Re: Strat position 3 appreciation thread.
Yeah, my tele blasphemy runs strong.
I DO like the sound of the three barrel, but the intonation is such a fucking pain in the dick.
IMO, the modern tele style six saddle bridges also sound good, and have the bonus of being, er... actually accurately intonatable. That is what is in my MIM. It is what started in there too, but in between then and now, i tried a bunch of different things before coming back full circle.
From my messings around, the bigger factor in "more tele" or "less tele" sounds had to do with whether or not the bridge pickup is mounted to a big metal plate that the saddles were also mounted to.
The metal plate always rings a little, and the pickups pick it up in generally subtle ways(and sometimes very
unsubtle ones) and turn it into the "TELE BRIDGE SOUND". They also make the tele bridge pickup considerable more prone to microphonic feedback.
Anyhow, i am currently running a six-saddle hardtail strat style bridge in my Pinecaster, and it sounds fine too. The guitar was brighter and janglier with the three saddle trad tele one, but on the other hand, it is currently less prone to feedback, as the pickup is mounted to an aluminum plate that is separate from the saddles now. What i DIDN'T like at all in that guitar, was when i mounted the pickup straight to the body with screws. I thought it would make the thing more resonant, but in fact, it ended up making it dead and flatter sounding.