I can tell you how Apaches & Sultans compare in my Roadworn 50 (that's alder with maple).
Both Sultans and Apaches are fabulous at cleans. In my hands on this guitar, the Apaches have slightly more oomph to the tone, really brings out my vibrato and are excellent for strummed chords. I mean really excellent - I've never got a decent "hey strum some acoustic chords" out of any strat before (including this one), I'd always think tele or SG for that sort of work. But this guitar with Apaches has a nice "tightness" to strumming now. Sultans gave it a lovely clean strat tone, but Apaches shade it for me in this one, just a bit more authority to everything.
Now, gain, how much are we talking here? :lol:
Most of the time I set my amp just the wrong side of hairy and run the guitar volume at about 8 for slightly hairy crunch, 6 or below for clean, 10 for scrunchy crunch and lead (the tone control, wired as a master, has a LOT to do with it all as well). If I was gigging again I'd probably also have some sort of boost pedal to push 8-10 a bit further. So, I'm not into too much gain, but I rarely set an amp up as "clean".
Anyway - with my settings above, the Apaches and Sultans do roughly the same sort of job. The Apaches have more punch than the Sultans did. It's partly bottom end, but I think there's something in the mids as well - lowering the Bass on the amp by a notch or so makes the Apache version closer to how it was with Sultans. At the moment, the Apaches suit me far better in this guitar, they're just as musical as Sultans, but it gets nasty in a blues-rock and rock and roll way... which is roughly where my heart lies. The Sultans were a little more polite and even sounding, and I had dig harder to get what I wanted sometimes.
I've just been trying the Apaches out with more gain, I hadn't done that yet. I wouldn't personally say Apaches are "best for clean sounds", but it depends what sort of dirty sounds someone's after! I'd say it's raunchier with the Apaches, more of an old school tone. With the Sultans it was smoother, more modern sounding (modern = mid 70s - mid 80s to me :lol:). The Apache version is more in-yer-face, and I can see this holding its own in a mix, whereas usually if I want gain on chord-work and riffs I'd reach for a humbucker guitar or a tele. For lead stuff at this gain, the Apache definitely has what I want, the Sultans seemed a bit thinner to me in this guitar.
It sounds as if I've got a down on the Sultans... BUT NO! :lol: The Sultans in the CIJ (alder, rosewood, slightly mellower sounding acoustically) are now competing very favourably with the Apached Roadworn.
Basically, I want my two Roadworns to be musical and refined, but I also really want them to be dirty blues-babes when you push their buttons (clean or with gain). Apaches do it for me in the 50s, Irish Tours do in the 60s. Play nice and they hum their little tunes, dig in and they start moaning and groaning and generally giving me what I want.
I've tried for at least three years now to make my CIJ do the job, but it won't. And to be honest, now I've got the Roadworns, it really doesn't look like it should either - it's a lovely shiny fiesta red :lol:. Now I've accepted this, the Sultans do a fine but different job for me in there. They're generally musical at all levels of gain I throw at it, and they make her sound like a lovely strat. Crank it up, and it is smoother sounding than the other two, but that's great for certain stuff I like - eg Robin Trower. I have a feeling that in a different guitar again, the Sultans would absolutely kill, but I don't own that guitar! :lol:
I've got a feeling that you want the ability to go slightly more "in-yer-face" sometimes. If that's the case, out of the Apaches and Sultans, in my maple board strat, I'd say Apaches. But I would dearly love to know what Mothers Milks could do in the same situation :D
(By the way, it's the CIJ with Sultans that I need to reach for if I want to play, er, Apache, or Atlantis, etc, etc... :lol:)
