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On Wed, 8 May 2002, IVAN PONGRACIC wrote:
> On Wed, 8 May 2002, urbansurfkings wrote:
>
> > What kind of pickups do you have in your strats? I'm thinking of
> > changing my Gold Lace Sensors to something with a bit more sparkle.
> > Any suggestions?
>
> My fiesta red Strat Plus used to
> have Gold Lace Sensors, but I swapped those out a few years ago with
> Fender's Texas Specials, as (I think) Brian rightly pointed out. The
> improvement was huge! However, I find that Texas Specials are a bit too
> dark for many uses, though I got great results with them in many
> situation. On Tsar Wars, several songs were recorded with the Strat with
> the Texas Specials: Escape From Gulag 17, The Crusher, Cossack Rocket
> Patrol, Space Race, Tradewinds, and Departure. In addition, all of the
> stuff I recorded for the New World Relampagos was with that same Strat
> (but exclusively through Vox amps, no Fenders). Hopefully, you can get
> some idea of what those pickups sound like.
I thought of a few more things that you might find useful to check out the
differences in sound of the pickups. All of the Space Cossacks first CD
was recorded with the Strat Plus with Gold Lace Sensors, but otherwise,
everything was the same as on the second CD. So, you can compare the
guitar tones a bit and maybe get some idea of the differences. (Actually,
several songs were recorded with a Jazzmaster: Solaris Stomp, Moroccan
Adventures, Black Sand, Gunmetal Express, The Spy Satellite). On Tsar
Wars, The Jewel of Duende was also recorded with the Texas Specials. On
Jazzmaster were: Tsunami Tsurprise, The Defector and Fiesta Del
Cossacapulco. So, the remainder were on the two '62 reissues (I got them
both towards the end of the recording of the album): Sea of Tranquility,
Tsar Wars, Beyond the Third Star, Exolumina, and The Apes of Wrath.
I don't hear a huge difference between the different pickups on the
recordings, but the feel when playing seems quite pronounced to me. I
think I was able to get some good tones with Lace Sensors, though I
wouldn't recommend those pickups. In addition, Phil Dirt seems to think I
sound the best on Solaris Stomp, and that was the only song that I
recorded with the stock Japanese reissue Jazzmaster pickups, which
everybody says are awful! I agree they are very harsh, but again, if you
adjust the tone on the amp, and adjust your playing style, you can get a
lemonade out of a lemon.
Sorry for the excruciating detail...
Ivan
PS Oh, you can hear my guitar with Alnico II Pros on three tracks, all on
the Monster Party 2000 CD: the Space Cossacks track plus the two Madeira
tracks. A much smoother sound...
