Pickups for the "jazz strat" - possible?

Megii

I have a strat partscaster I built, which I really love to play - gets used a lot around the house, but almost never gigged. The reason being I play in jazz bands, and generally need some sort of warm clean neck pickup tone (you know the general kind of thing) - and the strat just doesn't do it! It does sound good, just not good for jazz - currently has a hand wound set I had made to roughly "Eric Johnson" specs installed - the neck and middle are 5.9K and 6.1K ish, alnico 3. Bridge is 6.8K alnico 5. This is the guitar:

 

 - one piece swamp ash body, neck is an ebony fingerboard with what I find to be a very comfortable medium "C" profile - whole thing sounds lovely and resonant played acoustically (which I do quite a bit). So it's a great guitar that I really love, but I just wish I could find some sounds I could use for jazz gigs - I suppose we are probably talking mainly about the neck pickup here.

I would kind of like it if the guitar stayed sort of in the classic strat sound area - but maybe there are different types of strat tone, and I'm just not getting the right type to be useable for jazz. So still with that crisp single-coil pickup kind of tone... Here comes the subjective attempt at a description: something with clarity, transparency, crispness, detail... but also warmth and perhaps a bit more richness than the average strat tone. Not too bass-heavy though. Can it be done? I'm wondering if some sort of lowish-wound alnico 2 set might fit the bill, or would the difference not be all that appreciable? And other pickup designs (must fit in a standard strat slot) I could consider? I did recently put a GFS "surf 90" alnico 2 pickup in the neck position of another guitar, and that is giving me a monstrously good tone for jazz:

(I usually have more than 2 strings fitted!) - it's got a kind of P90 vibe I guess, but seems maybe a bit crisper and less mid/bass-heavy (which I like) while staying warm. I believe it has over-sized individual alnico 2 magnet poles, but not sure what the coil looks like under the cover. All I know is it's working really well for me, and I wonder if I could find a pickup, or pickup set for the strat that would perhaps go a bit towards this kind of tone, if still also being what you'd call "stratty" sounding.  If I'm asking the impossible please do say, but any thoughts anyone? Cheers!

EricTheWeary

Jimmie Vaughan ( who isn't a jazz player but can certainly get jazzy) would tell you it is all in the strings. Strats were designed for jazz and country players in the era of flatwound strings so a set of them should get any roughly vintage sounding strat in a jazz/ rockabilly/ vintage blue ball park.

Megii

EricTheWeary said:

Jimmie Vaughan ( who isn't a jazz player but can certainly get jazzy) would tell you it is all in the strings. Strats were designed for jazz and country players in the era of flatwound strings so a set of them should get any roughly vintage sounding strat in a jazz/ rockabilly/ vintage blue ball park.

That is a thought! However, not trying to be awkward, but I don't really want to get into using flatwounds on this guitar. I'd rather keep the brightness and zing of roundwounds really - I currently have the guitar strung with 11-48, which I like a lot. Still, maybe it is possible to do something useful by changing to a different string brand or type, so I do appreciate you putting that thought in my head Eric, cheers!

grungebob

They sometimes get bad press but I think you should try a lace sensor blue in the neck position. It's singlecoil sized,still has that strat sound but also has a paf tone and warmth to it.

Megii

Not a bad idea, cheers for that gb.

Van_Hayden

Fraction hotter neck pickup would work using alnico III. A tele can get a great Jazz tone, strats require a bit more work.

ICBM

You'll hate me for saying this, but have you tried turning the tone control down?



Not all the way probably.

What do the mini-switches do, by the way?

Megii

Van_Hayden said:

Fraction hotter neck pickup would work using alnico III. A tele can get a great Jazz tone, strats require a bit more work.

Appreciate the thought - how much hotter would make a reasonable difference though? I'd say the current 5.9K a3 neck pickup, although it does sound good, is just not at all a good place to start for getting a jazz tone - has nice crispness and definition, but just too much upper mid, "nasal" kind of stuff happening, not fat enough sounding either. So must admit I'm a bit wary of sticking with the a3 and just going hotter.

Megii

ICBM said:

You'll hate me for saying this, but have you tried turning the tone control down?



Not all the way probably.

What do the mini-switches do, by the way?

I certainly don't hate you for saying that  , but yes I have tried turning the tone control down. It helps, but still doesn't get me into any kind of good enough tone to compete with other guitars I have that are just doing the jazz thing better. It's like I'm starting with the wrong kind of tone, and then taking treble frequency away with tone is just subtracting from that - better, sort of, but... I realise I may be asking for something that just isn't possible though - don't have a whole lot of experience with strat pickups, and how much variation is possible by changing details like the magnets, winding wire, no. of windings, etc.

