Hi, I am a bit frustrated, I own a luthier bulit strat, ash body, am dlx plus bridge and neck, and supposedly am standard pickups, thing is, my guitar lacks a bright twangy sound, it sounds more like a Gibson on single coils.
I ask if the heavy ash body produces the dark tone or the pickups could be badly adjusted, I really dont know, but it is pretty frustrating to hear my Bullet Squier Strat with cheap pickups produces much brighter treble than my expensive ash strat.
I want my ash strat to sound bright and twangy, clean surf tone, so luthier reccomends either Texas specials or SCN (samarium cobalt), which would you reccomend me? what about Lace sensors or active EMG pickups? which are the best for my intended purpose?
Also how does one adjust pickup height to obtain the brightest tone?
Please gimme advise experts. thnx.

The people that believe in body wood making a difference will tell you that ash is bright sounding anyway.
So defering to their expert judgment, I wouldn't suspect that to be the cause.

You'd get better results from turning the dials on your amp. Unless of course you have some kind of no-treble pickups installed, or a stupidly oversized capacitor.

What pickups are in the guitar now?

SCN's and Texas Specials both favour mids, not treble. If you want absolute excessive treble, then vintage noiseless would be where I'd look. Though they lack body, theres no real power to em.

Could it be that you're hearing a high output ceramic pickup and comparing it to a low output AlNiCo?

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I've got an ash American Standard, and it gets a good twang. Way more than the Deluxe I tried, with SCNs.

I've also got a Squier strat, and that gives me much more treble than any of the higher end strats I've tried, but less overall resonance. I'd suspect the pickups more than the wood.

Also, the Am Standard has a no load circuit; I think that's supposed to help the highs at low volume? Maybe look into that on your ash.

could be your capacitor, or a dead pot, pickups wize, im running tone rider pure vintage pups and they have a bright twangy sound with my tone level at about 5 on the guitar and treble at 4 on my blues deluxe...

before you buy new pups, id look at your wiring or setup, your pups might be set up too low or something...

Thanks 4 your quick responses!!!, Supposedly I have American Standard pickups, i am starting to doubt it. As niki sais could be the capacitator.

I am all about treble and clean loud tone, besides i tune in drop d, and do not play metal or distortion, with that tuning, the brightest sounds better.

If I had 2 choose between Texas specials vs SCN, theyre on sale at my local shop around the same price both. which would be better?

I will try look 4 vintage noisless to obtain pure treble, those are hard 2 find down here.

I wonder how players do not worship those squier bullet strats, like rjim mentions, those produce the brightest tones i ever heard, even compared to my 1960 custom shop relic strat.

VB

This is just my opinion but it sounds like you hear what I do too. Don't waste your time looking for vintage noiseless pickups. Their a world apart from good stock ceramic squier pickups, really. Their like the opposite end of the pole. What those 'cheapo' ceramics have in bite, attack and aggression, VN's lack completely.

I'd have a look at the capacitor, lower the value of it for a start. Then maybe look at the pots if that didn't yield the results I wanted. The stock American Standard pickups are great all round pickups. Good for all types of music. If you get my meaning. Their made to cover a multitude of bases, but not master one particular one. If you play to a certain style, base your pickup choice on that. 69's deliver a huge treble spike at the cost of power from the mids. Great for rhythm playing.
I think you may find SCN's too percusive, they are all about mid grunt. The treble and bass both gain through that, but it's still a flatter eq line than most traditional strat pickups. Brilliant fat lead sounds.

Go try a guitar with TX specials would be my advice should the cap/pot's not work out. Though you're not going to find a high end alnico pickup that responds to your amp like them Squier ceramics. Their an absolute anomaly of a pickup. When their bad their terrible, when their good their world beating. Loads of output, plenty of mids, treb and bass all with loads of bite. Just watch the heights to avoid harshness. Too low or too high it can come through.
I had a similar set in my Mexican Squier series and gave them away 5 minutes before I put vintage noiseless pickups in the guitar. I wept for weeks over that.

There are other manufacturers. Of them, the only ones on your side of the pond I'd look to are Dimarzio or Duncan. The prices you lot pay for handwound pickups are silly and not worth the supposed gain in my opinion. Have a good look at Seymour Duncan's stuff (though I personaly prefer Dimarzio). His sites really helpfull and should you not like the pickup they'll swap it within a certain timeframe (two weeks I think) as long as you dont cut the hook up wires. Now that is confidence in your product! You could try em all out till you found the ones you like. The 2 weeks can't apply from the time of buying the first set when your 5 sets in, can it?

