Do all "Strat" guitars sound roughly the same ?

JohnW63

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I've been practicing with my G&L Legacy Tribute guitar, which is the off shore version of their regular Legacy model. I just find it a bit more high pitched, and it can be shrill. I don't know if it's because of being used to acoustics and my Guilds with P-90s, but it just doesn't sound like the tone we all hear from Mark Knopfler or Eric Clapton. I've tried it on a small tube amp , with a 12" speaker and a dual 10" amp that is solid state. In an ever needing quest to improve my sound fit of GAS, I am wondering if a more upscale Strat from G&L , or someone else, would change the sound. How does the pickup height play into the tone , with single coils ?
 
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Charlie Bernstein

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No. Strats vary widely in their tones, depending on, among other things, pickups, wood, amp, effects, finish, and how they're played. And a G&L isn't a Strat.

Knopfer and Robert Cray almost always go for the signature Strat "quack." Clapton does sometimes - for instance, on "Lay Down, Sally." Other notable Strat players - e.g. the Vaughn brothers, Buddy Guy, Jerry Garcia, Bonnie Raitt, Hendrix, and Carl Perkins - aren't as associated with the Strat quack.

Overwound ("hot") pickups don't quack much, and Marshall amps are quack killers. Quack lives at the second (bridge/middle) and fourth (middle/neck) switch positions.
 
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JohnW63

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When you say, " A G&L isn't a Strat " , which G&L are you meaning. I understand the USA Tribute was made to be a Strat, with improvements from Leo. Obviously, they have many and various models, so what sound you get depends on the specs.
 

AcornHouse

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G&L Legacy’s are certainly Strats. I have the US one, and it’s everything you could want in a Strat, but a little better. (Had an Amer. Standard Strat, got the G&L, dumped the Fender within a month.)

John, the neck pup can be a little shrill, depending on the amp, and the individual pup itself. Clapton does a lot of his solos in the neck or middle pup. But, there are a lot of different pickup makers/variations, and the stock Tribute pups may not be the best; they have to keep the price point low somewhere. You might look for some aftermarket pups to try, if you like everything else about your Legacy.
 

GAD

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In addition to everyone else, I'll add that pickup hight makes a huge difference.

I have an American Deluxe Strat that I bought new in 2008. It had Noiseless pickups in it and the S1 switching system and I gutted all of that and replaced all of the electronics with boutique stuff. But it still didn't sound right to me. After some tinkering I discovered that I greatly preferred the sound if I lowered the pickups and let the amp do the heavy lifting. Of course I need to add a pic.

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Zelja

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Any shrillness should be able to be tamed by using the tone controls on the amp. I always thought strat style guitars were too bright then I stopped being hesitant to really turn down that treble knob. Bit of a"duh" moment for me but it's the old issue of tending to set controls with your eyes instead of your ears.

Other things help like pickup height depending on what you prefer. Hendrix used those curly cords. They tend to roll of high end as they were high capacitance cables but in the case of the strats it was advantageous but maybe not the best solution for a humbucker equipped guitar. The G&Ls also have master tones controls, no? Take a little edge off there if needed as well...
 

Mark WW

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Wow there are so so many variations and permeation's of Strats out there. Woods, pickups, hardware, manufacturing location...the list goes on and on. I have never seen, played or heard so many variations in one style of guitar. But maybe that is what makes them so popular? Technically it is an S style guitar. I have owned 5 different S style guitars and the best one I have played is my Squire Deluxe. It does the quack and all the rest. Is it the best Strat? Doubt it. But it works for me on those rare occasions that nothing else will do.
 

Charlie Bernstein

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When you say, " A G&L isn't a Strat " , which G&L are you meaning. I understand the USA Tribute was made to be a Strat, with improvements from Leo. Obviously, they have many and various models, so what sound you get depends on the specs.
Yup! What I meant was that even Fender Stratocasters have different sounds. An American Standard doesn't sound like an Eric Johnson. And when you start pulling in other Strat-style guitars, like, for instance, G&L USA Tributes, Robin Rangers, modded Strats, and the whole universe of partscasters, you really have a lot of different sounds.

And as you say, G&Ls are one attempt at improving - that is, changing - the Strat. And as you also say, they don't all sound the same, either.

I bought my first Strat right off the rack without even plugging it in. I liked the color, and I thought Strats all sounded the same. Ugh.

Yes, there are some distinctly Strat sounds. There's the above-mentioned quack. And there's the the third-position middle pickup sound that you hear with Bonnie Raitt and with early-seventies Jerry Garcia - who, I think you'll agree, don't sound the same!

And there's the fat, bluesy sound of the neck pickup and the country-twang-to-hard-rock sounds of the neck position.

So you can often listen to the radio and say, "That's a Strat!"

But all in all, to me, Strats don't all sound roughly the same. So if there's a characteristic sound you're looking for, shop around.

For instance, if it's the sweet Knopfler sound you're after, avoid hot, aggressive pickups (like humbuckers and so-called Texas-style single coils) and try some models with three single-coil pickups and a whammy bridge with six screws in a row.

Cherche la quack!
 
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fronobulax

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Yeah. Given the choice, I'll take a great amp and mediocre guitar over a great guitar and mediocre amp any day.

I'm just the opposite (substituting bass for guitar) but I think it is because I am happy with The One Tone To Rule Them All and I can get that from fingers and the instrument (plus variations as I desire). As long as the amp makes things louder, I'm good. Indeed there are a lot of recommendations to adjust a bass amp for the room and then leave it alone.
 