Megii

Sorry, forgot to say about the mini switches - it's quite a complex circuit in there, actually a bit hard to describe simply what they do, but it's basically this circuit: http://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/5380/strat-sp but done with mini-toggles instead of push-pull pots. Works well, although in the end I'm not too keen on combining the strat pickups in series instead of parallel, and have concluded that a simpler circuit would be a bit more intuitive to use. So may change to something else, especially if I do change one or more of the pickups.

ICBM

Megii said:

I certainly don't hate you for saying that  , but yes I have tried turning the tone control down. It helps, but still doesn't get me into any kind of good enough tone to compete with other guitars I have that are just doing the jazz thing better. It's like I'm starting with the wrong kind of tone, and then taking treble frequency away with tone is just subtracting from that - better, sort of, but... I realise I may be asking for something that just isn't possible though - don't have a whole lot of experience with strat pickups, and how much variation is possible by changing details like the magnets, winding wire, no. of windings, etc.

A lot. If the tone control doesn't do the right thing - I do understand why not, although it was worth mentioning it - then you need a new pickup. For what it's worth I also find conventional Strat pickups too thin almost no matter what I do, too. Don't necessarily be afraid of Alnico III either - putting a much hotter winding on it changes things. I dislike Alnico II for low-wound pickups, both single coils and humbuckers (heresy I know ), but the Duncan Custom Custom - which is an unusual very hot-wound Alnico II humbucker - is one of my favourite ever pickups.

MattG

seymour duncan cool rails may be a solution or even the lil 59's

Megii

Interesting what you say about the alnico II ICBM - it may be pure coincidence, but it seems like the guitars I have that work best for jazz are both fitted with alnico II magnet pickups. One has an Axesrus "Bourbon City" PAF type - not an expensive pickup I know, but until recently I would have said the best jazz tone I'd had. Then I fitted the GFS Surf 90 to another guitar (actually the same model guitar), and it's pretty amazingly good for my taste, and really liking the single coil sound quality compared to a humbucker. Hence my wondering if I can push the strat more into that general sort of fat neck single coil tone area with a pickup change.

Megii

 

MattG said:

seymour duncan cool rails may be a solution or even the lil 59's

Cheers Matt - actually do have another guitar with a neck lil 59, and while a good pickup - like it a lot for fusion-ish sounds and used with effects - but I find it just a bit cold-sounding for what I'm after here somehow. Not sure about the cool rails either - I appreciated could be a good jazz pickup in general, but I do think I'd like to stay in the single-coil sort of sound area somehow, if possible. May not be possible of course!

OilCityPickups

Alnico 2/5 hybrids ... plus a touch more juice under the hood

Megii

Cheers Weasel! could you expand on that a bit? i.e. what would be the thinking behind that idea. I can understand the alnico 2, but what benefit would the alnico 5 bring? Also any thoughts on number of winds, winding wire, that kind of thing?

Van_Hayden

Megii;79009" said:

Van_Hayden said:

Fraction hotter neck pickup would work using alnico III. A tele can get a great Jazz tone, strats require a bit more work.







Appreciate the thought - how much hotter would make a reasonable difference though? I'd say the current 5.9K a3 neck pickup, although it does sound good, is just not at all a good place to start for getting a jazz tone - has nice crispness and definition, but just too much upper mid, "nasal" kind of stuff happening, not fat enough sounding either. So must admit I'm a bit wary of sticking with the a3 and just going hotter.

Wouldn't like to say DC wise, depends on the batch of wire (42 Formvar) but something like 5% over stock wound low tension. The trick to stopping strats sounding thin is get the pickup closer to the string, but anything more than an alnico III and it's piss poor magnetic field you'll get trouble with wolf tones.

Megii

Thanks VH! to be truthful, I'd still take a bit of convincing to buy the bit hotter alnico 3 pickup. But I can try taking my existing  a3 neck pickup closer to the strings - it is set probably on the low side at the moment, so pickup height has to be worth experimenting with. Somehow, my instinct FWIW, is leaning me towards something with alnico 2 in there. I'm also wondering if some sort of metal baseplate to the neck pickup might have a useful fattening effect. I really think if I could just take a nice-sounding strat pickup, and just make it fatter, that might go a long way.

Van_Hayden

The baseplate might well do the trick. Try one on the alnico III first, give CCGX a call and grab a Fralin one, they're easy enough to fit and come pre waxed so you don't need to pot it.

I don't normally post on pickup threads, too much like the day job. But this area I quite enjoy!

Van_Hayden

Try running your volume low, under 6. Drop the tone down and crank the amp. Set the amp to a balanced clean tone. For this to work there shouldn't be any treble bypass caps on the volume.

Basically you're using your volume as a tone by loading the pickup down to get rid of high end.

Megii

Thanks for that also VH - I guess the baseplate would not be at all expensive to try - has to be worth a go. Combined with putting the pickup closer - well, might just be starting to make the kind of difference I could use.  You say "I don't normally post on pickup threads, too much like the day job"... Apologies for not knowing, but could I ask what the day job is?