Hey there people of guitar noise!
I currently have two electric guitars, (I won't go into what other instruments I have) one is a Mexican Fedner Stratocaster from around 2001 and another is an Ibanez JS100, thats the Joe Satriani signature.
I enjoy playing both, the Ibanez gives me a meaty sound and is much easier to produce pinched harmonics on but theres something rather pure about the Stratocaster. The strat has a good variation of sounds, you can switch from Hendrix to SRV with the flick of a pickup. The coil tap on the Ibanez is a nice addition and that guitar sounds pretty good clean too, though it doesn't clean up from overdrive with the volume control like a strat does.
I use quite a lot of overdrive when playing and I have had some issues with noise when playing with my band, when the volume is rolled all the way up I get squeaks and if I use my wah pedal too then boy do you get some squealing noises.
I wondered if when buying a new guitar I'd be able to avoid this, I'm not even that loud when I get these noises so it's rather irritating because I have to pull back on the gain, definately annoying if I have to do that on the Ibanez because it's adding to the beefy sound.
Anyway I was wondering if I got a new stratocaster and if it had noiseless pickups if I would no longer experience these problems, is it just my pickups that are the problem here? I have thought about a super strat type guitar where there is a humbucker to allow me to do more of the beefy stuff with the harmonics though I think I may just be best leaving that stuff up to my Ibanez. Another guitar I've thought about is a Les Paul, there is a Slash signature, the epiphone is more affordable but probably not as good as a standard les paul. I'm also having problems with my stratocaster sometimes I like to do bends that go further than full, and the string starts cutting out it is most noticable on the 14th fret on the high E I took it in to be set up but it still does it.
Any ideas on what guitars I should be trying? I'm basically looking to improve over the sound I have.
together we stand, divided we fall..........
I use quite a lot of overdrive when playing and I have had some issues with noise when playing with my band, when the volume is rolled all the way up I get squeaks and if I use my wah pedal too then boy do you get some squealing noises.
What is this noise? Can you describe it better? What what you may need is to just shield the guitar's electronics. There are some pretty detailed instructions on the web for shielding a Strat. If you get those same noises on your Ibanez too then you could take the same ideas and modify them to do the same thing to it too. Most of the other low end guitars (any many higher end) will not be shielded and you would need to do this with a new one anyways.
I have thought about a super strat type guitar where there is a humbucker to allow me to do more of the beefy stuff with the harmonics though I think I may just be best leaving that stuff up to my Ibanez.
You can add a humbucker to your existing Strat either by doing it yourself or by buying some of the available prewired Strat pickguards. Something like this one except it doesn't have any shielding and you'd have to add it. The only thing you would have to check is whether on not your Strat is routed (has holes) that will fit a humbucker. I have heard that the MIM Strats have a "bathtub" rout (one big cavity for all the pickups) and that would give you rooom to drop in a humbucker. Otherwise you'd have to cut the bridge pickup rout a bit bigger.
Pop music is about stealing pocket money from children. - Ian Anderson
Have you tried an eq? Often those squealing sounds are frequency related and can be eq'ed out.
Jason
"Rock And Roll Ain't Noise Pollution"
