I'm filling a bit of a childhood box tick, as a child I always wanted a Clapton strat, he was just great to me and he had the grey and 7up green strats that where just "it" they looked cool, he looked cool, he played cool.
I'm putting together a Clapton strat in 7up green got the body and neck, which looks great, sorting the scratch plate, two question I have for your opinion and review.
1.) the pickups - do I go a.) classic lace sensor of that time period b.) the current clapton noisless c.) something different - am I authentic (keep in mind this is parts build so will never be %100 authentic) I do I take some artistic license
2.) the tone boost - I've had the tone boost circuit on another strat before (clapton strat) and once I learnt to use it eg: set the tone at 5 not 10 ! found it quite good fun, but that was about it "quite good fun" - how much do you feel this is a part of a clapton strat and the clapton sound of the period ? - I'm not even %100 sure the lace sensor period had the treble boost on it ? do I put it in - or leave it out (the battery under the pickguard can be annoying.
Comments
All versions of the EC signature Stratocaster have had the active mid booster. The TBX Tone control does not actually boost treble per se.
Artistic license, please. Be yourself.
Also bear in mind that the way Fender fitted the TBX control to passive guitars is dire! It works fine in active models, which is what it was designed for - it was never intended to be used with passive ones, and totally sucks the tone at the centre position and below. Luckily, fixing this is easy - just snip the 82K resistor off. The only problem with doing that is that it makes the "treble boost" between 5 and 10 less dramatic... because of course, a passive control can't actually boost anything. It's really just a complete bodge on any of the non-active models and in fact, best just replaced with a standard or no-load tone pot.
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If I didn't already have two variations of grey strat, I'd have probably built my Clapton strat grey as it was the one that inspired me and excited me as a child, but if you're going to shoot for the childhood fantasy, why not shoot for the unicorn, so I went with the 7up green. (plus green is by good fortune my favourite colour)
I'm toying with pickup ideas at the moment, I'm interested in the comments that Clapton at that time didn't sound like a strat, I really think it did, I suspect a little part of that is the visual, you know it's a strat so you listen for a strat, but I don't think it sounded like anything else, so I'd love to hear more on that, and I'd love to hear some ideas on pickups.
I've got a set of slow hands from bareknuckles in another guitar, so I could get another set of them or get something different for that guitar and swap the slow hands.
Love to hear your ideas and thank you for the great comments and opinions.
With a cranked boutique "tweed" amplifier, the degree of overdrive saturation is governed by a combination of playing dynamics and all three of the guitar's controls. This approach takes the place of channel switching and/or pedals.