Newbie Looking for Strat Replacement Body-my strat is too bright

[patmac3]

Hello everybody, I am new to this site...but thinking of buying a replacement body for my ash Fender Strat/maple neck. I just bought this guitar and it is entirely too bright. Sounds great at lower volume...but the brightness becomes overwhelming at high volume and this was quite dissappointing when I first cranked it up. Have played other strats with same pu's on my amp and you can here the difference as soon as you strike a chord so I don't think pu's are the answer. Has any one had this problem with an ash body strat? I think it is just the nature of the guitar. I know a maple neck adds to the brightness, but I am not thinking this would be a major difference from a maple/rosewood neck would it? I was thinking maybe getting the old standby alder body with a nice laminate to get that classic strat sound. I don't think the guitar sounds bad, just too bright and twangy for my personal taste...sounds more country IMHO. Don't get me wrong, I like a clean sound, just more mellow. As far as sound, I love that David Gilmour sound on his black strat. Would love to hear comments, suggestions. Thanks

 

[hannaugh]

Have you tried putting different pickups in your guitar?  David Gilmour's black strat is alder/maple, a very similar sounding arrangement to ash/maple.  Some necks and bodies are brighter than others, and you should be able to dial it down quite a bit with different pickups and/or different wiring.  Although in my opinion, if you want to change the sound by changing the wood, you'll want to do a neck replacement rather than a body replacement, as the neck has a far greater effect on the tone than the body.

 

[tfarny]

ash / alder bodies aren't going to sound really very different from each other at least EQ-wise. Buying a new body to make your guitar less bright is not a great idea - it MAY be that that particular body imparts a brightness, but it is just as likely that your previous body that you liked was unusually dark sounding. It's a crapshoot, basically, to the extent that body woods matter at all.

1. adjust the pickup height so that the treble side is a bit lower and the bass side a bit higher. If you bought the guitar online, or something (sounds like it since you had never heard it before you bought it), there are probably a number of things you can tweak / adjust / setup, but pickup height is easy and drastically affects EQ.
2. adjust your amp to account for the new sound - turn the bass up to 10 on the amp, experiment a bit. That's what the controls are there for.
3. Try different strings - pure nickel strings will soften and warm up a guitar nicely.
4. get new pickups - pickups are the only thing on your guitar that you can 100% guaranteed change to affect the sound, and you can predict what they will do to your sound - brighter, darker, hotter, cooler, etc.

Short version - fixating on the body wood is barking up the wrong tree.

 

[Cagey]

Ash can be all over the board, tone-wise. Swamp ash is really only light and resonant if it comes from the lower part of the trunk that's old and sorta wet all the time. Farther up the trunk, it starts getting tighter and heavier, so it'll make a brighter body. Unfortunately, it's difficult to tell by looking where the piece comes from. But, it's one of the reasons Fenders are inconsistent. Pick up any 5 of the same exact model, and they'll all sound slightly different.

One way you can get away from that is to use Warmoth's chambered bodies. It adds resonance that the wood wouldn't have on its own if it were a solid piece.

All that said, I don't know if changing the body is going to have a dramatic effect. I don't know how much you want to change things, and it's not something anyone can quantify. It's all in your ears. One guy's "lively" is another guy's corpse, and vice versa.

The most dramatic change generally comes from the pickups. I know you said you plugged in another guitar with the same pickups and didn't have the problem, but it could be height adjustment. Small adjustments can make big differences.

 

[patmac3]

Thanks for the replies. I had switched pickups to Lollar Specials which are the hottest single coils he had and that did smooth out the sound nicely...still too bright. If I go this route, the next step would probably single-coil humbuckers which I have been resisting, but maybe that is the trick. I also switched from 9's to 10's on the strings already but not sure if they are all nickle because my tech put them on. Not sure how to change wiring to darken guitar. Adjusted pickup height already...helped a little. Tweaked my amp eq already...helped a little. It had occurred to me that I just got a lemon and that it was not necessarily the wood, which if that is the case would also justify a new body. I do believe there are good and bad pieces of the same wood, ie. a crapshoot my be correct, but I don't claim to be an expert on that one so I could be wrong. The strat I played in the shop had same pu's but had a maple rosewood neck and was a much older strat. That one sounded so nice, it was like getting slapped, LOL!! Still not sure what the answer is, but the cheapest route would be another pu change. Thanks again.

P.S. I was looking for an excuse to buy a Warmoth which you're not helping with :glasses10:

 

[Finch]

try a set of Dimarzio's Billy Corgan Signature rails. They are pretty beefy in th lows and high output

 

[Cagey]

P.S. I was looking for an excuse to buy a Warmoth which you're not helping with :glasses10:

Hehe! I know the feeling. But, you don't need an excuse to buy a Warmoth body. You just need a desire to have a superior instrument. Fender wishes they could do as good a job.

