I really love the 57/62 pups I put a few years ago into my 2008 AmStd Strat. I especially love them for the jangle and the quack. However, I would like to thicken the sound when I play lead. I use a Digitech Bad Monkey pedal for OD and a Rat for balls out distortion, but I'm more interested in how I can thicken clean lead sounds. I use .10 strings. I can't really afford any boutique pedals. Any suggestions other than changing pickups? BTW, I play through a DRRI that sounds fantastic.
If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison
Telecaster
Oh, wait, that's not how you thicken a Strat
I know DRRI sound nice but they really aren't big iron transformer and/or 6L6 amps like a Twin, Bandmaster or Concert. An extension speaker cab would help, especially if it has 2 or more speakers in it.
Maybe an EQ pedal to try to boost some lower mids?
I was thinking an equalizer might help. Yeah my Tele does have a thicker sound.
If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison
Willie, before trying anything else, use the Delta System that I'm almost sure your strat has.
The tone knob works for scooping out the treble in the bridge pup.
If you use it on position 10, it kills the pot, so your bridge pup sound is trebly and shrill, with that classic strat sparkling scream. Roll it down to 8 or maybe even 7 and you'll bring out the mids beautifully, creating a creamy and middly rock tone that will be close enough to a humbucker laden weapon... And don't forget to crank up the volume of the amp a bit. Single coils don't work so well with distortion/overdrive at too low volumes.
I do that with my Am Std myself and she rocks.
Hope it helps.
That helped a lot, Sergio.
If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison
Btw I use the pedals quite like you, a good classic overdrive (mine's a Danelectro Daddy-O) for mild drive and a RAT for heavier stuff.
The RAT is the best tool you can use to make a strat grow some b@lls.
Last edited by S. Cane; 07-29-2018 at 06:29 PM.
I love the Rat. I tried a few distortion pedals, but this one gives me what I want.
If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison
You use a compressor to fatten a Stratocaster or Tele.
"No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim
I’m going to have to plop down on a good one.
If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison
Originally Posted by Offshore Angler
I think it's a personal thing, I tried that and didn't quite like the results I got. Maybe it's the particular amp I use, but...
Anyway the Boss CS3 is a good compressor and doesn't cost too much.
A Red or NY-style compressor will do wonders to fatten up a Strat. When I play my SC Strats it's always on. It also allows me to switch between a Les Paul and a Fender without having to change any other settings.
The other thing I'll say is that if you're playing small venues or worship music, the whole idea of "I need a tube amp" is misguided. If you want to play a Strat and want it to saturate at less than big club or stadium venues, you're generally miles ahead with a Fractal or even an HD Pro X. Sure, you're talking a lot of money, but nobody ever said being a well-equipped guitar player in modern times was cheap!
If you plug a Strat into a Fender amp it's going to sound like Buddy Holley unless you crank it. You need to mic it to get the fatness of the mains, and also to smooth out the mix.
I've played with a lot of great players over the years and one thing they all have in common is they "listen out front" and not to their amp in the backline. It takes some time to learn the skill, but you'll be amazed how completely different that "thin" Stratocaster sounds out front in the mix.
I highly recommend that it you're a beginning player-outer that you record yourself at rehearsals. What you hear when you're playing and what you'll hear on playback will be totally different. I guarantee it.
"No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim
I've played hundreds of gigs over the years, and so I've had plenty of chances to listen out front. I'm not really talking about playing gigs. In this case, it's the music room sound of my Strat. Through the DRRI, I think a little compression would satisfy me.
On my Pod HD500x, well, I need to play around with the compression pedals because through it, I find the sound to be really thin on the Strat. I haven't explored the compressors enough.
And I agree that for smaller gigs, that Pod would be all the amp that I need.
If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison
I hear you Willie. In a music room situation a DRRI and Strat will always sound tinny. It's hard to get the volume past 1 or 2, so you have none of the oomph you need. A smaller amp with a 10" speaker would really help thicken it up. DRRI's are superb amps, but loud little suckers. Not a good practice amp IMHO, and not all that great for modern-style recording. I have an iso cab for mine so I can run it throttled up and still not bleed over into the mix. I run a ribbon and a Beta 57 in the iso cab so it's pleasingly warm and has lots of natural compression. It also helps it sound the same every night.
