Fat Strats

[Tim]

I am just wondering how many Fretters have fat Strats? I installed a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder in my Jay Turser Strat a few years ago to obtain a warmer tone. I place the new pick up in the neck position. Has any other Fretters added a humbucker to their Strats? If so what position did you place it, neck or bridge position?

 

[helliott]

I have a fat strat and love it. Bought it that way. Humbucker in the bridge position for fat, gibsonesque lead tones.

 

[Spudman]

Tim

I have a couple of guitars that are like that (ssh) Strats included. My take on it is that the bridge humbucker overshadows the sound of the single coils so much that I don't really like it. What I have done to help this situation is to lower the bridge humbucker significantly so that the perceived output is more in line with the single coils.

I have also tried hot rails type Strat replacement pickups in other positions and haven't been thrilled. I would just prefer a hotter quacky Strat sound because I'm playing the Strat for that particular sound, but instead get a too smooth humbucker sound when using the rail pups.

My solution for Strat bridge single coil replacement has been a Dimarzio FS1 Fat Strat pickup and the Lace Red. I'm sure there are plenty of others that also work well in the bridge but I haven't tried them.

For neck and middle I still want that clear Strat sound so I'll always look for a pickup that will have that with sometimes a little more output or a noise cancelling version.

I have heard good things about the Air Norton and 59 in neck slots from other players. You just need to figure out what sound you want because these wont sound like conventional Stat pickups.

 

[marnold]

My Floyd is HSS and my Fender is a bridge humbucker only. Hard to get fatter than that.

I have a couple of guitars that are like that (ssh) Strats included. My take on it is that the bridge humbucker overshadows the sound of the single coils so much that I don't really like it. What I have done to help this situation is to lower the bridge humbucker significantly so that the perceived output is more in line with the single coils.

The humbucker on my Floyd is very significantly louder than the single coils. For my purposes, though, that's great. I wanted this to be a jack-of-all-trades guitar. I use the humbucker for rock/metal and the single coils for blues. Someday I'll see if I can tap the humbucker for a truer 2nd-position strat-type quack sound. As it is, the humbucker and middle pup together sound like a fat bridge single coil.

That said, if I switch from the fourth position (which is about 3.5K impedance with the two pickups in parallel) to the bridge humbucker (at 17.75K), I almost get knocked into next Tuesday . . . but in a good way

 

[sunvalleylaw]

My Fully ST-4 is a fat strat. As compared to my 60th strat, I like to play it on the bridge more, and don't like its neck PUP sound as well. I have a new bridge PUP from Tone to install and plan to add a Hot rail in the neck. I am tending toward the middle of the road GFS Lil' Killer. (See clips here: http://www.guitarbootcamp.com/pickups/) I am not really looking for it to sound really like a strat, but more a classic garage rocker/old school punker kind of thing so I am not looking for quite the same thing as Spud in a fat strat. I am coming up on some birthday money in a month or so, so hope to be able to get back into the project, along with add a good recording interface like a Toneport, this year.

 

[Plank_Spanker]

Fat Strat I modded from SSS. Duncan Custom Custom in the bridge, and two Duncan SSL3's. It has a fairly balanced tone and the bridge pup screams when you need it:

Just for grins a giggles, my Double Fat. This is one of my favorite guitars. It plays great and sounds killer:

 

[DaveO]

I have 2 pickguards wired up for mine. I've been using the SSS lately but the HSS is a great way to get different sounds.

 

[pes_laul]

i have a squire affinity fat strat that works really well for me cuz i play a little heavier music but yeah its a dimarzio something

 

[Katastrophe]

My Strat is HSS (humbucker in the bridge). It came that way from the factory. The humbucker is very low output, and is balanced well with the other pickups. For ceramic pickups, on a clean setting, the sound is quite warm. When I switch to a overdriven crunchy sound, the HB has a midrangey tone. It does not do ultra high gain sounds well.

I like it, though. Fender did some sort of wiring voodoo to it that position 2 still has that stratty "quack," which is my favorite sound from this guitar.

 

[marnold]

I like it, though. Fender did some sort of wiring voodoo to it that position 2 still has that stratty "quack," which is my favorite sound from this guitar.

My guess is that they probably cut a coil on the humbucker in the second position. In that respect, I like Ibanez's typical wiring on their HSH guitars:
1) Bridge humbucker
2) Bridge w/coil cut and middle
3) Middle
4) Neck w/coil cut and middle
5) Neck humbucker

Having said that, if I ever had an HSH guitar that I wired myself, I'd put in a standard five-way switch with a push-pull pot to cut the coils on the humbuckers. You'd get a couple more options that way.