Hi guys,
I have a cheap strat I bought for pennys around ten years ago and it has a huge amount of sentimental value to me. I want to upgrade/replace the pick-ups, pots, wire and tuners etc. I am terrible at the hands on aspect of replacing all this stuff but I have gotten a great deal with a luthier who will install it all for me very cheaply, if I buy all of the components. I have a few questions though and I hope I can get some good advice here!
1. I have been looking at the Fender Locking Tuner CH and was wondering has anybody used these before and how effective they are?
2. I found a wiring kit http://www.thomann.de/ie/montreux_1390_st_wiring_kit.htm . Does it have everything I need? I can only presume it does at it is in kit form. Can anybody tell me about the quality of this kit? Would I be better off buying all the components separately?
3. The music I like to play varies from very heavy metal to using a nice clean tone and fingerpicking. I want to put in humbuckers in single coil size and would like to have a very versatile sound. I have been looking at this Seymour Duncan set http://www.thomann.de/ie/seymour_duncan_ssjbsdbrsl59_wh_set.htm which claims to be but I would have no problem buying three separately if anybody has had good results with a certain combination.
Any advice or comments would be greatly appreciated. Thank in advance!
Hi there,
Couple of things...
1. Locking machine heads are not necessary and offer almost no benefit to your guitar. They make it faster to restring, thats for sure, but do affect the accuracy of the tuning.
Let me try and explain that... when you restring a guitar, the winds or coils of the string, should go down towards the bottom of the machine head post, the lower you can get them, the better. Try this... grab your machine head post at the very tip and give it a little wiggle (do this without strings on) you will notice movement. now hold a pen HARD in your hand... and grab it on the tip and wiggle it... see how easy it moves?
Now... hold the pen with the same force...and grab it down closer to your hand.... MUCH harder to move yes? right, well the "wiggle factor" can definitely effect the stability of the tuning, in which case...a normal set of machine heads, with the string wound down towards the bottom of the post, is more accurate than a locking set where the string comes off from the middle.
Also... its just another part of the guitar than can "fault". keep things simple. (see below for contradiction).
I would suggest getting a set of "schaller" minis. (they make a great deal of fenders gear anyways)
2. That wiring / pots pack is fine. and yes it comes with everything you would need to wire a strat.
However (and here comes my "keep it simple contradiction")... if you are putting seymour duncan single coil spaced humbuckers in the guitar... I would suggest you set them so they can be "split" from humbucker to single coil. This would allow you to get far more tonal differences out of the guitar. So you might want either mini switches, or push/pull pots instead of standard "strat" wiring.
3. Symour duncan pickups are a mighty fine coice and will give you the tone you are after!
Zinc
Thanks for the reply, some very good stuff to mull over.
1. I had always thought locking machine heads helped keep your guitar in tune. The machine heads on the strat I have slip quite a bit so I am just looking for something to improve it. If there is no need for locking heads then I could just go for standard. I couldn't find a set of "schaller minis" for a strat when I searched. I agree that it should be kept simple
2. I have never heard of "splitting" Could you point me towards an article explaining it and/or with a wiring diagram? If I have three SD humbuckers in, how can it play as as three single coil set-up? I admit my complete ignorance on the subject but am very interested to know more.
I was talking about this elsewhere and somebody mentioned that humbuckers use 500k pots while single coils use 250k, the wiring set I am looking at has 250k pots. Do you think this will be an issue?
3. Everyone I have talked to agrees that the SD pick-ups are a great choice, although buying them separately could save me money.
1. A common misconception is that a standard machine head "slips", Its virtually impossible for the gearing mechanism to slip. If your problem is that the guitar goes out of tune a lot, then the problem can only be one of 3 things. a) the strings themselves stretching... the only time this stops happening is when a string snaps. b) the way the strings have been put on allowing them to slip out. c) the neck moving.
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tuners/Guitar,_solid_peghead_tuners/Schaller_Tuners/Schaller_M-6_Mini_Guitar_Machines,_6-in-line.html
Thats a link to some schaller Mini tuners.
2.The beauty of most "better" quality humbuckers is they can be split. This involves wiring in such a way that essentially half of the humbucker stops working (making it a single coil) then can be re-activated with a switch, or push pull pot.
Here is a great article all about it:
http://www.smitspickups.com/coiltapping.htm
In regards to your pots, many of the great guitar manufacturers still use 250k pots for humbuckers. Its all to do with tone. A 500k pot will be brighter.. a 250k pot will be warmer. If you look at that explanation and say "oh ok... I want bright, therefor Ill go 500k..." you might want to consider that for metal playing, the 250 will remove some of the harsh "top end noise" from your pickups.
