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Tag Archives: strat
Pickup Polarity and Phase Made Simple
If you have only one pickup in your guitar, feel free to ignore this article and live your life in blissful ignorance, unhampered by phase and polarity issues. Everyone else, pay attention! This is important stuff, and it might save your sanity some day, or at least your tone. Continue reading
Posted in The Tone Garage
Tagged hum cancelling, out of phase, phase, pickups, polarity, Reverse Wind Reverse Polarity, RWRP, strat, stratocaster, tele, telecaster
4 Comments
Building A Great Strat On A Budget
One thing I’ve been really wanting for a while now is a Strat. I’ve been playing Ibanez guitars equipped with Floyd Rose type bridges pretty much exclusively since I was 16. Now the thing is, I wanted a Strat, but not many actual Fenders or Squiers (or other guitar companies building Strat-style guitars) offered what I was after at a good (read: cheap) price. Most of the Fenders and Squiers I looked at have 9.5″ radius fretboards, which would bug me after a while. I wanted black hardware too, and Fender doesn’t seem to have many models like that anyway. Continue reading
Posted in The Tone Garage
Tagged build, DIY, eBay, Fender, MIM, parts, pickups, Seymour Duncan, strat, stratocaster, Warmoth
9 Comments
Guitar Bridges: The What And The Why
Guitars are stringed instruments, and as with all instruments that utilize strings, there has to be a fixing point for them. These points are called bridges and they come in several forms and shapes. Generally speaking, there are two major types of bridges: fixed bridges and moving bridges (the latter generally but erroneously called tremolos). Let’s take a look at the different types of bridges and what kind of unique feature they have.
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Posted in The Tone Garage
Tagged bigsby, cam, Floyd Rose, fulcrum, kahler, Les Paul, les paul jr., strat, tele, Wilkinson
11 Comments
How Easy Is It To Install A Loaded Pickguard?
So you’ve got a Strat, and you want to upgrade the pickups and electronics, but hate the idea of having to solder all of the connections? The Seymour Duncan Loaded Pickguards for Strat® are exactly what you need. With the Liberator solderless pots installed on most models, the Loaded Pickguards make changing your pickups and electronics a breeze. Continue reading
Posted in The Tone Garage
Tagged Bournes, Fender, Fury, Liberator, loaded, pickguard, strat, stratocaster, YJM, YJM High Speed Volume Potentiometer
2 Comments
Strat Mojo of DOOM: Custom Stack Plus Set Review
After having great success with the Seymour Duncan Stack Plus series in my S/H single-volume, Floyd Rose-having Superstrat guitars, I was curious to see how well they performed in the classic S/S/S vintage-trem Strat realm. I’ve tried the STK-S7 and STK-S6 so I knew they wouldn’t disappoint, but I wanted to see just how versatile they could be in the classic configuration. Continue reading
Seymour Duncan SSL-1 California Set for Stratocaster
I’m a hardcore Les Paul lover. For years I refused to play anything else but Les Pauls. I tried to get all the tones I wanted from them, but three years ago that started to change. I got myself a hollowbody Les Paul and saw myself using that guitar for ‘hollowbody tones.’ With that guitar as a stepping stone, a small urge developed inside me to get a Strat and a Tele. Continue reading
Posted in Pickup Reviews, Product News
Tagged alder, maple, Rosewood, SSL-1, strat, stratocaster, tele, telecaster
8 Comments
The YJM High-Speed Volume Pot
You may wonder what the big deal is about a re-engineered volume pot. It is one of those things many guitarists leave up on 10 all the time, right? Some don’t even ever adjust it, getting dynamics solely from pedals, amp or fingers. For those who had grown up playing Strats, we know the volume pot is in the perfect place to wrap your pink around. We can pick the note with the volume down, then turn the volume up with the pinky. Now, part of the reason we recognize the sound as an electric guitar has to do with the initial attack of a pick hitting the strings. The hard-surface (pick) to hard-surface (string) sound tells us what we are listening to. Continue reading
Posted in Pickup Reviews, Product News
Tagged deep purple, High-Speed Volume Potentiometer, pot, strat, YJM, Yngwie Malmsteen
4 Comments
Don’t Tickle Your Guitar: Playing Like You Mean It!
Back in the mid-1990s, when I was a young teenager just starting to learn to play the electric guitar, I read an interview with Angus Young in an issue of Guitar World that has stuck with me to this day. The gist of the interview could be summed up in one elegant quote. On the subject of growing up with and learning to play guitar himself, Angus recalled this gem from his brother (and brilliantly understated co-guitarist) Malcolm: “Don’t tickle it, hit the bugger!” Continue reading
Posted in The Players Room
Tagged advice, angus young, Blues Saraceno, distortion, gain, Guitar World, humbucker, JB, malcolm young, picking, playing, power, Seymour Duncan, Sh-4, Single Coils, strat, stratocaster, tone
9 Comments
Upgrading an Inexpensive Guitar With Seymour Duncan Pickups and Getting RESULTS!
Now, we all are tempted by the expensive guitars we see in catalogs and guitar stores, gazing at them like the toy pages from a Sears Christmas Wishbook. We might not be able to get the hand-selected woods with the … Continue reading
Posted in The Tone Garage, Tips and Tricks, Uncategorized
Tagged diagram, Fender, guitar synth, shred, strat
5 Comments
Tapping into Versatility With a Tapped Single Coil
If you’re like me, you love your Strat, but you’re not always in love with the traditional Strat bridge pickup. For many of us, the bridge pickup is the first one to get swapped out when it’s time for an upgrade. Alt rock, hard rock, punk, and metal tend to demand more power, midrange, and low end than a good ol’ vintage-style single coil can pump out. Continue reading
Posted in The Tone Garage
Tagged Single Coils, SSL-5, strat, stratocaster, tele, telecaster
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