I'm still looking for that perfect strat. I have a lot of parts and guitar I swap around trying to find the right combination. A S/S/H is what I'm going for. I'm looking for opinions on the tonal characteristics of wood and the weight/density factors. I need some help as the more I play and build, the more confused I get because it's never consistent! What I'm looking for is a full sounding, but resonant strat. I want it to sound chunky (like my Nocaster).
Right now, I'm leaning toward basswood. I'm familar with the Music Mans and Peavey Wolfgangs which are basswood bodies. I think they sound great for a clear, full distorted humbucker tone. I wasn't impressed with the clean tones or acoustic (unplugged)tones. But the strat is a different beast. How do the singles sound in basswood? Do they still quack in the inbetweens? The full throaty tone of the neck pickup is great on a strat, I wouldn't want to lose that.
My perception on alder:
I love it for traditional SRV or Hendrix strat stuff. I have had a ton of alder bodies, currently two Fender custom shop bodies. I have modded one to take a full humbucker. The other is stock, beautiful sunburst relic body and lightweight. With alder strats and humbuckers, it's too hard of a midrange or something when coupled with a bucker, I never seem to get the tones I'm trying to get. My '66 strat is incredible big sounding, but I'm certainly not gonna mod that! It's on the medium-heavy side too. Probably 7.8 lb.s or so. The lighter weight relics don't have that big girth like the '66 does.
For ash:
Ash is what EVH used early on, he said he favored heavy ash. I hated every 70's heavy-ash strat I played. It was "tinky" sounding. So I thought I want lightweight ash and a couple years ago, I built a Warmoth swamp ash strat kit and it was horrible. The super light 3.5 lb. body had a banjo like tone. No girth when played unplugged, so I didn't even bother with pickups. BUT here's the funky thing, I do have a heavy ash Hamer U.S. strat that has a full tone as well as my Nocaster which is pretty light ash and has pro'lly the best tone of any guitar I've owned/played. Is ash just that inconsistent?
I'm so confused. The Nocaster has that fat, chunky but tight and articulate sound to it. Everything I play on it sounds right to me (and others) even acoustically! I want a strat that has that magic. I'm not sure it's the swamp ash or the design of the whole guitar with the three barrel saddles and bridge thing etc.. My swamp ash strats did not sound like that though!
I'm pretty sure I want something other than alder. Do I want basswood or ash? Heavy or light? It seems ash is the most inconsistent tone wood imo. It's pretty scooped sounding but some pieces are magical while others are so so and some suck. That's just my observations though. Sorry for such a long post. I hope a few more experienced builders can take a minute and give me some sound advice. thanx.