Mosrite Sounding Pickups For A Strat Clone?

[zak]

"maple necks sound brighter than rosewood necks" that in my experience has no basis in fact.

It does have basis, but it's part of such a huge "with all other factors being equal" cause-and-effect system of what affects sound and what doesn't, that it's virtually meaningless and people toss it around like some kind of basic rule.

However...for quite a few years I played a '65 jazzmaster with a pencil-thin neck that I couldn't stand so I put a great big U-profile maple Tele maple neck on it. How much of the difference in tone was the material, and how much was neck dimensions? Hard to say, really, but you could hear a difference - even acoustically.

As for the "depth of neck set" thing - think about it: the less contact area there is between a neck and body (and this applies to glued-in necks as well) the more free the neck remains to vibrate. The less rigid and inflexible the whole assembly is, the more it will absorb high frequencies (which your ear then interprets as a "rounder" or "warmer" tone). Now if you acoustically diminish the high end response of the guitar, that's where pick attack lives - highs and upper mids. When you make contact with the guitar string, you produce what is known as transients, once again these are in the higher registers so any dampening via the guitar will have a noticeable effect. This is why we think of hard materials such as maple as producing a "quick attack" - all the pick transients and harmonics jump right out instantly, as opposed to the "vocal-like" vowel-y sound of, say, an all-mahogany instrument.
Once again, like the maple vs rosewood thing, there isn't one single determining factor, the instrument's sound is a combination of many elements, and in the cases of wood some of them are quite unpredictable since you're dealing with an organic, variable-density material.

So what's the point of my "brief, reactionary" response? I hadn't realized that I was required to submit an epic-length post on the topic of vibration absorption in guitar designs. I was actually agreeing with you - YES changing pickups in a Strat won't make it sound like a Mosrite...I wasn't expecting to be given the 3d degree about it.

[MWaldorf]

Zak,

So if I'm reading this right, the shallower the neck pocket the more high-end and attack. So, there's also the running arguments on set-neck vs. bolt on neck, with the argument being that a set-neck guitar has more sustain because it's more rigid. Are you saying that the most attack and least sustain would come from a guitar with a neck bolted to the surface of the body and the least attack and most sustain would come from a guitar with the neck and body made from a single piece of wood?

While a brief, reactionary response would be acceptible, an epic post, in iambic pentameter if possible, would be preferred.

Mel

[zak]

While a brief, reactionary response would be acceptible, an epic post, in iambic pentameter if possible, would be preferred.

Are you saying that the most attack and least sustain would come from a guitar with a neck bolted to the surface of the body and the least attack and most sustain would come from a guitar with the neck and body made from a single piece of wood?

Well...in theory, yes, if you eliminate all other variables...but the materials used for single-piece guitars or even neck-through-body guitars are generally quite different from what the norm for bolt-on necks is....and with good reason. I'm sure that a guitar made entirely of maple would sound pretty awful, regardless of how and where the neck attached to the body, and thankfully the weight would probably preclude anyone playing it for a long enough period of time to elicit swift and violent retribution from audience members.
Once again it's all theoretical, in practice you can have two different pieces of wood from the same species - from the same tree for that matter - which will have radically differing densities and tonal properties, and something as mundane as neck angle on a bolt-on neck guitar can drastically affect how it sounds. This is kind of why I stopped caring and started buying guitars on the sole criteria of how cool they look.

[MWaldorf]

Cool looks are definitely a major purchasing factor!

Back to the original, original question on whether Mosrite pickups in a Strat would sound Mosrite-y, I think the answer is "sort-of" I think a lot of what makes that definitive "Strat" sound is the "in-between" sounds. Having installed middle pickups in both Jazzmasters and Jaguars, you can get a very respectible simulation of a strat if you use the neck/middle or middle/bridge pickups. In a direct A-B test you'd know the difference, but in isolation, it's a good proximation.

So, to get a sort-of Mosrite sound out of a strat I think you'd need Mosrite-like pickups, some form of pickup selector that allows for neck and bridge to be used together, and probably a 500K volume pot. Again, no dead-ringer, but pretty good. You'd probably be OK with a P-90-ish pickup as well.

[Nokie]

I was refering to fretboards. I haven't seen an all rosewood neck.

[Nokie]

However...for quite a few years I played a '65 jazzmaster with a pencil-thin neck that I couldn't stand so I put a great big U-profile maple Tele maple neck on it. How much of the difference in tone was the material, and how much was neck dimensions? Hard to say, really, but you could hear a difference - even acoustically.