And remember, a Strat is supposed to sound like a Strat! If the Stratocaster ain't cutting it for the song, grab a different axe.
Chuck
"No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim
Though I don't have the same amount of experience as some of you here, I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm a beginner... I've played a fair share of live gigs and studio sessions so far...
And yes, I have recorded my gigs, both out front and through the soundboard. I know it's different. My thing is exactly what you said in your latest post. The compressor gives me the idea that I'm not playing a strat. So I myself don't like it. I prefer to use the tone knob to tame the treble and raise the volume a bit. Does wonders to the tube amp's tone and gives me some cutting edge through the song without too many sparks.
But that's me. Not saying you're wrong.
The tone knob helped a lot Sergio. Glad you mentioned it. It was obvious, but I’m a dumbass. I do like the tones Clapton gets, but I tried the Vintage Noiseless pups and didn’t care for them. The Strat tones I like best are Dave Gilmour’s, but I haven’t tried those pups. Besides, he uses a room full of pedals to get there. I’m pretty happy with my tone now. Turning down the tone control has gotten me there most of the way, but I am interested in trying a good compressor/limiter. I’m just not sure of which to go with. I had one that colored the tone too much. Hated it.
If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison
Chuck, I could use your help here.
For some reasons I‘m gonna have to take my red Strat on a couple of road trips and it doesn’t have a delta tone system, i.e. no tone control for the bridge pickup.
Last night I rehearsed with the band and it sounded thin and shrill through the Marshall stack we are using at the studio.
Well, I have a BOSS CS3 and will give it another try. What settings do you recommend to thicken the bridge sound?
Which Marshall? If it's a Plexi you can run a variac in front of it to drop the voltage and brown it up a little, but that said, I've never been able to get a good Stratocaster sound on a Marshall unless it's pretty well set to 11. You want the power tubes clipping and the output transformer saturated to get it to go into "the zone". Using a Stack at a studio is WAY, WAY, overkill. An Orange Tiny Terror will be too loud for most recording sessions.
Of course, all you need to do is move one wire and you have tone control on the bridge pup. Just 'sayin.
BTW, Shrill is a good thing on Strat that's being played live. It's nice to have that arrow in the quiver when you need to cut the mix.
Other suggestion - if the bridge is to shrill, simply select the middle pickup. I play the middle a lot.
So te compressor - when used to fatten up a Fender is basically used as a signal booster. The standard SC's fall off the attack really quickly, so you adjust the slope and attack to get a balanced sound that isn't like ringing a bell but holds, then adjust the output to whack the amp in the front end to add some warmth. You want the attack low so it doesn't sound "clicky" and the output high. You really just need to experiment.
All Strats are not created equal either. Some of them have "it" and some don't. A good Strat will sound good into a good amp without any help. The compressor will give you more of what you have, it won't change the overall sound of the guitar.
With an overly shrill Strat you can sometimes use a dirt box. Dial in overdrive to put a little hair on it and then use the OD's tone control.
But after all that, most times when a Strat won't play nice in the mix it's a case of way too much amp. No tube Marshall will ever sound shrill no matter what you plug into it if it's being pushed.
Chuck
"No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim
So I am guessing you put your compressor right in the beginning of the chain, like kind of a clean and compressing booster, right?
Yep,
I run my compression both pre and post. Pre is the first thing after the pedal buffer, post is done in the mix as is the ping pong.
Next you need to determine the correct wet/dry mix for the compression. For a country twang it's full on, for a blues solo about 50% wet. Rock will be the lowest, since the amps due most of the work.
Of course, this will change with amp type. An amp with EL84's will push in to a warm natural compression fairly easily whereas the 6L6GC bottles are clear attack twinkly silver all the way to 10, so it's a totally different setup.
Chuck
"No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim
If you don't mind, let me tell you more or less how I set everything up so you can figure out what you would do...
I'm bound to a 40 watt tube amp (I know it's too big to be used at low volumes but at the moment it's what I am forced to use). Using this amp's dirt ain't the best choice, exactly because it's too loud for most venues and I often have bno choice but to limit my volume to 3 or 4 max (the position of the master volume knob on amp, sorry to overexplain but my English is very bad and sometimes I'm not sure you friends understand precisely what I mean).
