Classic Series 50's Stratocaster?

[honeyiscool]

Actually, it mostly has to do with the neck profile. Do not like V neck.

[cratz2]

Gilmour used a Dimarzio FS1 and later a Duncan SSL5 which has been with him for a long time and is in his black strat to this day and is in his Custom Shop copy.

It is definitely a lot hotter than most traditional single coil strat bridge pickup but it's is pretty unremarkable for clean tones in my opinion.

While you're in there, think about some way to wire it so that you can get the neck and bridge pickups together. You can go the mini toggle switch like Gilmour's strat or you can rewire the tone pots so that one is a master tone and the other is a blender pot. I can't overstate how much I like this mod. It allows an additional, very usable pickup combination and gives you the master tone control to help smooth out the bridge pickup as well.

[dunning-kruger]

so Dimarzio is early Gilmour and Duncan SSL5 is modern Gilmour sound?

as for the mods is that later in his career as well?

thanks for the info, looks like i know what to ask for on my birthday! hahahahhaha jk but yeah im going to get one soon then either one and put a chalaham bridge on the sucker!

[BoneNut]

Originally Posted by dunning-kruger

how do you know its 3 pieces?

Ive seen comes squiers better built than MIM's with less peices and no veener, but how would you know the Classic is 3 pieces.

Is this how they made them back in the day to, is it common to find 3 piece MIM' classics.

What are USA fenders 1 piece or 2 piece, i dont mind the 3 piece seing my friends Squier, which is made up of 5 to 7 pieces and no veneer top.



damn NICE!

heheheheh, looks like a David Gilmours from pink floyd!

I found out it was three pieces and no veneer when I sanded it down to the wood before I refinished it.

[cratz2]

I don't know the actual dates the pickups were changed but if I had to guess, I'd say he probably used stock pickups up to Wish You Were Here or Animals, then the FS1 for a couple albums, then probably the SSL5 by about the time of The Wall.

That's pure guessing though and I'm also guessing he would have sounded about 95% the same on each of those albums regardless of if he had the stock bridge, the FS1 or the SSL5.

I remember someone in the last couple months said something like, 'you can only sound like Gilmour if you have a maple fretboard strat'... even though he recorded most of the albums in the 70s with a neck with the rosewood fretboard.

There just aren't nearly the differences between these things most people think. You just have to go about getting there differently. The FS1 and SSL5 are hotter so they push the pedal and amp a bit harder and will have more bottom end and a little bright top end. You could probably accomplish very nearly the same thing by rolling the volume on the guitar down and turning up the gain on your drive pedal.

Not sure when the toggle switch was added... sometime in the early 70s though. Probably right around Dark Side Of The Moon. Not sure when he actually uses the neck and bridge but in my experience, that combination really adds basically fuller sounding bridge pickup tone. It's not nearly as Tele-like as you might think. It's just like a bigger sounding bridge pickup with more bottom end but plenty of bridge bite.

To be honest, I know it's cool to swap in new pickups but if you can do the work yourself or know someone reputable that can do it for free or cheap, I'd probably suggest you just try going to a Master Volume, Master Tone, Blender Pot setup before buying the pickup. It's definitely not exactly the same thing as a hot bridge pickup by itself, but it's in the ballpark.

[dunning-kruger]

I can do it myself.

If anything one day, i rewired my tele once, sure i could do it to the strat.

When it comes time to do it one day, ill know who to ask. playing the pickups and now that the honey moon is over, the pickups in general are just not my thing. And after just finishing of the old MIK squier before i finally let go of it tommorow(the guy i sold it to wanted me to do some extra work on her).

Ive come to realize that maybe 7.25 strats arent for me and I really really love compact radius necks, and that squier i sold!

i shouldnt have done that i really regret selling the squier now even tough this guitar is great, if i could do it all over again, i would just have kept the squier MIK, the neck and guitar produced IMO a better sound and more inspirational. It just cost me 30$ too but i sold it for 250$ to buy this guitar.

I have it right here next to my classic 50's, i just feel bummed out now.

