Differentiating my Strats - what would you do?

DannyP

I have 2 Strats: a bitsa with a maple fretboard and Oil City Stone Tones; and an old MIJ fender with a rosewood board and Fralin Vintage Hots. Both are alder and very lightweight.

Hand on heart, they just don't sound particularly distinct from one another.

I've decided to string one with 9s and the other with 11s just to differentiate them a bit. I have Bowie's Let's Dance album in mind - one for Nile's bits and the other for SRV!

So which one would you put heavy strings on?

guitars4you

DannyP said:

I have 2 Strats: a bitsa with a maple fretboard and Oil City Stone Tones; and an old MIJ fender with a rosewood board and Fralin Vintage Hots. Both are alder and very lightweight.

Hand on heart, they just don't sound particularly distinct from one another.

I've decided to string one with 9s and the other with 11s just to differentiate them a bit. I have Bowie's Let's Dance album in mind - one for Nile's bits and the other for SRV!

So which one would you put heavy strings on?

I would assume that the SRV's tone is more the rosewood Strat with the hot Fralins and the Hitmaker Nile Strat is maple neck - logical option to me

You'll probably need to re-cut the top nut for 11's and tweak the truss rod - I'd tend to go 5 springs and trem flat to the belly of the guitar for more resonance as well to optimise the guitars tone

DannyP

Yep that makes a lot of sense, thanks.

axisus

Neither. I only like 9s.

If they look and feel that similar I'd sell one and get something different.

guitarfishbay

I wouldn't use string gauge to differentiate because I like to keep the feel broadly consistent between guitars.

To be honest I don't really feel there's enough difference between two very similar models of the same guitar unless you're going to use completely different pickups.

I'm not familiar with that album, so can't make specific suggestions.  But if you wanted 2x singlecoil strats I'd go one hotter set of pickups and one much more vintage/low output.  I'm assuming you're not interested in humbuckers as that'd probably be what I'd do (one singles, one with at least a bridge HB).

crunchman

Just leave them as they are.  11s will be horrible to play.  Hot pickups don't have the same dynamics.

If you don't want two the same then sell one and buy a Tele.

ICBM

crunchman said:

Just change both of them. 11s will be so much better to play.

Fixed that for you.

guitarfishbay

ICBM said:

crunchman said:

Just change both of them. 11s will be so much better to play.

Fixed that for you.

But it'll have a duller attack, which sounds less Fendery, to me anyway.  I prefer the sound of 9s in standard tuning on Fenders because it accentuates the tonal qualities I like about the designs.  Whenever I've tried 11s yes there's a fatter sound but I don't think it is necessarily a better one.

stickyfiddle

Bridge humbucker and sustainer in one of them? 

Otherwise, do you actually need 2 strats? 

ICBM

guitarfishbay said:

But it'll have a duller attack, which sounds less Fendery, to me anyway.  I prefer the sound of 9s in standard tuning on Fenders because it accentuates the tonal qualities I like about the designs.  Whenever I've tried 11s yes there's a fatter sound but I don't think it is necessarily a better one.

I do… and I prefer the feel too once you get used to it. I particularly hate that boingy 11-gauge B string in a set of 9s.

10s are a good compromise on a Fender though.

guitars4you

11's detuned is something to try and evaluate for yourself - I tend to use 10's now with thicker bass strings so a 52 bottom E - allows me to attack the bottom E for SRV style shuffles and bass lines, but with a low action, the string is still tort and won't flop around and rattle like a 46 gauge does

5redlights

Changing pickup style is the only way you're going to really massively change their sound. I prefer strats generally to play and have 3, but all with different pickup configurations and only 1 has a standard strat sss layout. 

One option is a wiring mod or blend control, so you can get neck and bridge pickups together. 

You could go HH and have coil splitting controls, or HB sized P90s. 

Or if you want to keep the sss look, try some single coil sized alternative pickups, like HBs or these - http://www.creamery-pickups.co.uk/p90-stratocaster-pickup-set.html. ;

You could even try lipstick pickups. 

Voxman

I'm a little confused - when you say you'd like to differentiate them a bit I assume you mean tonally but I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to achieve. 

However if both Strats sound very similar, I don't think changing string gauge is going to do very much. The best example I can think of is Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top who for years assumed that he needed heavier gauge strings to sound better.  BB King asked him why work so hard with thicker stings?  Billy now plays .008's and sounds the same as he did with heavy strings!

I'm wondering if changing p/up selection options might be a better way to go to give you greater tonal variety on one of your guitars - what about putting in an S1 switching system, which will give you 10 options instead of 5? Or even adding a couple of options eg all 3 p/ups on and bridge/neck on together?  You might also want to see if a no-load tone control mod can be done, so that you can adjust tone on your bridge p/up.  

These mods will do far more for differentiating your Strats tonal options than changing your string gauge!  

vasselmeyer

I think what string gauge suits you depends on how you play. I'm very heavy-handed; there's nothing subtle about my playing at all. I really dig in when soloing and smack the chords out  when comping for rhythm playing.  I play 11-48 in standard tuning but if the band I'm playing with goes to Eb then I'll generally go 11-52.

If I play anything with less than 11 it feels wrong and I end up overbending and breaking strings. 9s in particular are as unplayable for me as 11s would be for someone with a light touch. And in terms of sound, I really can't hear much difference at all.

Panama_Jack666

Sell one and buy a tele!

mellowsun

I'd put 11s on the rosewood one, raise the action and use it for slide

DannyP

crunchman said:

Just leave them as they are.  11s will be horrible to play.  Hot pickups don't have the same dynamics.

If you don't want two the same then sell one and buy a Tele.

My Sunday best guitar is a tele! The guitar I play m o st of the time on stage is a Gretsch with 11s, so I'm quite used to that gauge.

DannyP

Panama_Jack666 said:

Sell one and buy a tele!

Already got a very nice one of those, thank you!

Ravenous

Hell I'd just tune one in DADGAD or some other alternate tuning.  Do it right now and stick with it for a month.  Why not?

DannyP

I like the pickups in both guitars, and I'm quite traditionalist, so I'm not going for crazy changes. They do sound slightly different btw as you'd expect, but not hugely significantly.

I have LP, Tele, Gretsch etc bases covered, and I'm keeping both guitars because a) the bitsa is an amazing player but worth very little ££££ so I might as well be the person that owns it and b) the MIJ will always stay with me for sentimental reasons.

They're both home guitars rather than work guitars, I suppose I'm after a different EXPERIENCE from each. A reason why I'm pulling this one off the wall rather than that one.

p90fool

Stick a baritone neck on one of them, for crazy surfy goodness.