The Guitar (and Other Musical Instruments) Thread | Page 13 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Getting more sustain on a Strat is a bit of a job because the standard pickups and wiring aren’t really designed for it.  But we live in the 21st century now and you can get pickups that are much stronger than that, especially if you play it in 2nd or 4th position, and components are much better. BUT a more vintage-style pickup gives you more tonal range (ceramic magnet single coils seem to be the worst, cheapest option), so that’s why amps became so important to gain/sustain apart from what the guitar can do on its own. The really important part is mid-range frequencies. Strats are naturally scooped, overdrive compression emphasises mid-range and thus you get longer overtones ie sustain. This is why humbuckers and P90’s are popular, they are naturally more mid-rangey (that’s a word!) with a bit more output than a single-coil pickup, so they’re easier to dial in that sustain. On the other hand, humbuckers need a bit of help with treble tone and P90s are sort of in the middle tone-wise. But mid-range is really good in a live context, you don’t want to sound like a cymbal or bass.

My take is, sure you can chase the goal of the most sustainy guitar ever or … just get a compression pedal. I get ridiculous sustain from a compression pedal into a fuzz and/or amp modeller or just on its own, because I like to use split-coils on my SG too and it levels that up a bit, but even just a bridge pickup sounds great. A good compression pedal is “transparent”, it doesn’t push too much gain to affect your volume and doesn’t chop your attack off (unless you want to squish the sound).

Lots of modeller amps these days subtly compress the signal anyway particularly on settings like “OD”. Whatever you choose, your ears are a better guide than some website.

Music shops, can lead to more junk! 

Just quickly back to sustain: I come from the bass side of things, so I know for instance that bigger gauge strings = more sustain also, but most people struggle with bends if you go too big on guitar, and that certainly goes for bass. Depends what you want to do with guitar, if you need really easy bends you might go with 9’s. Sustain is also really important for bass playing, to get an even, strong note, again it depends what style you’re playing. But I usually have some compression going just because bass doesn’t need dynamics in the way a guitar does. 

Beatlebug said

String gauges. Translation:
11 = Power Slinky: Dhani Harrison
10 = Regular Slinky: David Gilmour*, George Harrison , yours truly, most standard electric guitar string gauge
9 = Super Slinky: Jimmy Page

And the rest, Jimmy’s not alone there, don’t forget Angus Young, Frank Zappa, and Jimi Hendrix! And it’s true about gauges on LPs and SG’s they’re definitely more bendy on short-scale guitars compared to others. I know it’s only an inch or so difference but it does make a difference. I’m almost dreading doing my first string change on Shona because the strings right now feel so good. I went with 10’s on Sparky and he’s less bendy but he’s got nut/bridge issues anyway so until I do surgery he’s going to be a bit less playable. I’m trying to imagine how hard those strings of Dhani might be on his dad’s Tele (did he ever name it) or on Rocky or Lucy.

Another thing Vaughn did was use an overdrive pedal, the much beloved Ibanez Tube Screamer, as a clean boost. He had his amp set to high gain on the edge of breaking up then roll his volume back so the tone wasn’t distorted and he’d get those punchy highs from the Screamer. And then on top of that those monstrously big strings with the fat tone. With some fuzzes you can actually do the same thing if you have a compressor running into them.  When you have time, I highly recommend a look at the youtube channel That Pedal Show, you’ll learn a lot about how amps and volume and pedals can all interact to your benefit.  A lot of pedals sound really different with Strats/Tele’s compared to the humbucker SG’s and LP’s.

So I went a bit mid-winter nutty down here and now I’m paying off a sonic blue G&L Tribute Fallout:

Not that specific one, just a picture from ebay that’s not as shiny as a lot of promo pictures for the sonic blue that washes out the colour a lot. I would have liked the Mint Green one but that’s now hard to find in the Tribute line and it doesn’t come with a maple fretboard which I wanted (since CITES hit, I’m a bit paranoid about rosewood and I don’t have any maple fretboard guitars yet). But these are special guitars, custom pickups with amazing balance between the humbucker and the P90 and even more amazing balance with the coil-split humbucker by itself or with the P90. I don’t know how they did this but my current theory is that the humbucker is made up of a strong coil and a slightly weaker coil and it’s the strong coil that represents the coil-split. Normally when you coil-split a humbucker you lose lots of mid-range and a little volume with the added problem that our ears perceive more mid-range as louder. It’s the same thing when you put two pickups out of phase with each other, it scoops the mid-range and you perceive that as lower volume. Anyway, this guitar has fantastic range for tones, it’s a lot like a Tele that way, it can do that twang, it can do good distortion and fuzz, it can do jazzy roundness (yes Tele’s do that), its a slab with a neck, just a bit smaller than a Tele, it’ll be a fantastic reggae axe.

This should ease my GAS for something with a P90 in it..maybe…for now. I have resolved that should I wish for another guitar I should get myself a fretless Jazz bass first; I have a terrible fretless that I’ve resolved to junk and I should at least get a good 3rd bass before I think of another guitar: at this stage it looks like being a Strat of some sort, because I think the Fallout can do a Tele already. The bass I have in mind is the Harley Benton Jazz Fretless of course, it looks and sounds amazing too. The Strat, I’m hemming and hawing about that. Fender is just completely out of reach for me, Squire is rapidly becoming not much better, and I don’t really want to have to go with its lower-end range just for a headstock decal. Fortunately, most of the world makes Strat-like guitars so there are a lot of choices out there! Currently waiting to hear back from these guys about freight and stuff because the rest of the hardware looks great for the price, and they do sell internationally. Oh, and their pickups are very well-regarded too! The relic-ing seems a bit silly though.

edited: meant coil-split throughout.

I should revise my earlier statements about the Fallout being a Tele, not quite. It can mimic a Tele but it can also mimic some Strat tones with some clean boost. I’m a big fan of the tone that David Byrne consistently had on Talking Heads records, and the Fallout can do that (like a 4th position sound between the two pickups but also a 2nd position sound with the bridge pickup split), and with the bridge split alone get a Tele-like twang, and at the other, P90 end, a warm yet clear sound thicker than a normal single coil, it’s hard to describe. That’s a lot for one guitar to do. On the not so good side, it’s clear that humbuckers drive many pedals in different ways to single-coils which means I have to…buy more pedals! I do need a better overdrive sound than I’m currently getting at the very least. Also, the string tension is a bit higher with this style, I’m adapting to it ok though, I did get a bit spoiled by the SG’s generally lower tension. I’m going to stick with 3 guitars for now, I still need to upgrade the SG Junior anyway.

My next task is to acquire a JC-22 amp which will give an awesome chorus sound, lots of good connection options and a nice clean amplification for pedals to play with.