Battling a fuckin' gnartown head cold. I've been trying to record vocular related mic test shit the past couple of days but my throat is busted and my head is full of garbage.

Might have found a drummer interested in a band Probably will end up being a total flake like every other local musician but it's been so long that I've almost forgot that and am getting excited again

Sudden crippling back pain... can't do anything...

Fixed up a Vox AC30CC for a kid. Turned out it was only a blown rectifier valve.
Anyway now he wants me to mod it. This is the mod dream list:

I mentioned the possibility of some minor mods too, like clipping the caps to take off the sometimes excessive brightness which I think you mentioned was pretty simple. I'll have another research online and let you know if I find something I think would be good to do while you've got it. If you've got any suggestions yourself then I'd definitely be interested to hear them too. I like versatility, but generally I'm either going for a Josh Homme style mid-heavy dirty sound, or a clean cutting, reverby sound that doesn't sound like pushing glass into your ear.

I think the best mod is the sell amp, buy something different mod...

Anyone know what gear was used for Voodoo Child (Slight Return)? I think it might be the ultimate rock guitar tone, it's sheer perfection. It always makes me feel like I need a strat, but I can never get them to work for me.

Have you tried a Tele recently?


Much more ballsy bridge pickups suit classic rock tones IMO. Also do you have any sort of fuzz pedal?

No I haven't tried a tele recently, and sort of - I have a Keeley RAT 2. I don't think my P90'd LP gets close enough, it's too thick for that proper raw crunch.

Hmm tele with a rat would be pretty gnarly, but Hendrix always makes me think fuzz face tones, and I think Voodoo Child was pretty much a Wah and a Fuzz Face into an exploding ... well to be honest IIRC it was a Fender Bassman on Voodoo Chile.

Bassman's are pretty warm by nature, and that harshness to his tone screams Fuzz Face and then of course you have the wah. I'm sure he used a strat but there is no reason why you couldn't get that sort of sound (and IMO it would probably be better) with a tele.

P90s are raw rock'n'roll pickups but they do lack a certain snappiness that straight SCs have.

I reckon the amp is part of the "problem", it doesn't like mid gain stuff as well as full on rawk tones, it's too fizzy around the edges and very dry without moar gainz. This is about the closest I can get (and the sloppy playing/haphazard mic positioning doesn't help ) - https://dl.dropbox.com/u/15027660/untitled.mp3

Also, your mention of teles has me wanting one of these. I love white/black Fenders

When I think "Jimi", I think middle pickup on a Strat, though. Which is a sound Teles don't do. And therein lies the Strat/Tele dilemma- yes, they both have single coils (at least, in their most traditional iterations) and say "Fender" on the headstock, but they don't really sound much alike, and the sounds the one excels at aren't easily coaxed out of the other.

All the cool, classic Strat sounds- neck, middle (highly underrated and great for lots of things that don't require modern high gain) and the out-of-phase sounds are sounds the Tele doesn't do. Conversely, the Strat bridge pickup, in stock form, will never sound anywhere as tough and ballsy as the Tele does for rock riffing, and can't quite cop the classic Tele twang for clean stuff either.

Now, one of those three-pickup Teles with Strat neck and middle pickups seems like a really intriguing option. I wonder how the Strat portion stacks up, though, given the structural differences between a proper Strat and Tele. The Tele is a big solid slab of a thing with the neck pickup mounted to the body and the bridge pickup in a bigass piece of metal, where the Strat has a lot more wood taken out of it and the pickups hanging there suspended in a plastic pickguard. The Strat bridge pickup, stock, is really nothing to write home about whereas with the Tele it's the defining sound of the guitar. The Tele neck pickup in stock form does not have the character and complexity of a good Strat- it doesn't even sound similar, really, and a good Strat neck position has tons of vibe, clean or dirty. The bridge is a Telecaster.



EDIT: Also, the tone in your clip isn't bad at all! But- I see what you're saying. Part of the too dry/not squishy enough thing given what you're going for might be the lack of power tube squish, which is, er, a problem as that tends to mean very, very loud.

Yeah I remember when I had a strat that I tended to prefer the middle pickup for most things. I hate the out of phase sounds though, they always sound cheesy. I actually have an old strat copy body lying around doing nothing. Not sure if I like strats enough to bother messing around with it though

If you ever get a chance to check out a Fuzz Face or clone (it's a commonly cloned pedal) that might get you there. Chris might be able to point you in a better there.

IIRC you rock a Laney? I feel like a proper fuzz in front of that would get in that sound range.

