Hey all,
I had a question. I have an Ibanez RG470 guitar. It has a neck humbucker and single in the middle and a bridge humbucker on it. I'm told this is a metal guitar and that's exactly the sound I get out of it.
I'm considering buying a Stratocaster, but my question is would I want one with the humbucker in the bridge position (The "Fat" strat) or would I want one with a single coil in the bridge position?
I'm not really sure what the sound difference is, but I'm looking to get the guitar to play a wider range of things than I can on the Ibanez. I'm thinking classic rock, country rock, blues and other stuff.
What do you think? Does that bridge pickup really make a huge difference?
Thanks!
Mike
Single coils have a bit more "high end" if you will, a little more twang to them. Humbuckers tend to have a deeper, growly sound.
I own both a strat with all single coils and a Schecter Omen 6 with dual buckers.
They both work fine for playing rock, blues or country. A little different sound for each one but it still works. Mostly you just need to experiment with different pickup positions and your amp settings. Such as if I want to play blues on my Omen 6 I can switch to the neck pickup, back off the tone knob a bit, same with the gain, set the mids and treble about straight up and it'll play blues like it was made for it.
My strat will handle most classic rock. Unless I am going for an AC/DC or Metallica sound. Although with a little amp tweaking I can get it pretty close. If I had a humbucker in the bridge positon, it would do it all.
It really depends on the sound you're going for that determines if you want a single coil in the bridge or a humbucker.
As they say Your Mileage May Vary
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming -- "WOW--What a Ride!"
Got an RG550 and I believe the pups are mostly the same. If so, a fat strat will give you plenty of variety. The bridge bucker in my RG550 is extremely high-output and most buckers in Fender/Squier fatstrats aren't like that at all. Personally I can't stand the shrill and nasty sound of a single-coil in the bridge, but that's just me. I guess Jimi Hendrix would disagree with me on that.
You already have a Hummer for metal so if you are wanting a guitar to fill out the spectrum that will play the types of music you listed then i would suggest an am strat with s-s-s config and the S-1 switching system. but then i may be slightly biased :wink:
#4491....
I just picked up an AM Fat Strat this week with an S-1 Switch in it, (S-1 is the push button on the Volume Knob).
I'm totally floored with the versatility of tones I'm getting from this thing. Its absolultley great.
I've been playing on an Epi LP Custom for about a year now and I'm so in love with the HumBuckers, but I was searching for some Single Coil sounds, for a more versatile tone. Well I found it.
I'd suggest, go to the music store and try as many as you can, SSS, HSS, HSH, HH and find what your after in tonal quality, that's the only true way you'll know.
Cheers.
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. - Wernher Von Braun (1912-1977)