Finch is right about the rails pickups, though. You might be happier with something like that. But, one of the reasons I like rails is that they have the crunch and munch of double-wide humbuckers while still being articulate enough to discern the notes you're playing. That might be what you don't like. You might want things a bit more compressed and muddy, and it's tough to get that with anything but the double-wide pickups because they pick up the strings differently. There's some phasing differences due to the physical separation of the coils and where they pick up the string's vibrations. No amount of amplifier games or EQ can really reproduce that, at least not easily. A lot of people just end up owning more than one guitar.

 

[hannaugh]

You should build a Warmoth Strat as well because then you would have 2 Strats, and 2 is better than 1 unless you're talking about root canals or something.

 

[patmac3]

Ok, that will be my final step. I am going to try a single humbucker. That's what my buddy had in his strat and it sounded pretty good. I am going to assume this guitar has it's own sweet spot on the noise spectrum and give it one more try. If that doesn't work I will get a warmoth, but only if they promise to use the bottom of the trunk.  :laughing7:

Thanks again

 

[fdesalvo]

Wha't your rig like on the other side of the cable?  What kind of amp/speaker?

 

[patmac3]

It's an old blue-faced VOX AD-VTX 120...a modeling/tube hybrid. Good practice amp. A little muddy, kinda a jack of all but master of none type deal. I considered that maybe a bigger amp that doesn't break up as easily might do the trick because the guitar sounds great at low volume, but I also played it on a mesa-boogie, an orange, and a fender amp and it was still pretty bright....that being said they were not my amp and, except for the fender I didn't have any effects that can take some of the edge off as well. I have played other strats on my amp and they sounded warmer.

One thing I was curious about is a wenge neck...maybe a warmer neck would help out. There is probably more than one way to skin this cat...just have to find out a way...just don't want to spend what would amount to another guitar to find out. Oh well, at least I will have plenty of spare parts....kinda like my own little labratory. :sign13:

 

[Cagey]

One of the convenient parts about building a Warmoth is you don't have to pony up a big pile of money all at once. Find a body you like, buy it and stash it. Find some pickups you like, and buy them piecemeal. Buy a bridge one month. Wait a month or two and buy a neck. Then, buy some good tuners. Might take you 6 to 9 months or a year, but in the end you'll have an incredible instrument that you could never get from Fender. Might cost you $1,200 but if you're anything like me, you can't save up that kind of money for an all-at-once splurge without something coming along and eating it. On the other hand, it's fairly easy to nickle-and-dime your way to a nice guitar. Odd jobs, sales, gifts, super deals, etc. all help feed into the project.

 

[phred]

Here is a dumb question. Are you using 250k pots or 500's?

Scott

 

[-CB-]

1. strings
2. pickup adjustment - usually close is more bassy
3. adjust the knob that says "treble" on the amp
4. realize that the bridge pickup on the strat is a bright mo'fo and maybe get a Fralin Bass plate for it (THEY WORK!)
5. The neck will have more influence than the body, but you're right - those ash Strats tend to be bright.

Try some Fender bullet 150's - pure nickel wrap, and get the heaviest gauge you're comfy with playing.  Try the bass plate on the bridge pickup.

 

[patmac3]

Here is a dumb question. Are you using 250k pots or 500's?

Scott

Not sure, what ever the fender comes with.

4. realize that the bridge pickup on the strat is a bright mo'fo and maybe get a Fralin Bass plate for it (THEY WORK!)

Can you get just the bass plate? I think you have to buy a pu too. Couldn't find it by itself on website.

 

[bendeg]

Patmac,

I had a standard strat SSS with a rosewood fretboard and I have a standard strat HSS with a maple fretboard.

They sound differently :

The maple fretboard is varnished and gives a sound that is more clear and a bit "dryer" (less harmonics) than the rosewood version.
I'm rather a rythmic guitarist than a solo one, and my preference goes to the rosewood (unfinished), that is warmer and richer.

I may be wrong but, I think the varnish on a wood "removes" its qualities. I don't want any finished fretboard anymore. It's a bit like making love with a condom...

Well that's what I think.

 

[Cagey]

If the pickups are identical, then it's not the varnish, it's the maple making that one sound brighter. The varnish just makes it feel funny. Pickups have much more influence, though.

 

[Doughboy]

I had this problem with my strat too. The bridge PU was way too trebly. The tone control on the guitar only made it muddy & turning down the treble on the amp ruined the tone of the neck & middle PU. I had my luthier turn one of the tone controls into a pot that just rolls off top end & leave the other frequencies untouched. I use this to dial in my treble PU tone & it can make the PU sound almost like a humbucker. Try this mod before changing PUs or getting a body.

 

[V-P]

My experience is that a heavy ash body gives a bright hard sound while a light weight will be mellower and more scooped.
I have an ash body at 3 lb 10 oz and it sounds great, really smooth, and it's equipped with bright low dc:s callaham pickups and a maple neck.

 

[jay4321]

Patmac I have a black MIM Strat body made of alder I could sell you, one of the guys on this site is finishing a new strat body for me.

It's a near-perfect '07 or '08, I can get you some photos, and I could include the bridge setup, output jack, etc.

The color and wood is just right for a Gilmour black strat. Also it's copper shielded already