's are pretty capable of a wide range of tones. Me personally I'd go with Alder body, maple neck/fingerboard because that's the guitar your basing your build around.

 

[mullyman]

Edward hasn't had really good album tone since... 1984.

Funny that Ted Templeman (producer) wasn't on the next album (5150)... and only sporadically (with collaboration) afterwards.

And then playing around with new gear (Peavey etc).

His tone went downhill.

Moral of the story:  If ya got a good thing goin', don't change it.

I have just about everything Van Halen has done, God knows how many bootlegs and demo's of theirs I have, which includes having all the sucky Sammy Hagar albums. I'm not a fan of the Sammy era at all. But, with that said, I thought Ed sounded great on F.U.C.K. If I remember correctly he recorded mainly using Soldano amps on that one. Granted, his early years were the ultimate but I thought he sounded great on that album.
MULLY

 

[Death by Uberschall]

But, with that said, I thought Ed sounded great on F.U.C.K. If I remember correctly he recorded mainly using Soldano amps on that one. Granted, his early years were the ultimate but I thought he sounded great on that album.
MULLY

You are correct. SLO with some 5150 mixed in. And the original 5150 was a copy of the SLO.  :icon_thumright: