Albert King type strat

[prophetofthor]

i've really been diggin albert king tone lately. what i'm thinking is a 2 pickup strat. i want a full size humbucker for the neck and a standard angled strat single coil at the bridge. i will fix the 6 point trem with 5 springs. i will be using "wimpy" strings (for crazy albert king bends), so 9's 9.5's, or 10's. tuned to standard pitch. alder body/maple neck.

bridge :: not a huge SRV fan, but he nailed a pretty good albert king tone with a strat. i like the sharp treble attack of the strat bridge. SRV got most of his tone from big strings, tuned down, wimpy vintage pickups. since i'll be using light strings i need a pickup that is beefy, but still has bite.

i'm also going for 100% hum canceling, but i need the vintage look. so a hum canceling strat pickup with pole pieces.

i have a strat with a SSL-6. good pickup, but i need more beef. so i'm going to eliminate the STK-S6 as an option. that leaves the STK-S9b, which i'm sure is beefy, but i dont know if it will bite. 500k controls will probably help it in that regard.


neck :: i want the nickel cover. some canidates

pearly gates neck
jazz neck (or jazz bridge)
59
dmz bluesbucker
dmz ej custom
GFS Dream 180

controls :: 1 vol 1 tone. i'm leaning toward 500k for both.


i know i'm not going to nail it 100%, but i would like a kick ass blues machine that puts me "in the ball park". chime in!

[Funkfingers]

Er, Albert King (lifelong Gibson player) ... Stratocaster ... does not compute.

Did you mean Albert Collins AKA The Iceman, he of the modified Fender Custom Telecaster in F# Minor tuning?

[AlexR]

If you want a strat to try for the thick set neck/humbucker tones....tricky. SRV used neck & mid almost exclusively. You can hear on 'Lenny' when he moved to the bridge....its really sharp.
The ssl5/6 or antiquity texas hot will be the closest, but short of a single sized humbucker or quarter pounder I don't think you'll get there and still look vintage strat. You're still going to need a thick toned amp and smooth drive even so.

You've also mentioned proper hummers as your neck pups?!? Weren't you going singles all through?

Tele's have much more bite. You'll get closer with a tele than a strat, and you can go for something like a '72 thinline with the two fender hummers which will sound the closest any Fender will.

[Bludave]

Er, Albert King (lifelong Gibson player) ... Stratocaster ... does not compute.

Did you mean Albert Collins AKA The Iceman, he of the modified Fender Custom Telecaster in F# Minor tuning?

+1000 If you want Alberts tone buy a "V"

[prophetofthor]

i acknowledged it will not be 100%. i would love to buy a flying v, unfortunately for me that isn't an option (it doesn't work for me ergonomically). i already have a true SSS type strat that i use. i could setup a SSH, but never really found a sound i liked. i wanted to setup something fun and inspired. i fully understand that a V, or paul, or strat, or tele, or whatever will have different tones. wood, scale, and all that stuff make a difference. i wanted a neck humbucker because i dont currently have a guitar with a neck humbucker and would like some variety.

any thoughts on the neck humbucker in a strat? i have 0% experience with that.

[Jeff_H]

For a neck humbucker in a strat, I would go with an A2 mag to get some thickness and beef into the tone. To me, either an APH or a Seth would be great in your strat project. I have an APH in the neck of my double fat strat and it is perfect. Does great cleans and nice singing leads without sounding shrill or thin. Never too much treble, but there is still plenty there if you need it.

I don't have enough experience or success with bridge single coils to really offer any solid advice, so I'll leave that to others.

[AlexR]

Why not try a HH strat, but with 2 Seth lovers.....a lot of players quite like the look of nickel covered hummers in a strat - and it looks quite old school too.

As you already have a SSS strat this will give you variety. If you use a super 5-way switch then you can get a combo of coils otherwise impossible without a barrage of toggle switches.