As for the "depth of neck set" thing - think about it: the less contact area there is between a neck and body (and this applies to glued-in necks as well) the more free the neck remains to vibrate. The less rigid and inflexible the whole assembly is, the more it will absorb high frequencies (which your ear then interprets as a "rounder" or "warmer" tone). Now if you acoustically diminish the high end response of the guitar, that's where pick attack lives - highs and upper mids. When you make contact with the guitar string, you produce what is known as transients, once again these are in the higher registers so any dampening via the guitar will have a noticeable effect. This is why we think of hard materials such as maple as producing a "quick attack" - all the pick transients and harmonics jump right out instantly, as opposed to the "vocal-like" vowel-y sound of, say, an all-mahogany instrument.
Once again, like the maple vs rosewood thing, there isn't one single determining factor, the instrument's sound is a combination of many elements, and in the cases of wood some of them are quite unpredictable since you're dealing with an organic, variable-density material.

So what's the point of my "brief, reactionary" response? I hadn't realized that I was required to submit an epic-length post on the topic of vibration absorption in guitar designs. I was actually agreeing with you - YES changing pickups in a Strat won't make it sound like a Mosrite...I wasn't expecting to be given the 3d degree about it.

Here's where the a-hole skeptic in me is really gonna really tick you off, Zak. I don't believe you really know whether or not there was a difference in sound in your Jazzmaster after you replaced the neck. The human hearing perception may indeed hear a difference BUT the comparison has to be made immediatly and that immediacy is lost in the time it takes to change the necks. Audio memory is terrible. I noticed this after buying a remastered version of a Jimi Hendrix CD and thinking, "wow, I never heard that sound, man is this new version an improvement!" I then brought out the old CD and set the two diffferent versions to play simultaneiously in two CD players. I A/B'd 'em by switching the selector back and forth between two old and new CD only to find the new one was hardly an improvement at all other than a bit of volume boost. I could only tell that when doing the immediate comparison. I now do CD comparisons often. Some new versions are indeed better, some not at all.

A friend and I also tested a Fender reverb tank mod. My friend was convinced his new tube and cap replacement made for a much better sounding reverb. We compared the mod'd reissue tank with an unmod'd reissue using a Morely A/B footswitch switching the same guitar between the two reverb units. The two units were output to the same channel of a '62 Fender Bandmaster. He never knew which reverb unit he was playing through while I was switching. He could hear no discernable difference between the mod'd and unmod'd tanks.

I do understand about the combination of factors contributing to the tone of an instrument. I just say that with solid body electric guitars in particular, certain popular changes don't really make the significant tonal difference.

Yes, all you say about the pocket of the neck makes theoretical sense but so many theoretical ideas like this do not translate into actual sound difference. Snake oil salesmen have been taking advantage of our theoretical intuition for years. Look at any over the counter medicine ad on T.V. adn you'll see such appeals to our imagination. Look at any audio magazine and you will see a ton of advertisements that take great advantage of our theoretical intuition with similar descriptions to capture our imagination and get us to buy things that really don't translate to any actual sound difference at all. Sure some of these things are legit, I just don't see most folks really giving them the blindfold acid test.

We never disagreed about the pickups, I know. My 3rd degree attack had to do with claims about neck pockets.
-Marty

[Nokie]

Cool looks are definitely a major purchasing factor!

Back to the original, original question on whether Mosrite pickups in a Strat would sound Mosrite-y, I think the answer is "sort-of" I think a lot of what makes that definitive "Strat" sound is the "in-between" sounds. Having installed middle pickups in both Jazzmasters and Jaguars, you can get a very respectible simulation of a strat if you use the neck/middle or middle/bridge pickups. In a direct A-B test you'd know the difference, but in isolation, it's a good proximation.

So, to get a sort-of Mosrite sound out of a strat I think you'd need Mosrite-like pickups, some form of pickup selector that allows for neck and bridge to be used together, and probably a 500K volume pot. Again, no dead-ringer, but pretty good. You'd probably be OK with a P-90-ish pickup as well.

Hi Mel ,
My answer is not sort of. My answer is no, a Strat will not sound like a Mosrite if the Strat pick-ups are replaced with Mosrite pick-ups, even if they are put in the proper position with the proper switching. . Now, if you change the strat pickups to Mosrite pickups AND change to a shorter neck such that you acheive a 24.75" scale, you'll be a lot closer to the Mosrite sound.
-Marty

[zak]

I don't believe you really know whether or not there was a difference in sound in your Jazzmaster after you replaced the neck.

Considering it was my #1 stage guitar for quite a few years, getting played through the same amp night after night, I think I know what it sounded like before and after the neck swap. It wasn't a CD that I listened to "once in a while" or something, it was an instrument that I had a pretty close personal relationship with.

