Hi, i'm new to this site, i'm Ben, 23 years old, from Belgium. I'm a guitarplayer ofcourse, for a few years now, but always been average. Now the last year i've really been taking it more and more seriously, playing 2 hours a day. And self educating on the theoretical side as well. I have the following problem (and if this sound too simple or stupid, please no negative comments)
I have a fender Hss strat, it's a seymour duncan hot rails humbucker pick up in the bridge. I play a Fender twin reverb 65 amp and the distortion pedal i use the most is the mxr custom badass 78. To give you an idea of how i sound. i'm happy with my sound, but i'm a perfectionist when it comes to this, its still not the perfect sound i'm looking for.
I write songs in the genre of Alice In Chains, Audioslave, Guns N Roses, Nirvana, Staind, A7X, Judas Priest, The Offspring,...so basically a mix of "hard" blues with a grungy/dark underlying metaltone, but very melodic. And i'm happy with how it sounds on my amp and my guitar, cuz i really love the sound of my fender amp, especially clean, but....like i said, it could be better. I dont wanna change my amp, and i have various distortion pedals (ibanez, and the boss metal zone,....), so that leaves my guitar.
I was really impressed by the knowledge of the players on this forum, so i wanted to ask: which pickups and where should i place on my guitar? If you are making suggestions, please explain to me why this pickup,....Your help would be very much appreciated, i'm willing to spend some money on this, just as long as i FINALLY reach my perfect sound
i was going to recommend you check out fuzzes, but the mxr is pretty high gain. are the single coils just the stock fender pickups? is there a specific sound you're looking for, as in a particular album by a particular band, or are you just dissatisfied with the distorted sounds you're getting? because fender amps are known for their cleans, but a lot of people aren't fans of their distorted sound.
i'm happy with my sound, but i'm a perfectionist when it comes to this, its still not the perfect sound i'm looking for.
Could you be more specific on the sound you want. The sounds of the bands you mentioned are quite different from each other. Is there one guitarist in particular you want to sound like?
jason brann: yes the single coils are the stock fender pick ups. i just feel my guitar comes a lil short when it comes to nailing this genre i'm playing. I want to sound like the bands i mentioned: GnR, alice in chains, Avenged sevenfold, Stone Sour, Nirvana,....so i'm looking for a heavy strong sound with dark undertone. i guess the sound i wanna reach is a mix between Avenged Sevenfolds "Nightmare" album and Stone Sour's latest album (a mix of ballads, rock songs and metal), i know the guitarplayer for stone sour uses a strat too, but also custom built. the sound i wanna reach comes the most close with the song "sevvoslag" by "mattrach" if you wanna narrow it down
rocketdog: euhm i really like sinister gates sound on his Schechter guitar, but i also love Jim Root on his strat. I guess if you looked up the guitarplayer "Mattrach" with the song "sevvoslag", also played on a strat, thats righ there what i'm talking bout: clean the typical fender sound, but on distortion you can hear a total different sound
thx for your help and i hope to hear from you soon
rocketdog: euhm i really like sinister gates sound on his Schechter guitar, but i also love Jim Root on his strat. I guess if you looked up the guitarplayer "Mattrach" with the song "sevvoslag", also played on a strat, thats righ there what i'm talking bout: clean the typical fender sound, but on distortion you can hear a total different sound
Not sure the answer to your question, but just in case there's a mistake in the post: Jim Root is more associated with the tele, he plays a strat too, so maybe you did mean that, but isn't the guy in the video playing a tele? Not that you shouldn't be able to get that with a strat, and of course he might always have recorded the heavy bit separately.
I probably know less than you about this, but the heavy sound is quite smooth and I got closer with a compressor at a high level (to get more drive) and fairly high volume on the guitar than with a fuzz. This is on a modelling amp though, so all kinds of things might not be right. Bridge humbucker came out a bit quacky, neck single maybe a bit soft (though there was room on the compressor level to take it up further and for the bridge I could have taken off more treble). But having just listened to a demo of your mxr pedal on youtube it does sound pretty close to, so my idea probably isn't much of an improvement.
Edit:
The MattRach video I'm looking at is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNkDzTEyRQU (Don't think there's a problem posting youtube links unless it's shameless self-promotion ... in which case it belongs in the 'Hear Hear' section :wink: ). And I see he's using something strat-like in his other videos.
guitargeek.com might have their setups. i know some of those bands use lps through marshal types, and you're not going to get close to that with what you have.
