in search for "my" sound...

[jagon]

im playing my "silvertone" strat copy and "squier" jagmaster 2 back to back, trying to find my sound. there both setup with 10-52's (they give it that grunge sound ), the jagmaster has 2 humbuckers and the strat 3 single coils, the jagmaster is 24" scale and the strat 25.5. all on a fender hot rod deluxe amp and ds-1 pedal.

the sounds:

strat: very snappy, single coily and screachy when distorted, a lot of presence ( very trebley) and not much depth (but the 10-52's help a lot with depth).

jagmaster: little snappy, awsome growl when distorted, very little presence and way too much depth (muddy). sounded like i was playing through a solid state amp.

the sound im after: snappy, a lot of presence, growl when distorted ( NOT A MUST) and maybe a little depth would be nice.

the confusion: what i dont understand is why does the jagmaster sound so muddy, unsnappy and no compression (almost as if its a solid state amp) compared to the strat???? can it be becuase the bigger guage strings and humbucker making too much output and could this be what people call "BREAKUP"????? would smaller guage strings make the muddieness and unsnappyness go away??? so many questions

what do you think would best be "my" setup (sound) ? amp,guitar+strings.



im thinking maybe...

clean amp (twin reverb, twin amp, deluxe reverb, etc...)
fat strat with 10-52's (the no frills kind on ebay under 100$ ;) )
or
les paul copy with 9's


any help would be sooooo apreciated, thank you .

[BradKM]

the sound im after: snappy, a lot of presence, growl when distorted ( NOT A MUST) and maybe a little depth would be nice.

the confusion: what i dont understand is why does the jagmaster sound so muddy, unsnappy and no compression (almost as if its a solid state amp) compared to the strat???? can it be becuase the bigger guage strings and humbucker making too much output and could this be what people call "BREAKUP"????? would smaller guage strings make the muddieness and unsnappyness go away??? so many questions

Smaller strings would actually make things even muddier. You're running into the effects of both the shorter scale and the humbuckers. A cheap and easy method of cleaning things up a bit would be lowering the humbuckers, which in effect lowers their output. You could also play around with cap and pot values to try and get things a little brighter. I'll let someone with more experience chime in on that subject.

what do you think would best be "my" setup (sound) ? amp,guitar+strings.



im thinking maybe...

clean amp (twin reverb, twin amp, deluxe reverb, etc...)
fat strat with 10-52's (the no frills kind on ebay under 100$ )
or
les paul copy with 9's

The Deluxe Reverb would be a good amp to look at...but there are plenty of others that will also do the trick.

The Fat Strat would also get you in the neighborhood, but I'm going to suggest something with P-90s, or faux P-90s. These are big single coil pickups that will put you somewhere closer to the sonic spectrum between your strat pickups and humbuckers.

GFS Dream 90s (www.guitarfetish.com) and Bill Lawrence L609s (www.billlawrence.com) would drop right into your Jagmaster and aren't very expensive.

Or you can take a look at some of the cheaper P-90 offerings from Rondo Music (www.rondomusic.com)...they have a gold top LP copy with P-90s on sale right now for $159.

[jagon]

i see...

thanks for awnsering my questions that was very useful info. i should try a mosrite copy like the eastwood sidejack or hi flyer. they got a 24.75" neck and p-90's. that would prob be a nice combination of scale and pickups.

[Mikey]

+1 on the Eastwood offerings
+1 on the Rondo stuff
But, There's also the Squier Custom II tele.
It'll run around $215 new and has two pretty darned good SD P-90s in there.

[BradKM]

Yeah, I was drooling over that Eastwood Sidejack just yesterday.

There are a lot of nice P-90 flavored guitars out there for not too much dough right now.

[jagon]

i played a ventures mosrite on a hot rod deluxe at the shop a couple weeks ago. it had p 90's and a strat bridge. it was nice, clean and snappy. i really liked that guitar but not too big a fan of the strat style bridge. a tune o matic or surf style trem would rock.

ima look for a mosrite to play at a shop.

[Jonnda]

deleat this

[Jonnda]

Can some one please direct me to a could clip of a p-90? I have never knowingly heard one before. Are they warmer then single coils? Has anyone treid making a fat strat with a p-90 instead of a humbucker (in the bridge or in the neck)? If so, how does it sound?

[BradKM]

Can some one please direct me to a could clip of a p-90? I have never knowingly heard one before.

"Mississippi Queen" by Mountain is the song most cited when an example of a P-90 is asked for, but there are a lot of others. If you've ever heard of the Old '97s...a lot of their lead tones are classic P-90.

Has anyone treid making a fat strat with a p-90 instead of a humbucker (in the bridge or in the neck)? If so, how does it sound?

I've got just that guitar (sort of) under my bed right now. It's a 7/8 sized Jackson Dinky body (alder) rear-routed and loaded with two single coils and a Lawrence L-490 (the older version of the Bill Lawrence pickup I recommended earlier) at the bridge. In short, it's like a really pumped up Strat. The faux-90 in the bridge just rips when cranked, and when dialed back sounds like a nice, fat single coil. Since it's in a Strat-style set up, it's a little brighter than most classic P-90 tones...tighter, with a bit more shimmer and jangle.

[Kap'n]

Other classic P90 tones:

Early Chuck Berry
T-Bone Walker
Lou Reed's Rock and Roll Animal album
Live at Leeds

[Jonnda]

Yeah that's for me! Isn't the difference between the L-490 and the L-609 just cosmetic?
Thanks.

[BradKM]

Yeah that's for me! Isn't the difference between the L-490 and the L-609 just cosmetic?
Thanks.

There are cosmetic differences, but I'm sure there are some real differences under the hood as well...and I'm willing to bet the new ones are better. I've got a lot of respect for Bill, and when he makes a design change, it's almost always for the better.