I do understand about the combination of factors contributing to the tone of an instrument. I just say that with solid body electric guitars in particular, certain popular changes don't really make the significant tonal difference.

Depends entirely on two things: how critically you listen, and how much junk is in your signal path....and if you play through a bunch of pedals or some horrible digital multi-effects unit, chances are you won't hear much of a difference, if any.

Yes, all you say about the pocket of the neck makes theoretical sense but so many theoretical ideas like this do not translate into actual sound difference. Snake oil salesmen have been taking advantage of our theoretical intuition for years.

Well then it's up to you to determine for yourself what's going to translate into discernible differences and what won't. I did my share of experimenting and unbiased critical listening...however this is the internet and I suppose my opinion, which is based on my own hands-on experience, is no more valid to the reader than that of the armchair guy who's regurgitating some 3d hand information he read online somewhere, or a "skeptic" such as yourself who's convinced everything is snake oil and everyone who says otherwise is full of poop or deluding themselves.
Fine by me, I'm not really all that interested in convincing anyone of anything, I think I'll go play some guitar instead.

[KRamone27]

Hi, All,

Recently I put together a blueburst Strat clone from parts purchased from eBay. The pickups are probably cheapos from Asia.

Several weeks ago I saw the Iron Butterfly play "In A Gadda Da Vida" on PBS. I was blown away when I saw they were using Mosrites! I really liked their sound!

Does anyone know what pickups I could replace my cheapos with to get an Iron Butterfly Mosrite sound or at least something very similar on my Strat clone?

Will stacked or rail humbucker pickups work or do I need single coil pickups?

Is it possible to use 3 humbuckers together or am I limited to two?

Thanks,

SurfCat

Yes it is possible to have more than one humbucker in a strat. I had a Univox strat copy for a long time and it had three humbuckers in it. Kevin

[Nokie]

I don't believe you really know whether or not there was a difference in sound in your Jazzmaster after you replaced the neck.

Considering it was my #1 stage guitar for quite a few years, getting played through the same amp night after night, I think I know what it sounded like before and after the neck swap. It wasn't a CD that I listened to "once in a while" or something, it was an instrument that I had a pretty close personal relationship with.

I do understand about the combination of factors contributing to the tone of an instrument. I just say that with solid body electric guitars in particular, certain popular changes don't really make the significant tonal difference.

Depends entirely on two things: how critically you listen, and how much junk is in your signal path....and if you play through a bunch of pedals or some horrible digital multi-effects unit, chances are you won't hear much of a difference, if any.

Yes, all you say about the pocket of the neck makes theoretical sense but so many theoretical ideas like this do not translate into actual sound difference. Snake oil salesmen have been taking advantage of our theoretical intuition for years.

Well then it's up to you to determine for yourself what's going to translate into discernible differences and what won't. I did my share of experimenting and unbiased critical listening...however this is the internet and I suppose my opinion, which is based on my own hands-on experience, is no more valid to the reader than that of the armchair guy who's regurgitating some 3d hand information he read online somewhere, or a "skeptic" such as yourself who's convinced everything is snake oil and everyone who says otherwise is full of poop or deluding themselves.
Fine by me, I'm not really all that interested in convincing anyone of anything, I think I'll go play some guitar instead.

Zak,
Your argument that you have played the guitar so long, you know what it sounded like is a good argument. I still want for the immediate blindfold A/B comparison but you're happy and I have to accept that.

Critical listening, junk in the signal path is also certainly going to affect tone but my focus is on the claims of improved tone sans all the external goodies, claims made that haven't truely been substantiated and are more often the result of group-think, or the psych feeling that doing the work, or having the work done, to a guitar must mean its now better.

Well then it's up to you to determine for yourself what's going to translate into discernible differences and what won't. I did my share of experimenting and unbiased critical listening...however this is the internet and I suppose my opinion, which is based on my own hands-on experience, is no more valid to the reader than that of the armchair guy who's regurgitating some 3d hand information he read online somewhere, or a "skeptic" such as yourself who's convinced everything is snake oil and everyone who says otherwise is full of poop or deluding themselves.
Fine by me, I'm not really all that interested in convincing anyone of anything, I think I'll go play some guitar instead.

I'm not convinced all this is snake oil, but I do suspect much of it is. I try to be scientifically minded. I don't beleive in this religion of popular modifications handed to us by "experts" who are very often on the dole of some company. I'd like to see more published blindfold A/B results in rags like Guitar Player but they're also so dependent on advertisers, it ain't gonna happen. So we are indeed left with your suggestion that we make our own judgements. I particularly like your last sentence, "I think all go play some guitar instead." I think all these changes folks make to their gear is a diversion from actually doing the best possible sound improving change...improving ones ability on the instrument.
-Marty