Making a Strat sound like a Les Paul

[Eric***]

So tonight I brought out my Hello Kitty strat to a live situation and played it for a couple of hours with a modeling amph going direct to FOH. This was the first time with this guitar in awhile, so it took me a little bit to get used to it, but after adjustment my conclusion was that the strat is ridiculously bright. It has a single humbucker in the bridge and a lone volume knob (no tone knob), and it tended to be a bit ice-picky unless I brought the volume way down on the guitar, and even then it wasn't exactly warm, just slightly less cold and a little dull.

I like this guitar quite a bit. The stylings are obviously awesome, and it's actually a pretty good little player. But the tone leaves something to be desired. My question: is there any way to take a strat and give it that warmer, smoother sound of a Les Paul? Are the 25.5" scale and bolt-on neck too much to overcome, or can this be done? It doesn't need to sound exactly like an LP, but a bit more warmth would go very far in the music I tend to play.

My first target is the pickup, as I think this one sucks. It's really only good on high-gain stuff, but I need something mellow enough to give me decent clean tones too. The only caveat here is that to match Hello Kitty's face on the pickguard, I'd like the pickup to be white to make it match.

Any ideas on what to try for a pickup or other ideas for how to tame the strat? New bridge? New pot? A cap in the circuit somewhere? I'm open to any and all ideas.

[Spudman***]

A few things I would try before replacing or modding anything would be: first - lower the height of the pickup and make sure the treble end isn't too much closer to the strings than the bass end. Pickup height can really change the sound. Second - adjust the tone controls on the amph. Roll off the treble and bring in more mids. Third - change the gain structure of whatever preamp or distortion you are running.

In short there are quite a few things you can do to adjust for this, you just need to experiment. Remember that any pickup you put in there will sound brighter than it will in many other guitars due to the lack of the signal going through a tone circuit.

[Duffy]

Short of tearing into it and having a tone pot and circuit installed, you could try an EQ pedal or a multipedal between it and the amp. I'm sure you already tried, unsuccessfully, to tame it down with the eq, drive, and voicing controls on the modeling amp. Spud's idea of lowering the pickup might be very effective. If you still don't get it to sound acceptable the eq or multipedal might help tame it down some, still leaving room to tame it farther with the amp controls.

If that still leaves it far from where you want it to sound, you may decide you want to spend some money to mod it. You could buy a good pickup from a lot of different manufacturers, such as the Wilde Keystones or whatever. I'll just use Seymour Duncan as an example. You can buy a nice Seymour Duncan "Pearly Gates" humbucker or JB humbucker - actually a "trembucker" that is made for the string spacing on a typical strat, IF the string spacing from E to E is the same distance as that of a regular strat. Otherwise you could buy a Seymour Duncan "Hot Rail" or lower output twin rail humbucker, because with a rail type pickup it doesn't matter where the strings are above the rails, because they obviously stretch all the way across the pickup beneath the strings. The rail humbuckers sound pretty good and it sounds like you would want a cool rail type one. One of those is probably about seventy five dollars and would wire right in.

One of these usable trembuckers or a rail humbucker would probably have alnico magnets in it. They are typically way warmer sounding than the "ceramic" magnet humbucker that is undoubtedly in the Hello Kitty. The ceramic pickup will sound bright and brittle, and extra so without any type of tone circuit to tame it down. A lot of the passive high output "screamer" type or ice picky pickups have ceramic type pickups.

If you plan on keeping the guitar and using it on stage then you are going to have to do one or two things, at least, to get it to sound acceptable. The eq or multipedal approach, if you have them, might be an easy first approach. That should give you some control over the tone and then when you adjust the eq on the amp you should be able to tame it down even farther to get a decent tone.

To have it sound "right" you might have to replace the pickup with a good alnico humbucker, possibly a rail, and have a tone control circuit added to the pickguard, probably replacing the volume pot at the same time. A simple circuit like that shouldn't cost much to have put in if you know a decent tech. It is a minor mod. The new pickup, if you get a quality one, will probably be your biggest cost.

But if you really want to keep that guitar and make it stage quality you are, in my opinion, going to have to do something. That brutally bright pickup is going to continuously annoy you unless you do something. You have some pretty nice sounding guitars, and if you want this one to sound anything like them you are going to have to spend some money - unless you can find some acceptable tones with a pedal or multipedal. Good luck in your quest to file down the fangs on that Kitty.

[deeaa*]

Most manufacturers make white PU's. I'd of course stick in a white EMG89R in white on it to get max versatility out of it, but I've also had white Seymours. Available in white, cream, zebra too which could look cool depending how the PU sits on the pickguard.

You could also install a 'stealth' tone pot, just install a small pot inside so it can only be 'permanently adjusted' or from the back.
I have sometimes done some stealth installations so that the pot was upside-down and mounted in place in a manner that allowed adjusting it only with a screwdriver through a small hole in the back panel. Had such a system on my LP to preserve the original looks etc. and it worked really well. I don't think I adjusted that pot more than a few times in over a decade, once I had it where I liked it.

[Commodore 64***]

Get a Danelectro Fish N Chips pedal and see if you can EQ it to something you like.

[FrankenFretter***]

If it's wired like the only single pickup, single volume control guitar that I've ever opened up (that would be the kid's Daisy Rock), then there's no tone cap in the circuit. If you wanted to keep the same look you have, you could use a concentric pot, with volume and tone on the same pot (stacked). That way you could add a tone cap that suits you, as well as having [some] control over your tone. All the above suggestions are good ones, btw.