Try both... put the 250's in first, if you are happy... dont buy 500's... or else do it the other way round.
There are many reasons for tuning instability. You should look into properly stretching the strings, especially behind the nut and over the break point of the saddles. Then, properly stringing and tuning. If you're using the trem a lot there is a specific step to maintaining stable tuning with the trem. Most tuning problems occur at the nut, usually poor lubrication causing binding ( I do not lube mine however) but more often a worn or incorrectly shaped slot for the string or a slot sized too small or large for the string gauge being used. It can also be issues at the bridge or slack in the trem springs or loose tuners. More often than not its the nut if problem occur with newer strings.
There are only two common sizes for tuning posts, effectively vintage and modern; 9mm and 10mm respectively. Any six on a side 10mm tuner will fit it doesn't need be strat specific.
If you have someone to do the work, buying the components for the circuit individually will be much cheaper. If your using humbuckers you'll want 500K pots, I see some one suggested trying both and you could, but never have I known anyone to prefer 250k pots with humbuckers, especially at the volume pot. You can get good results with 500k and 1 meg pots with single coils so some people like to switch them up but any thing under 350k with humbuckers is useless. Experimenting with capacitor values is a much better way to target tones.
Any humbucking pickup can be split. You have two coils situated opposite of each other (to cancel hum) so both coils, obviously have their own start and finish. Some manufacturers gang all of the connects together in the traditional method, but any tech or luthier could "split" the coils for you. Splitting will by definition give you a single coil but not a very good one in most cases. You will get a nasal, more transparent single coil sound (not noise canceled) but don't expect it to sound like a '62 strat. Its a cool option but its a questionable addition in terms of usefulness.
Dont take my word for it... lol
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=25793.0
http://www.seymourduncan.com/forum/showthread.php?214953-Who-uses-250k-pots-for-the-bridge-humbucker
http://aperioguitar.com/2012/03/22/josh-and-humbuckers-and-250k-pots/
http://forum.metroamp.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=23350
If you search for "250k pots with humbuckers, you will receive thousands of hits... its quite a common thing with 'tonofiles".. most people that I have done a switch for (off their own research, not my recommendation) have vowed that they will NEVER go back to playing a humbucker with a 500k pot.
The single most important thing with tone is that YOU find what YOU like. Try all the possibilities, try all the strings, all the amps, all the setups... until you find YOUR sound. Then stick to it.
The thing about internet forums, they are full of people claiming to be things that they aren't. You really have to be mindful that the information that you are getting might just be the third generation regurgitated drivel from someone claiming to have first hand experience and legions of clients. And it should be pointed out that the links provided by zincberg are note worthy because they are novel. You said you have a guy you trust who is willing to do the work on the cheap, I'm sure he'll be able to point you in the right direction - a good tech will listen to the client and help them to determine what would best serve you. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but you said your prize possession is a "cheap strat" (and there is nothing wrong with that) butI have to assume you aren't running through a Dumble super over drive and a cab full of vintage Ev's, you're probably playing through a solid state amp with pretty wide range speakers - rolling the treble off the pickups will result in less articulation and more sludge indisputably- might be good with some of the metal. not so good for the clean finger style. All of this compounded by lesser amplification.
Like I said, in 10 years building and working on guitars and decades of playing and endlessly talking about guitars with guitar players I have never known anyone to prefer pots less then 350K with humbuckers. The older humbuckers had far fewer windings in the coils then today's pickups and were much cleaner and broke up much later. The tendency now is to over wind coils which subsequently eliminates high frequency. Using a 1/4 meg pot adds more resistance and obviously more upon that as you dial out the volume, effectively strangling the high frequencies further and further as you go.
The other thing to note about internet forums is that its a beautiful thing that complete strangers can come together and offer advice on subjects they have some experience with, and just like life, people end up with differing opinions.
Ezra has pointed out that his experience is that people dont like anything less than a 350k pot on a humbucker..
My experience is that many people do.
But...and again I stress as I do with any of my "legion of clients"(yeah , that was sarcasm).. this is not a science.
People like different things and you are never going to know if you dont try. You may put 500k pots on and say "well, that sounds perfect" and never have to change to anything... or you might try 250's and have the same reaction... then you might whack on a brass nut, remove it, put a roller nut on... decide that was a shit idea and go for graph tech nut.... there are so many possibilities and I say.. go for it!
