I have an 80s Elite Strat - widely regarded as one of the worst models Fender made! However it was a childhood leaving-school present and for nostalgic reasons I can’t part with it. It’s well put together though and plays like a dream...it just weighs a ton!
The original active pickups never sounded Stratty to
me so I had the active circuitry removed and had some Texas Specials in there....still sounded harsh and brittle to me. Recently it’s been bastardised even more with some SD single coil size humbuckers just as an experiment but I want to get it back to being just a ‘normal’ Strat.
My dilemma is whether it’s worth spending more money on it. It weighs a ton (more like a Les Paul than a Strat) and I’m wondering if that contributes to the somewhat harsh tone I’ve always experienced with it? Does anyone have any experience with really weighty Strats and whether it’s possible to get a nice mellow vintage type tone out of them with the right pickups? If it’s never going to sound like that due to the construction then I’ll probably leave it and buy another Strat. But if the consensus is that there’s possibilities for it then I’ll carry on modding.
Any advice/opinions much appreciated.
Comments
If so get a body from @GoldenEraGuitars and load it with something nice and warm like the Mark Foley pre CBS 60s pickups.
Been uploading old tracks I recorded ages ago and hopefully some new noodles here.
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The pickups were in fact something cheap and Japanese, but much more importantly almost the whole area under the pickguard had been hollowed out with something like a blunt screwdriver, a small hatchet or perhaps a trained beaver... from the shape of the holes it looked like three humbuckers and an MXR pedal circuit had been fitted .
Luckily he'd got it for a good price, and it really did sound quite nice, so we just put it back together!
So... if you've already compromised it from a collector's point of view, and you're never going to sell it anyway, I would probably think about doing the same thing (but properly) - rout out the entire area under the pickguard - as much as you possibly can without weakening the neck joint or the trem screw attachment.
I know this is the opposite of what I said to the chap with the heavy Les Paul, but you're starting from a guitar you *don't* like the sound of, so it's a different question.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
IMO, you are better off with single coil sized humbuckers - at least, in the bridge and neck positions.
Your original pickups are not very Strat like and Texas Specials are not much better, harsh and midrangey with almost no sparkle.
Bung a set of cheap alnico pickups in it in the 6.5-7.5k range and it will sound like a Strat, I guarantee it.
If yours is a lifelong keeper, than I'd agree with the above: carry out all the weight relief possible and try some decent pickups.
My friend likes it, obviously, but for me it's just not a Strat and is positively the worst Strat I've ever played. I think there are some guitars that simply aren't worth spending money on because they are inherently 'wrong' and you fundamentally cannot make a silk purse out of a sows ear. Whether yours is one of these I dont know but if its similar to my friends Strat my recommendation would be to sell it and get a good Strat.
I have a Strat that I've had for over 20 years. Could never part with it but have spent probably double the value of the guitar on different pickups and other modifications. It was worth it in the end, I love how it is now.
But if "harsh" means what I would think it means then a Les Paul definitely isn't harsh so wouldn't that give the idea that a guitar being heavy isn't what causes that?
Doesn't sound bad at all and definitely doesn't look cheap either!
https://reverb-res.cloudinary.com/image/upload/v1500389432/Freeflyte-1_t6aw3w.jpg
I don’t know of any way that could be replaced with a standard Strat trem. BTW I installed a set of SD Stacked Strat pickups into a 3p/u Tele in the late 90s. They sounded close enough to a traditional Strat s/c sound for gigging and recording with the advantage of no hum. I’ve had several other guitarists listen to recordings I did with that guitar and comment “That’s a really nice sounding Strat”
If you were going to go to that extreme it would be much simpler to just get a new body and have it painted to look like the old one.
You could certainly rout out all the areas between the pickup cavities (just avoiding that screw hole between the neck and middle pickups) to the same depth, and the whole depth of the area in front of the control cavity though, without compromising the structural strength - that would substantially reduce the weight.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein