57/62's or Fat 50's?

[Pittnuma]

Difficult...
To 57/62's or Fat 50's that is the question!

Unfortunatly you cannot head to the shop with your guitar and try each pair side by side to see which you prefer.

Has anybody tried both? Have any thoughts?

I am after that warmth of sound.

My present Seymour's are a bit too harsh and tinny on high E, although I will be keeping them as I do like the sound of them.

Must admit I am enjoying the experimenting to get the sound I like, I am also finding that because I have a better sound I am playing more.

Also, anybody tried the Fender California guitar lead? Not been able to find a review on them.

DC

[Deleted]

HI DC ,, The fat fiftie's are Imop GREAT p/up's & or the ''JC-VINTAGE'', [see the buy sell section]. the JC's are almost identical in sound as I have both ..
But you need to do the capacitance mod as spoken about here on-site . & you should try that mod on your seymours first prior to out-laying unessasary cash!!!this mod fixes that over bright top-E etc etc..
THE 57-62's I cannot comment-on only to say that's what's in hank's strat's for the ''cliff-shads tour'' .. & ''paul's white-strat gary play's in the TVS clip's..

CHEERS...............barry..

[philbarker]

There's lots of info in this thread.
charliehall.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=technical&action=display&thread=2872&page=1

[Pittnuma]

Thanks gents, not sure I am using the search option right, I tried using and came back with no results...

DC

[macnik]

Whilst my initial assessment of the 57/62s was that they were too brittle in sound, now that I've persevered with them and adjusted my Pod suitably, I have found the warmth I was looking for. It took a fair amount of work till I was happy,
As I don't use 4shared or anything similar I cannot post a sound sample, but if you would like to hear one please PM me you email address and I will forward to you.
Regards
Ian

[Pittnuma]

Thanks, appreciated PM sent.

DC

[macnik]

Sound files sent.
Regards Macnik

[Pittnuma]

Thanks Ian appreciated.

Very nice sound you have there, is this with the "high E" mod or is it untouched?

DC

[Gary Allen]

As with all single coils..a lot of people forget about those little caps attached to the tone pots....food for thought

[Pittnuma]

Sorry Gary? I do not follow.

DC

[Charlie Hall]

Hi DC,
I think Gary is talking about adding tone control functionality to the bridge pickup on a Strat. It is quite simple to do and there are various ways of tuning the sound. All of this can change the bridge pickup sound if required while still retaining close to the original sound, while leaving the other pickup selections and tonal variations as stock.
Regards,
Charlie

[Pittnuma]

Thanks Charlie, youmean the likes of the capacitor on the High E?

Trouble is I'm no good at soldering.

DC

[macnik]

Mar 15, 2010 16:12:59 GMT Pittnuma said:

Thanks Ian appreciated.

Very nice sound you have there, is this with the "high E" mod or is it untouched?

DC

Hi DC,
Thanks and glad you like the sound. Guitar is absolutely stock, no modification to the cap at all . Still has the .01uf capacitor. I use a boss graphic and boss compressor pedals and a Quad+ with Charlie's patches. The compressor has been setup with Charlie's help and I use a Line6 PodPro DSP with a choice of AC15, AC30NTB and AC30TB amp sims, depending on which track I'm working on.

Regards
Ian

[Charlie Hall]

Hi DC,
I don't suppose for one minute that a capacitor would know which strings it has to work on!
I guess the cap value to reduce stinging highs would be a small one around 1200pf to 2200pf. This could be be simply wired across two of the switch terminals, but it is only simple for someone that can solder, unfortunately.
Regards,
Charlie

[Gary Allen]

My apologies for writing that post in a hurry...Apart from some of the mods with wiring and caps etc.... I find a lot of guys are nt over the moon when they ve changed pickups.Having the vintage type cap 0.01 is a good starting point. I can remember fitting seymour duncan p/ups and being disapointed because they sounded thin.What i did nt know was the volume pot was a 500k.After fitting the 250k they sounded great.Upon having strats with most of the popular single coil p/ups Ive found that p/ups have their own character and its sometimes better to fatten up the sound with an amp and still retain the sweetness.One example might be cs54s that Hank is supposed to be using.They re not a fat sounding p/up but they have a unique character just like 57/62s....Texas specials......Fat 50s....Dimarzio...and so on.........Gary

[clivea]

Hi DC, for what it's worth mate, I changed my pickups to JC's vintage jobs in my quest to find a more mellow sound and to take the 'harshness' out of the high E's. I found that, whereas they are greaty vintage p/ups, they will not give me the more 'mellow' high E's sound I'm after. I've also tried Tonerider and 57/62's but they are all similar in sound.
Away from Hank, I think that Pete Korving has a great warm sound and I do know he uses a 50's Vintage Strat with the 57's p/ups it came with, a M/stomp with eftp, and a Line 6 amp.
I wonder if he'll sell me his gear, LOL.
Anyway mate, If you find the answer, then please, please let me know.

Rgds - Clive

[clivea]

Hi Gary, now you're taking me into unknown territory!

Are you saying then that the higher the tonepot 'k' then the thinner the sound? In other words, if I changed my bridge p/up tonepot to a lower 'k', would it warm up the high E's etc?

Rgds - Clive

[Pittnuma]

Mar 16, 2010 6:38:14 GMT clivea said:

Hi Gary, now you're taking me into unknown territory!

Are you saying then that the higher the tonepot 'k' then the thinner the sound? In other words, if I changed my bridge p/up tonepot to a lower 'k', would it warm up the high E's etc?

Rgds - Clive

MM that's what I was thinking, if I can warm mine up as is I might not have to change as it were.

DC

[Deleted]

HI DC & ALL please persist in what charlie mentioned above & you will not be sorry ,if you cannot solder ,get a mate to do it for you etc ,there is a whole thread on the subject here on site maybe charlie will point it out to us as I could not find it although I had input into it ..
Believe me it ''IS'' the way to go & cost's a few bob only ,I have done this mod for a long-time prior to it coming up here on-site & it work's!!!!IT will do what you are looking for!!!!
CHEERS ........barry..

[Gary Allen]

Hi Clive and DC....Sorry if Im confusing things....Are the high E notes too bright on all 3 p/ups....With the bridge p/up you can put about 1 inch of wire on the switch linking the bridge with the neck tone pot.there are diagrams if you google it...By doing this you add it to the tone circuit on the guitar as bridge p/ups are wired hot anyway.If you have a 250k already then dont change it.....gary

[Deleted]

I think the Marvin Kinmans are sometimes overlooked because they don't give you the vintage sound and I think thats why people don't go with them and so move them on. I sold some about 2yrs ago because of this but I regret it somewhat now as I have more that one Strat. If I remember rightly you don't get the trebly/brittle sound and they do actually give you the modern Hank type sound. It's all down to taste.
Tony

[tca]

Gary,
No mate, the high 'E' notes are too thin on the bridge p/up only.
So then, if I'm understanding you correctly, I solder a bit of wire from the bridge p/up connection on the p/up selector switch to the neck tone pot?
If I'm right then that, to me, sounds logical and worthy of a try.
Can you let me know?

Tony,
Are you still happy with your new 57/62's? When I tried them on mine, I still got the thin high 'E''s. Has your gear arrived from Oz yet?

DC,
I know what you mean. I'm not playing as much as I should because I'm not getting the sound. I start playing with all good intentions then put the guitar down after spending ages fiddling with the settings. All very frustrating!

Rgds - Clive

[Pittnuma]

Annoying thing is you've got to take the strings off each time to do the changes, might pop round my fathers and see if he fancies soldering...

Only changed the strings about 3 weeks ago and cut em to size....

DC

[Charlie Hall]

Hi Clive,
Gary's suggestions are valid but remember that you already have a tone control for your bridge pickup, using a 2200pf cap. I wouldn't recommend trying to complicate it further.
When using the bridge pickup, doesn't turning the lower tone control to 0 help at all?
Regards,
Charlie

[clivea]

Hi Charlie,
I understand what you're saying, but not wanting to complicate things, I have to say that with the 2200pf cap, when turning the bridge p/uptone down, whereas it takes some of the 'thinness' off, it rather dulls the tone, and I was just seeking a possible alternative. I can't win can I?
I wish that I could start all over again knowing what I know now.
Do you think that taking out the 2200pf cap and doing what Gary suggests would give a more suitable mellow tone? Mind you, I've nothing to loose trying it eh? I'm used to fiddling with the soldering iron now!

Take care - Rgds - Clive

[peterbower]

You could try an alternative route, and that is to fit a DeMarzio
FS-1 in the bridge position and the 57/62 middle and neck.
A great combination in my view.
Peter

[clivea]

Thanks Peter, have you got this set up? Sample sound file would be appreciated.

Rgds - Clive

[Deleted]

Clive,
Yes they are fine but I have a different amp called a Rat GA15. I bought it recently second hand after trying it at home. It has 2 x 12AX7 and 2 x EL84 valves with three band EQ and for me an extremely important feature called 'Power scaling' which means it retains its full valve quality at very low volumes. Apparantly a guy who runs a business modifying amps made a whacking job of it; www.ratvalveamps.com/
It just works really well so the Line 6 is now gone although I had good sounds for 3yrs with it but this valve one totally overshadows it.
The Oz is imminent at present in Coventry waiting for Mr Brown to rip me off.
Regards Tony

[Charlie Hall]

Hi Clive,
I am becoming confused by your varying reports of the tone control's effect on the bridge pickup. At one time you couldn't hear the difference (and neither could I on your test recordings) until you fitted the 2200pf cap, now it is too effective. I would suggest you go to a cap value of around 1200pf or 1500pf and see how it sounds then with the tone control backed fully off.
Regards,
Charlie

[peterbower]

Clive

Sorry, this set up was on a mate's guitar. A good sound file will be Hank himself, with most of his late 70' and 80's music on the FS-1. I still think he was silly to change that pickup.

Peter