Quantum Strummer

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I second lowering the pickups a bit to tame any excess harsh/shrill tones. Even a warmer Strat, though, will still have a "resonating metal" quality to its tone. Another thing you can do is replace the pickguard with an anodized aluminum one. This will lower the pickups' resonant peak frequency, making 'em sound darker. (It'll also reduce hum.)

I once had a reissue Fender Deluxe Reverb, which made the Strat I owned at the time sound brittle and thin in the "Vibrato" channel. I warmed up the sound by plugging into an old Vox wah, which dulled treble when switched off, and then into the amp. The DR didn't last long. :)

-Dave-
 

Zelja

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The G&L Legacy’s have the same controls as the regular Strats: Vol Tone Tone.
Ahh, Ok. I thought they might have had the master Tone & a Master Bass Cut arrangement - was that some G&Ls or am I getting confused with the Reverends or something? I never could understand the old Strat wiring where there was no tone control on the bridge PU.

Yeah. Given the choice, I'll take a great amp and mediocre guitar over a great guitar and mediocre amp any day.
100%. The amplifier for a guitar is not there just to make things louder, it's a crucial part of the tone generation process. "Amps: The Other Half of Rock'N'Roll" : https://www.amazon.com/Amps-Other-Half-Rock-Roll/dp/0793524113
 

JohnW63

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Some G&Ls DO have master controls. I just can't tell you which, at this point. Been watching some videos and learning. Strangely enough, my Peavey Backstage Chorus, which is supposed to be an acoustic amp, tames some of the high end. I would have thought it would make it worse.

Are there strings for electrics that are darker ? I don't think I would go with flat wounds on this guitar, like my other P-90 NS X175.
 

Quantum Strummer

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Nickel plated strings will sound a little darker than stainless. It's not a big difference.

Yes, many G&L models (and maybe all current Reverends) have a bass cut pot. The Les Paul Recording model has one too, as well as a Decade knob that lets you vary the guitar's overall frequency response from pretty flat to kinda nasally. Lotsa mid/late '60s Teisco models have bass cut switches a la Fender's Jaguar. So does the Thunderbird.

When the Strat came on the market most amps, and amp speakers, were fairly dark sounding by modern standards. I imagine Leo Fender left the Strat's bridge pickup disconnected from the tone knob 'cuz he figured no-one would ever want a less bright sound from that pickup. :)

-Dave-
 
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PittPastor

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I've been practicing with my G&L Legacy Tribute guitar, which is the off shore version of their regular Legacy model. I just find it a bit more high pitched, and it can be shrill. I don't know if it's because of being used to acoustics and my Guilds with P-90s, but it just doesn't sound like the tone we all hear from Mark Knopfler or Eric Clapton. I've tried it on a small tube amp , with a 12" speaker and a dual 10" amp that is solid state. In an ever needing quest to improve my sound fit of GAS, I am wondering if a more upscale Strat from G&L , or someone else, would change the sound. How does the pickup height play into the tone , with single coils ?

WRT... Mark Knopfler, it isn't a pure Strat sound. He had some pedals he used. From an old interview, this is how he described his rig (this was DS days)

"As for amplifiers and effects: I use two Music Man 212-HD (130 watts each), an MXR Analog Delay, a Morley Pedal, a Yamaha Strobe PT4 Tuner and a Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer compressor"

I've never played around with the Orange Squeezer, but I've heard it adds real nice shape to the tone. And that Morley pedal was like a secret weapon of his. He used it to set tone a lot. Also, according to the sound guy, they could never duplicate the sound you hear on the original "Money for Nothing" recording. They had two mics in the wrong place and got the sound they liked by accident. They tried to reproduce the sound later and never could. So... chasing a specific tone can be tough!

Personally, if I were chasing a specific tone, I would do it using a Kemper or a Fractal. A couple of guys I play with have them, and they can dial in almost anything. It might not be a dead-on reproduction -- some 5% of the ears out there might be able to tell the difference... but you're never going to find MK's guitar/pickup/amp/pedal board mix, either, so you're never going to be able to get the exact sound, anyway.

Kemper or Fractal will get you closer faster, I think.

FWIW.
 

mellowgerman

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My Strat certainly sounds a little different than every other Strat I've ever played... but that was kind of the point. I had the extra Alder MIM black body kicking around and found a really nice MIM neck on the local craigslist. Block the tremolo, slap on some heavy flatwound strings, and top it all off with a 1974 Gibson minibucker and a custom pickguard. Boom!
Again, it might be a stretch in some people's minds to call it a "Strat", but I say it is :)

Zxygx2s.jpg
 

Nuuska

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. . . They tried to reproduce the sound later and never could. So... chasing a specific tone can be tough! . . ..


Hello

I was working in a major recording studio in Finland at mid 70:s - whenever ABBA came out with new song, the producers of record companies came to tell : "I want that sound!" - of course we did not have any ABBA players in the studio, so we just had to try our best with whatever whoever available guitar-player was producing . . . Those days I read in Studio Sound or dB-Magazine an ABBA-interview where one of them told how they were trying several different guitar-amp-microphone-position combinations even a full week to get a sound that was haunting their vision of how it should be.

So there - Tilt Billings and the Student Prince . . .

Never-ending task
 

Nuuska

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but why?

cool story man.


I was only a pawn in their game - and after few years got out of it. But being recording engineer was my youth dream - and despite the fact, that few % of the jobs were "YACCHH" and like wise few % was "Yippee" and rest was more or less just setting up the mikes and roll the tape - there were oodles of nice people to work with. I learned quite a lot - about many things beside my work, too.
 
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