I like the message, "work with what you have", there is too much emphasis on equipment, expensive equipment and tone on RU-vid. Great attitude to pass on! Thanks!
She's awesome. Passionate, articulated, pertinent. Congrats. I have a strat like many people. i'm conflicted about the subject of tone and amps. Reason is I feel it distracts me from actual practice. You can waste an entire afternoon messing around with sounds and at some point you can barely tell the difference cause you been playing around it for so long. I think even when I look back at my beginner experience I realize how much of my frustration came from the quality of my gear and how I wasn't good enough at setting it up. Things really changed for me when I got a decent acoustic guitar with a beautiful tone (Taylor). Cause then I knew that was it, the tone is just right there, time to use your fingers and make it shine. No eq, knobs or anything. Just a beautiful tone ready to come out. It really lets you focus on practice which is what matters the most.
Having the pick-ups too high may give you "wolf" tones ie the bass strings may not sound intonated properly as the pick-up magnets can pull on the strings when you play higher up the neck. Do the intonation with the pick-ups low and then adjust the pick-up height to taste.
The HSS layout of my MIM '95 Stratocaster Special had a few QC issues i dealt with over 20yrs but after I upgraded it to the traditional SSS layout that's why I began discovering sweeter tones that sometimes can't be accomplished with a bridge humbucker. The height of the pickups is a definite factor depending on the DC resistance and the strength of the magnets be it Alnico or ceramic... great video by the way.
I'm glad you sometimes do these videos on Marty's channel. I love what Marty does but I really enjoy your content as well. Between getting to watch Marty, getting to watch you and getting to see the beautiful Gibson guitars that I love in action I almost cannot not watch this channel, lol.
If you want to block your vibrato, I recommend doing it with a block of wood between the vibrato block and the body wood in the cavity, not between the plate and the body top.
The big thing for me in decking the bridge is to avoid the slight pitch change I get when palm muting. I tend to do it by tightening the springs by screwing the claw further in. Also helps when doing stringbends with open strings ringing (where the tension added from the bend lowers the pitch of any open strings slightly)
What is decking the bridge? Right now my spring claw is all the way in...no more adjustment forward. Am I decked? The rear of the bridge plate is almost parallel to the body just slightly tilted towards the neck. Suggestions? Will decking improve tuning stability?
@@alanswanson7515 Decking the bridge means the bridge is resting against the body of the guitar. In other words the spring tension is higher than the string tension so that it is pulling the bridge against the guitar. A Floating bridge is one where there is a balance between the string tension and the spring tension with the bridge/tremolo floating away from the body - that means the tremolo arm can be used to both lower and raise the pitch. You can also deck the bridge by removing the springs completely and using a block of wood between the tremolo block and the body of the guitar (If doing it this way, I would leave at least 1 spring in place to maintain the ground connection, depending on how your guitar is setup)
What sounds good to you with the understanding of tone quality thru unlimited options gives you control to express one’s personality.! Did I just say that? Thank’s Lindsay Ell
Hey Lindsey, how are you? On my strat , I don't like my bridge pickup because it sounds very cheap and tinny. In fact I'm thinking of putting a humbucker there so I can use it. My favorite is the second position but why have five positions when I only use one. Good stuff and keep'em coming. Peace.
I miss my 64 Strat. I got a piece of perfect pine from a 200 year old Barn that will make one heck of a strat body . Its got enough for a strat or tele .. talk about tone woods now .. 👍
You can find great mid 2000s made in Mexico strats for the price of new squiers! Check out reverb and your local guitar shops before ordering anything new online.
Have you looked at setup adjustments, so many things can cause buzz, it is often an easy fix, most common I think is a truss rod adjustment. Another possibility is saddle height or technique (you may just play too hard for the sting gauge you have, smaller gauge strings require a lighter touch), if strings might be the issue, try playing lighter or trying higher gauge set of strings. Take note, all guitars will buzz at some level, even $10,000 guitars. Could be other issues that may require a pro to fix, like nut or fret issues. It is unlikely that a guitar is actually "broken" and can't be fixed, you may find it is not worth fixing sometimes because of the cost.
Blah, blah, blah, develope a relationship with your instrument and you can do whatever you want with it. I have 3 strats with different pick ups and set up differently and I always sound like me. No substitute for playing and applying nuance to get the sound you want.
