WHAT STRAT PICKUPS FOR SRV TONE?

[jesseblues]

I'm looking for strat pickups that would help me get close to the tone that SRV has. My amp is a fender hot rod deluxe with a celestion vintage 30 speaker.What pickups should i get?

[Eric]

Irish Tours should work well for you.

[AndyR]

I can second that. I installed Irish Tours on a Fender Japan 62 re-issue a week and a half ago.

I play through a POD XTLive and studio monitors. When I use "fender" amp models I'm always reaching for SRV type sounds.

The ITs are a great improvement, far more fluid than the stock Texas Specials were.

They also do a pretty good Rory Gallagher!

My only worry was that they wouldn't be versatile enough for other styles - no need to worry though. They work well whatever I've asked them to do, and I still haven't explored the tones enough yet.

[Prawnik]

If I wanted SRV tone, I would do like SRV.  Get thee an old-skool Strat set up with huge strings, high action, downtuned half-step or whole-step, and low-output vintage style pickups.  Apache or MM.  That's Number One in a nutshell.  

Play through an 808 Tube Screamer or Fuzzface, goosing a dimed vintage Fender tube amp.  Get that big, ballsy tone that the revolutionary working masses love so well.

[38thBeatle]

I must admit I was thinking, when reading this thread, that I can get a pretty close SRV sound with my Apache laden Strat and Prawnik has a very good point.

[Philly Q]

If I wanted SRV tone, I would do like SRV.  Get thee an old-skool Strat set up with huge strings, high action, downtuned half-step or whole-step, and low-output vintage style pickups.  Apache or MM.  That's Number One in a nutshell.  

Then when you've crippled yourself trying to bend those telegraph cables, give up guitar and take up a nice cheap hobby like doing crosswords...

I tend to think SRV got his amazing tone despite his gear, not because of it.  I'm sure he could pick up a Mexican Strat with 0.009s and ceramic-magnet pickups and still sound like himself.

[kevincurtis]

I must admit I was thinking, when reading this thread, that I can get a pretty close SRV sound with my Apache laden Strat and Prawnik has a very good point.

I was thinking along the same lines with my Apache - and that's through a Marshall  :?  - a good strat and a decent set of single coils and you are gonna be in the ballpark through a half decent amp, the rest was his talent like what philly said - so I'm +1ing both of you :)

[Peter Antal]

For heavy strings (12's) I'd get a Mother's Milk set. For light strings (9's or 10's) I'd get an Irish Tour set.

[38thBeatle]

I have not yet tried SRV wire-I am using 11's but then again, SRV would sound like SRV using any combination of gear ( except perhaps a Banjo and a potato peeler).

[Prawnik]

If I wanted SRV tone, I would do like SRV.  Get thee an old-skool Strat set up with huge strings, high action, downtuned half-step or whole-step, and low-output vintage style pickups.  Apache or MM.  That's Number One in a nutshell.  

Then when you've crippled yourself trying to bend those telegraph cables, give up guitar and take up a nice cheap hobby like doing crosswords...

I tend to think SRV got his amazing tone despite his gear, not because of it.  I'm sure he could pick up a Mexican Strat with 0.009s and ceramic-magnet pickups and still sound like himself.

I would argue differently.  On the one hand, yes, SRV would still be recognizable as SRV if he were playing a Jackson Soloist through a VHT Pittbull.  Different, but recognizable as SRV.  

At the same time, it's not as if SRV was forced to play Stratocasters with huge strings at gunpoint, and he played them long before he endorsed them.  It's not as if poverty forced him to make do with a cr@ppy old tweed Bassman while he dreamed of the day that he could afford a Diezel or Engl of his very own.  

SRV must have liked the sound he got out of that setup because he chose it.  After all, it's not as if it was convenient to find those immense strings in 1984 or so.

[Machek]

Yeah when you listen to SRV i think you can actually HEAR this huge strings' tension, the bite, the attack, those telegraph cables vibrating so firmly.... IMHO those huge strings gauge were involved in SRV's tone...

[Philly Q]

You're right, I'm sure SRV was very particular about his gear.  I didn't mean that he just used any old stuff that happened to be available.

But what I was trying to say (badly) was that his gear choices were very personal - he used what worked for him.  I suspect "Number One" wasn't a particularly exceptional Strat, he just felt comfortable with it.  

I think if you're a fan of a player and like their tone, there's more than one way of getting close to it.  If I used the exact same gear as someone I'd still sound nothing like them (I'd sound cr@p, like I always do).  I think you need to find your own way, one that you're comfortable with.  If I got a Strat and put 0.013 strings on it, I'd never be able to play it - it just wouldn't be possible.

[Prawnik]

You're right, I'm sure SRV was very particular about his gear.  I didn't mean that he just used any old stuff that happened to be available.

But what I was trying to say (badly) was that his gear choices were very personal - he used what worked for him.  I suspect "Number One" wasn't a particularly exceptional Strat, he just felt comfortable with it.  

I think if you're a fan of a player and like their tone, there's more than one way of getting close to it.  If I used the exact same gear as someone I'd still sound nothing like them (I'd sound cr@p, like I always do).  I think you need to find your own way, one that you're comfortable with.  If I got a Strat and put 0.013 strings on it, I'd never be able to play it - it just wouldn't be possible.

I agree that you could put a cheapo Chinese knockoff through a cheaper amp in SRV's hands and it would still sound pretty cool.  You could put Number One in my hands and I would still sound like a putz.  

I also think that hotter pickups will get the average frustrated chump closer to the SRV sound, but to really get there the big strings are a major part of that tone.  But yes, you're right, that way is not for everyone or we'd all be doing it.

Also: I thought the deal with Number One was that it had a very thick beefy D neck?  In those days, Fender made necks in four sizes: size A was smallest and D largest.  All Strats were B necks unless special ordered.  I've never seen a D neck in the wild, and I have a huge database of photos of disassembled vintage Strats.

[Philly Q]

Also: I thought the deal with Number One was that it had a very thick beefy D neck?  In those days, Fender made necks in four sizes: size A was smallest and D largest.  All Strats were B necks unless special ordered.  I've never seen a D neck in the wild, and I have a huge database of photos of disassembled vintage Strats.

Yeah, I've read about that and I've always wondered if there was some confusion between "A", "B", "C" and "D" sized necks and C-shaped and D-shaped necks?

Are there any Strats in the current Fender range with a "D" neck?  My Robert Cray Strat has a pretty big neck, but I think that's supposed to be a hybrid of his '58 and '64 Strats (and I only have the Mexican version anyway).

And didn't the neck of Number One get smashed by a falling lighting gantry not long before SRV died?  But the neck on the SRV Tribute Strat isn't copied from the broken neck, but from an earlier one?  I can't remember all the details.

[Prawnik]

Many today confuse vintage Fender neck size with neck shape, but the two had nothing to do with one another.  After all, the standard vintage Fender Strat neck was a "B" size, and you don't see too many B-shaped Strat necks.  

I honestly have no idea what the Fender SRV Tribute Strat was copied from, so I cannot tell you anything here. I *think* standard Fender necks are larger than than they were in the old days, but I try not to pay attention to anything Fender does nowadays.  Although the Cray body makes a nice starting point for building a 1968-69 hardtail, but only if you get it in sunburst.

I know the Strats that I built have C and D necks.