[ziess]

What kind of sound are you aiming for?
If you're aiming for a more sort of snappy, grungy sound then p-90s might be the way to go.
I'm guessing from your descriptions that you're wanting a more sort fo contemporary 'snap'.
Certainly Jim Ward from At the Drive-In and Sparta played P-90 based Les Paul Juniors to great effect.

Maybe just have a look at your amp settings. Try the gain on the OD channel (yellow light, not the evil red light) at about 2 1/4 and set volume to taste (maybe kill the gain a bit with a bridge bucker). Use that as your clean sound and use the DS-1 to boost this when it comes to your distorted sound.
The HRDlx is actually pretty good at that kind of breakup: I can get a nice kind of Yourcodenameis:milo/Shellac-y sound out of it doing that.

Oh, and have you tried a tele? The Tele also has the bonus that they're pretty much impossible to break, even if you try!

[Jonnda]

the solo on
"alone so far" by the old 97's is P-90? right?

[BradKM]

the solo on
"alone so far" by the old 97's is P-90? right?

I dunno...that song title isn't ringing a bell with me, but I'm pretty sure most of Ken Bethea's lead tones on "Fight Songs" were from a P-90 equipped Les Paul Special Double Cutaway. A lot of the same tones made it onto "Satellite Rides" as well.

[jagon]

What kind of sound are you aiming for?
If you're aiming for a more sort of snappy, grungy sound then p-90s might be the way to go.
I'm guessing from your descriptions that you're wanting a more sort fo contemporary 'snap'.
Certainly Jim Ward from At the Drive-In and Sparta played P-90 based Les Paul Juniors to great effect.

Maybe just have a look at your amp settings. Try the gain on the OD channel (yellow light, not the evil red light) at about 2 1/4 and set volume to taste (maybe kill the gain a bit with a bridge bucker). Use that as your clean sound and use the DS-1 to boost this when it comes to your distorted sound.
The HRDlx is actually pretty good at that kind of breakup: I can get a nice kind of Yourcodenameis:milo/Shellac-y sound out of it doing that.

Oh, and have you tried a tele? The Tele also has the bonus that they're pretty much impossible to break, even if you try!

ill give that setting a try.

no i never tried a tele on a hot rod deluxe yet, i did on a twin reverb. and do you mean "break" as in physically break it or break as in breakup? and it just so happens to be that i was just recently looking at a tele copy on ebay very very cheap in price.

[ziess]

I mean break as in physically break. I guessed you wanted to rock, and by that I meant Minor Threat, not Queen or the Darkness.
I don't think i've ever seen a broken tele. Sure you'll snap some strings (but probably less than you will on your Strat) but the guitar? No. Nuke-proof I reckon.
Ok, someone will obviously come up with a story where a Tele disintegrated or something but in my experience they're the toughest guitars around. I had a friend who had a brand new SG standard break the second day he had it, it was in it's case... This was the same friend who dropped his les paul and the entire headstock snapped off. Some guitars are significantly tougher than others, we call these ones 'Telecasters'!
I also find that Teles are more effective at making amps breakup because of their extremely dynamic nature. {Ok I should qualify, that a Les Paul through a JTM 45 is probably more effective at making the amp distorted, but try not making the amp breakup - i've always thought that breakup should be controllable.}
With that setting I listed you can get a clean(ish) tone just by varying how hard you play the thing. Teles are very 'touch-sensitive' guitars and they make breakup more fun: switching settings on a volume control on a guitar with humbuckers is not fun, playing louder and hearing louder is!

But what bands sound's are you basing your apprecitation what constitutes good use of things like 'distortion' on? Maybe i've got the wrong end of the stick here and i'm going to end up making you sound like Shellac instead of sounding like Gary Moore!

[jagon]

yes teles are very very strong guitars, i played a tele copy at some flea market and it is tough now that i think about it.

the sound i want is a colorless, trebley, washed out and thrashey (messy) feedbacking distortion sound. the strat is close to it but not quite there. (it didnt have enough thrashey (messy) feedbacking distortion.) the only guitar that i heard sound exactley like this was a univox hi flyer (sound clip from nirvana live at SNL) but the thing is i DONT want to be just another "nirvanabe" so i wanna avoid all the guitars cobain used. but the hi flyer is such a sexy guitar, it has the sound. so snappy, trebley and feedbacking distortion out the wazoo.

i guess the sound is a "messy grungy garage band" sound. now what instruments do i need to get that messy grungy garage band sound?? it should be easy to get such a crap sound...i dont know whats wrong with me lol.

[ziess]

Tele+tubescreamer+HRDx on drive channel set at 2 with volume to taste.
That's how I do it anyway!
A nice set of vintage wound tele pups (I use SD apt2s) help tremedously.

I play my quiet(ish) bits by picking softer and then I play chords and the like strumming hard, when I feel it necessary I use a tubescreamer as my 'nuclear option'.
Quieter than war, but not my much.

[jrgtr42]

Jagon: I may be a bit late coming into this one, but who said you need to have just 1 sound? IMO, having a variety of tones at your disposal is more effective to having just one. If you decide your "sound" is a classic-rock type crunch, and all of a sudden you end up in a metal band, you're up the creek.
or in a longer view, your "sound" is independent of gear; it's in your hands and style.
I personally have quite a few guitar - all varieties from Rickenbacker to Gibson to Fender and back, and piles of amps, Boogie, Marshal, Fender, and I sound like myself when I play, just differeent tones.
Just my $.02

[guitarzilla]

a fender twin is my answer to everything. he he he he he!!!

[slikwili]

http://www.gibsoncustom.com/flash/pr...54Goldtop.html