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No no and no

Thnx 4 takin the time to answer Niki, I thing we hear similar too!!! lol.

Acting accordigly to advise given here, I will go to my luthier and demand a bright biting punchy clean tone, for the price I paid for that pup, dude must respond!!, and make him work on those am std pickups, I will tell bout what we been talkin here. I mean that gorgeous body with those components have a BIG room for improvement (sounwise) and become, to my ears, cause thats what I dreamed of initially, the best looking and sounding strat in the universe!.

If that option dont result satisfactory, lets narrow it down to this:which is the high end pickup that get close to mimicking the cheapo Squier bite attack? if not I swap the cheapo ceramics of the squier to the ash i dont mind at all!!!!. I bet sounds killer!!

And with this I finally declare myself a non beleiver in the whole made in wherever crap!! A 75 buck Squier bought on clearence sounds better (to my ears), than thew beautiful ash Strat and the 1960 custom shop relic, WTF??, Spent loads on $ on those, hey, hurts to say man but from now on, as long as its Fender and Stratty I dont care where its made or how much it costs.

Cheapo Squier Strat sound all the way!!!!!!!!!!LOL!!!!!!!!WTF???!!!!

Why not have a good play with the pickup adjusting screws in the mean time.

Over on (I think it was) the BareKnuckles forums, I remember reading some guys advice of strat pickup adjustment. It went along the lines of treble side adjusts attack, bass side adjusts power/output.

Now that reads a bit like web mythology to me, but I'm not one for dismissing other peoples advice with out trying it. Unless it's to go jump off a bridge or something stupid that will end all your problems more permanently.

Maybe you'll hear it, maybe you won't. Maybe it is just another web myth, maybe it isn't. You may hear the same as that guy, where millions of others don't. Your luthier included. Just cos you can carve wood well and turn all the right screws, doesn't necessarily mean you can hear well.

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What a change, just came back from the Luthier, lowered capacitator, lowered the strings, adjusted pickups and wow!! My ash strat came alive!! now it has a very Robin Trower tone, not like the super bright Squier that sounds more Dick Dale, but still no complaints, what an inclredible sound.

Funny how a friend of mine has like 9 or 10 luthier built "jackson" type of guitars, humbucker speed, ya know, but when he hears the Strat I can tell he knows he´s been maybe wasting his money because nothing rivals the sound of a good strat, u should see his face when he plays it!.

Ahhh the ninja comes through with the goods again Glad you're enjoying ya personally built strat mate Got any pics?

Dan

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My Rig: Guitar into Pedals then into Amps and out into Speakers.

Dan, did the pedal arrive yet mate?

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No no and no

im surprised, am std pickups are pretty bright.
i agree with nik, i was surprised to see that my texas specials werent as bright, but yet had a punch in the midrange.
i have 69s, they are bright, but midscooped. but they are my fattest single coil, bright, very sweet tone.
however, these are actually my favorite for lead. took me a while to really like em, because the mids or lack of.

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"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

oogway, kungfu panda 2008

Sure I do, 2day I compared it against my 60 relic custom shop and the ash strat has more body and definition in the sense that it has clearer range from highs to mids and lows, the 60 relic sounds more like the pickups are doing the work, not the body, hard to put in words, the 60 relic sounds more "Gilmour" and the ash strat sounds more "Stevie".
Anyway here are the pics:



now with the black pickguard.

So Mr VB answer the question for Fender land, please.

Did you get a better treble response out of your already installed pickups, albeit with a clean, smooth transposition across the range?

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Yes I did Niki with the same std pickups, obtained a great treble and what to my ears is the best sounding strat i ever heard, like u recommended the capacitator, it was lowered and the strings and pickups were not correctly set up, they were too distant (it was my fault) after i changed to the black pickguard, I so now 3 pickups are 1/16 and 1/8th of an inch, I never thought correct pickup height and string height affected tone so dramatically.

I think each of my guitars has a unique quality, the Ash has such a broad range of frequency definition, the 1960 relic sounds Vintage and the Squier is the brightest strat of them all, but lacks the body.

So now, theres nothing I would change to "Joyitas" (that´s her name),
the advice given here was godsent.

Thanks Braw!