That makes me give up on using the amp's own distortion/drive, I use the clean channel and pedals. My chain is: tuner-wah-clean booster-distortion-overdrive-delay
:
I'm aware that this ain't the best setting, but it's how I made my gear work well for what I'm doing.
I have to cover songs within a wide style range, from raw punk to progressive (Ramones, Kiss, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, the Black Keys, etcetera and some of our own stuff). I use the RAT for heavier stuff and the Electroharmonix Soul Food Overdrive for the mild crunch and a lightly overdriven transparent tone. When I use my American strat it's perfectly ok, 'cause I can roll down the bridge pup tone to 7 or 8 and everything is full of color, it brings out the mids and tames the treble. I sound how I want to sound (almost like I'm playing a Gibson, like you said).
So, my plan is (with this other particular guitar) to put a compressor right after the tuner and set it for increasing the sustain and taming the higher end.
Last edited by S. Cane; 08-20-2018 at 07:18 AM.
¡Viva los Ratta!
I forgot what I was going to say...
¡Viva los Ratta!
Yes, old brother, that's the RAT you gave me! It NEVER leaves my pedalboard! I played some great gigs with it and still do!
I do agree that the tone knob has a lot to do with it. I would suggest a clean boost like a Keeley Katana
Thing is, I already have one clean booster pedal to push the solos. I'm not sure if it would mess the general gain balance I throw another one in for fattening the signal in front of everything.
Re-reading and excuse me, but I missed the obvious.
Turn the VOLUME down on the guitar.
Try this: set the Strat's volume to about 6, turn the amp up to where it starts to break and compress. That's your starting point. Now, when you turn the volume up the guitar won't get all that much louder, but it will get fatter. When you turn down it will get cleaner.
This is how I've set my gear for SC's for decades. HB's I start with a wide-open throttle since they respond so differently.
It also illuminates why there is a lot of difficulty switching between a Les Paul and a Strat or Tele with a single amp setup. In those cases it usually becomes the Lester will be my overdriving, sustaining rock guitar, and the Fender will be the jangly or biting one. If, however; you play only Fender SC guitars you can use the above method to get a fat rocking tone which will clean up when required by rolling off the volume. Since clean cuts the mix so much better than OD or distortion, when you clean it up you won't notice the volume drop because it will cut clearly through the mix as opposed to the OD sound which will tend to be buried a little.
Dynamics is one of the things that separates the pro players from the duffers and if you aspire to be an in-demand player it's a crucial skill to develop. What you want to avoid is having one rhythm volume dialed in with your guitar on 10, and then stepping on a pedal for a lead volume. That locks you into no dynamics. If it's a slow ballad your lead volume may need to be lower than your rhythm volume on a rocker. Some guys use volume pedals, others the volume knob. It's a personal choice. I learned to use the knob because when I started you had to be rich to have a volume pedal lol! Now I don't use one because it's just one more thing to carry that I don't need. :)
Chuck
"No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim
Best way to thicken the sound of a Strat
Hmm, this is kind of an old thread.
Anyway, the best thing you can do IMO is pull the speaker out of the DRRI and get something with more thump/mids.
I like the Celestian Alnico speakers. I have a 2x12 with Golds in it I use for a 100 watt head that's not too far off a Fender and I think they are killer. I've heard the new cream one might be the best alnico speaker ever including original silvers but I couldn't tell you personally.
Best way to thicken the sound of a Strat
Well, you've got me confused. I see a Strat (which is apparently the axe in need of thickening), a MESA amp, a pedal of indeterminate type, and a cowboy hat. Which is the key ingredient besides the Strat?
You didn't notice the humbuckers?
Best way to thicken the sound of a Strat
I'm not dissing your guitar in any possible way, but I would chop off a leg before I'd defile one of my SSS strats with a humbucker... I like them to sound immaculately stratty.
It's a good thing that I'm not you because I'd have to wak off both legs.
Pretty nice strats, even though they don't fit in my own personal preference.It's a good thing that I'm not you because I'd have to wak off both legs.
I'm curious, do they still keep any "quack" with those humbuckers?
Thanks and no. Sorry but once I installed the buckers the ducks flew South.
Last edited by BEACHBUM; 10-02-2018 at 02:02 PM.
Thought so.
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