I geese i sold it cause i really loved the squier so much and i expected that if i bought a "better" guitar it would be that much better.

well i was wrong and now i know not to let go of a beutiful thing.

[DaleH]

just get to know the new strat. Sounds like buyer, seller remorse. Bad idea to play a guitar the night before you sell it.

[cratz2]

Yeah, just let it go. I don't know what tones you are really going for but I wouldn't let the uninspiring pickups in the Classic Series Strat keep you from loving it. Just figure out if you really like the feel of it, get new pickups for it and go from there.

The pickups in your guitar aren't all that extraordinary, nor are the ones in your Squier... unless they happen to be the best pickups in a Squier ever EVER!



Understand that I'm not talkin' smack. LOVE the guitar... just the pickups aren't the be all end all by any stretch.

[dunning-kruger]

yeah i will i geuse, i think i just loved the neck on that squier, even after i changed out the bodies for a better solid wood alder body, the guitar still had that really gnarly quack and spank. I think it was the compact radius, and the wood felt pretty dense too.

Not saying that this guitar isnt great or that i dont like it, but i just prefered the squier for the sound and it felt great and i think the neck had alot to do with it.

This guitar as far build and it having its own fantastic mojo theres no doubt, but i really like the other guitar and it probly is buyer/sellers remorse if anything and i should get to know my new strat before i judge it too rashly.

[Angry Tele]

I have a classic 60s tele and its a really nice hunk of wood.

[dunning-kruger]

just had a sesht with my strat.

And i really think the neck is starting to grow on me. The sound is so so....but the neck is a real winner.
I did a Iggy Pop "passenger" sort of jive and it sounded great, it just lends its self to chords really well and they sound really raunchy in a good way!

As for leads the bridge is nice for blues jaming as well as the 4 position and the neck pickup is really piercing and hot. Nor really hot, but it really sings. Pickups arent the best but the guitar really shines through and gives me some really epic sounds the squier cant.....I still have the squier right here. and i compared them again and somehow i just really like the new strat better

Altough ill miss after today.....im glad i have this new strat now, it just have really cool cat blues mojo. And i guese it was just buyer/seller remorse

This new guitar just has diffrent qualities, its alot more subtle and i feel i really think i need some finess to bring this girl to life.

[lespaulismore]

I have a 50's series. Love it now but modded everything about it. Put on larger frets so no fret out, changed all the pickups, custom paint job, wilkinson bridge and tuners. Great guitar for that old V 7.25 radius. Nice to have around, stays in tune and it's set to float!

[almightycrunch]

 

Originally Posted by csm

Had one for awhile ... found the stock pickups shrill, harsh and coarse: they sounded the way people who don't like Strats think ALL Strats sound. It improved drastically when fitted with a Kinman AVn Blues set,

 

Heh, what doesnt????? I have a set of AvN Blues pickups in my Warmoth strat, good gawd what a great set of pickups. When I still had my Vetta combo, I could put that strat on, and dial up some wicked high gain tones, and you'd swear that these things were humbuckers too, great, thick, full believable bucker tone from the bridge pickup.

[krish]

I have a classic player 50s strat which I love to death. I changed the nut to a roller nut which vastly improved trem stability, and changed the 1 ply pickguard to a 3ply one which was purely for personal taste.

It kicks the {censored} out of american standards I tried. I saved up the cash to get an american standard but the classic player 50 just oozed so much character and extra mid-range thwack). At the moment it's probably my most played guitar, though nothing will replace my Rickenbacker 360 for live work.

[GAS Man]

I see this thread has bubbled back up. My '50s Classic Strat is still sitting out for play while the others (including MIAs) are slumbering in their cases. Mine really does have a nice resonant tone to it, and its daphne blue color and vintage tinted maple draw more compliments than most of my other gits.

But I think if I were looking for a good but affordable strat right now, it'd be hard to pass by the American Specials. But I'm only saying that cuz I love my American Special Tele to death.

[billythegoat]

I call it the Lipstick Gilmour...

 

Hehe