Jump to content

Fender Stratacoustic pickup problem


Bob Thomas

Recommended Posts

  • Members

Take the strings off and remove the saddle. Then carefully remove the undersaddle transducer element. Check the bottom of the saddle to make sure it's flat and free of gaps. Check the saddle slot to make sure it's also flat and free of debris. There may also be a shim under the saddle that's interfering with proper contact between the bottom of the saddle and the transducer element. There's a technique that involves putting a small amount of clay in the bottom of the saddle slot. The clay conforms to any gaps and hardens over time. IIRC, it's known as Spanish clay. The late Forum member Terry Allan Hall was a big proponent of this technique.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Like Deepend says, when you get an imbalance of sound between strings it's usually down to poor contact. If the UST is a of the type with separate piezo crystals - one for each string - it is sometimes the case that one of the crystals might be faulty but that is rare. If it dies prove to be so a new UST - plenty on Ebay - will solve the problem.

 

Deepend also mentions the clay shim trick. I learned about this from Terry and it works great. Here is the method (lifted from a past thread):

 

When I fit a UST I always now use Mexican clay to bed the UST into the saddle slot. Mexican clay is a self-hardening (when exposed to air) modelling clay available in most craft shops. You just roll out a small piece of clay into a very thin strip, cut out a slice the same size as the base of the saddle, and lay it in the base of the saddle slot before fitting the UST - you can also put another strip on top of the UST before fitting the saddle (which I always do). The clay hardens and fills any small gaps between saddle slot, UST and saddle and really does improve the sound quality. Well worth doing IMO.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...