If it were me, I'd get an AlNiCo humbucker to replace the stock pickup, and probably add a tone control. Also, it would take me four years to complete the project.

[Eric***]

Thanks for all of the input, guys. I did spend a lot of time messing with the amph EQ and some of the models (the amph was a Fender Mustang I), but I only had limited success with that.

I think my first order of business will be to drop the pickup height and see if that helps. If not, I'll probably look into getting a new pickup and adding a tone knob in the circuit via a stealth pot like Deeaa mentioned. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll look at an EQ pedal.

For a new pickup, I'm thinking about something like the Rose California. For a cheaper option, I think GFS makes some Vintage 59 pickup that might work OK, but I'm leaning toward the Rose.

Lastly, would the pot value help anything? I'm not sure how that all works, but my impression is that higher resistance pots dump less of the signal to ground -- is that correct? If that is the case, would a lower value on the pot help out anything? Just another idea.

Again, thanks for all of the ideas.

[Spudman***]

Yes, a different value volume pot can change a lot of the tone and output. If you have a 1meg pot in there then just switching to a 500 or 330 might get you where you want to be. Otherwise, a 250 is as low as you will be able to go.

[guitartango]

Hi Eric

You may want to check out the Seymour Duncan Pedal booster, one of the settings makes a Strat sound like a Les Paul,



This dynamic little boost pedal gives you up to 25db of gain as well as a resonance switch. This switch gives you three options...1-resonance is shifted down
2-3kHz. 2-Resonance is shifted down 3-5Khz. 0-Resonance is not affected. This switch is designed for use with single coil pickups. Position 1 makes them sound and respond like vintage humbuckers, position 2 makes them sound like modern, high gain humbuckers. Position 0 is a totally neutral, transparent clean boost designed for boosting your amp or your signal in a long effects chain.

[Ch0jin]

My vote would be for the concentric pot idea with one pot as volume and the other as tone. All you need is the new pot and a cap and a little soldering and BAM! Adjustable warmth. FWIW I'd try that before I went pickup shopping, but I'm sure a pickup upgrade would improve the tone too.

[Eric***]

My vote would be for the concentric pot idea with one pot as volume and the other as tone. All you need is the new pot and a cap and a little soldering and BAM! Adjustable warmth. FWIW I'd try that before I went pickup shopping, but I'm sure a pickup upgrade would improve the tone too.

Would a concentric pot fit in the existing hole for the volume knob?

[DeanEVO_Dude]

Eric,
As for the possibility of a GFS pickup... I have a set of both the 59s and the FatPats, and If you are looking for something a little warmer, go with the FatPats. I think the FatPats are just what you are looking for. As for the volume pot, I believe a 250k will darken up the sound as well (I could have that backwards, I'm sure someone will correct me if I do).

Scott

[Ch0jin]

The concern would be the increased depth.

Have a look at this one http://www.warmoth.com/Concentric-Po...S-P720C58.aspx and maybe compare to your existing pot. You'll need new knobs too, I forgot to mention that before


edit: I have a GFS FatPat too(zebra!) in my old Squier and it's great!

[FrankenFretter***]

I have a GFS 59, but I have no idea how it sounds. It was a good deal, and I had to buy it for possible future projects...but I've heard good things about them. My feeling about most GFS pickups is that they're okay, but a little "meh". A magnet swap seems to help on some of them.

For a warm sounding humbucker, it's hard to beat the Gibson 57 Classic series. Unfortunately, they don't come cheap. The Wilkinsons I have in my Gladiator LP are pretty warm sounding, and they can be had for pretty cheap. Not sure if they come in white or not.

[Eric***]

Well, I ordered a concentric pot, knobs, and some 0.047 and 0.022 caps, so I guess I'll throw that in and see if it helps. If not, I'll look into a new pickup, though that might be coming eventually regardless.

[sunvalleylaw]

Hopefully that helps get you what you want. I am not sure I would want a strat to sound completely like a Paul, but a fattened up rawkin' strat could be really fun!

[Duffy]

With it in mind that your Hello Kitty only has a full sized humbucker in it, and no other pickups, I probably would try to get a really decent pickup for it, considering that you plan on keeping it and using it on stage. The Rose pickups are probably very decent. Those probably have real good satisfaction ratings. I have had a few GFS pickups and have not been impressed with any of them except the "crunchy PAF's" that came in an Xavier XV500 maple capped LP type guitar. With GFS I think you need to "know" what you are getting before you order.

Some other companies that are supposed to be well satisfying are Golden Age, Wilde Keystones, Bill Lawrence, etc., and they don't cost a real lot. But like Frankenfretter said, a Gibson '57 would be totally nice. The pickup is probably about 110 dollars, at least. But you could get a totally nice sound, especially with the new volume/tone pot and cap. Probably any real decent aftermarket humbucker is going to sound real good compared to the stock pickup in that guitar, especially after adding the tone circuit. Your Rose pickup idea is probably as good as any. Personally, with the type of sound it seems like you are looking for, I would stay away from any high output humbuckers.

Did you order the 250 or 500 kOhm concentric pot?

Are you going to have someone else do the mod?

[Tig***]

I have a GFS 59, but I have no idea how it sounds.

I have a pair of GFS Vintage '59's in my old $50 Squier Tele, but it has been a long time since I played it. I they sounded pretty good, but need to pull it out and play it through the Tweaker to get a better idea.

[Eric***]

Did you order the 250 or 500 kOhm concentric pot?

Are you going to have someone else do the mod?

500k. I'm thinking I'll take a stab at it and see how it goes.