Also that squier is pretty tittsy, though word of warning those brass saddles can be a bit of a bitch with intonation. If memory serves, by design they actually can't be intonated precisely. In my experience they DO influence the sound, but some solid SS or even brass modern saddles would do the trick and probably intonate and be a bit more stable. That said, I had very little problems with my brass saddles, and wilkinson makes some compensated ones that are supposed to help a lot (I had them, which may be why I had little issue with mine).


EDIT SINCE I TOOK TO LONG TO RESPOND:

The strat middle pickup is a nice thing and all, but personally I could live without it. Same with the inbetween positions which I used more for "less noisy" than "sounding better". I also think pure cheese and clean country when I hear them. Though the middle/neck is pretty cool with slide. And I like the Tele's inbetween position more than both of the strat inbetween positions.

I should also add that I always prefer a strat neck pickup in a Tele, as opposed to the tele ones. And if I use a tele one I take the chrome cover off. I fucking hate that chrome cover, but some people dig it.

Also, I find the strat bridge pickup to be almost completely useless, mainly because so many other guitars (mostly built by fender) have so many better bridge SC tones. I will take a Tele, Jazzmaster or P90 in a bridge before a stock strat one. I know some people find use in the strat bridge pup, and I have heard it sound good in other peoples hands but I cannot get that shit to work with me. If I were to pickup another strat (that isn't a Charvel) I would definitely get a splittable bucker in the bridge.




I think Nashville Style teles (strat pups in the middle and neck) are the superior option. The bridge sounds good, with all the balls you want out of a bridge pickup, it has the cheese positions and it has the strat neck pickup which IMO is the best thing about strats. Structurally I don't notice a lot, but my brain says Tele. I think I just like the idea of the pickup mounting system in Teles more than Strats. While strat and swimming pool routes are awesome for versatility, I feel like they make guitars sound inherently thin. Teles are still bright and snappy but I don't get the thin vibe from them, but that could also be a placebo effect or some sort of bias.

And like I mentioned before, if you don't like the Tele neck pickup and wish it were more stratty, try taking the cover off. It makes a pretty noticeable difference.

I'm tempted to get a cheap neck for my body and rock a single middle pickup I have a feeling that might get old quick though.

If you didn't live across the pond I have all the bits you would need to make that happen, including an already wired strat pickguard. I actually have an entire strat in parts, but have no use for it since I got my Charvel.

I actually have the majority of the parts I need, just a neck and tuners and it'd be good to go.

I have a neck with tuners installed :D

But with how much shipping would be I am sure you could get them cheaper locally.

The only thing I ever use out-of-phase for myself is '70s funk tones or heavily chorused new-wave-y stuff on position 4. And only because it sounds like such a stereotype. My own personal Strat has an HSH route as opposed to the swimming pool and is a very heavy chunk of alder, so it has a fair bit of sonic weight to it, though still with that Strat airyness, which is a really nice combination... Though the bridge pickup- there's a Dimarzio Virtual Vintage Solo in there at the moment- still sucks. This contributes in large part to my not playing the thing much live except when I need a trem. I could play most of our set on an Esquire- just the Tele bridge pickup and nothing else- and be fine, only switching to the Strat for two or three things. One of which I could do on said Esquire if it had a trem.

I'll give the cover thing a shot. I do use the Tele neck pickup, and if it's a noticeable difference, I'm all for it.

I found it brought a lot of the snappiness back to the pickup which the chrome cover muds up. Though I was using GFS pickups so YMMV with the better stuff.

Chris actually was the one who suggested it to me.


EDIT: I am a big fan of HSH routes in strats for sheer "come at me bro" levels of versatility. With a good trem they have the most useful sounds in one guitar, especially with hot buckers that can coil split.

*POOF*

I've been really tempted to put a 'bucker back in the bridge of mine. Really, money is the only thing stopping me as I do want something nice. There was a Duncan Custom Custom on CL the other day for thirty-five bucks, and I'm sorta kicking myself for not snagging it. I liked the Custom 5 in my old Eclipse quite a bit. Splittable isn't really an issue as it's there primarily for rawk riffing porpoises; if I want a single-coil for that, 's what the Teles are for. (Now, if someone has a splittable humbucker that sounds like a Telecaster when split... Probably needs to be mounted in a Tele bridge for the full effect, though.)

I'm intrigued by the Harmonic Design STP: http://www.harmonicdesign.net/allpages/strats.html If it sounds how it claims to sound, I am okay with this.