Wulfrik
Strat-O-Master
Some of you might remember that I posted a NGD ten days ago ... I got myself a Miami Blue American Pro II strat HSS, and very happy I've been with it, too.
For the first week of ownership, I did my usual decking the trem and getting the relief and action where I wanted them, and then put some real time in playing it (I didn't have much work on, and what gigs and practices I had I used the new one for). I haven't put it down much.
This allowed me to make a few observations, and get an idea of what, if anything I might want to change. There were only a handful of things.
1) The V-mod II single coils are great pickups, very nice sounding, BUT the treble bleed that Fender install on these guitars makes them sound quite thin anywhere around 6 and down.
2) I have aluminium grounding plates behind the pickguards on my other strats, and they're notably quieter than this guitar, stock when playing in front of my computer and camera/recording setup.
3) I'm much faster at fitting new strings on my guitars with locking tuners.
4) ... and this is the weird one... when the humbucker (a Fender 'double tap') is split, and you're in position 4 on the switch, the bridge tone control no longer has any effect BUT if you roll down the volume it still gets way brighter than it is on full chat.
5) I disliked how much the push/push tone pot that splits the humbucker would stick up, both when engaged and disengaged.
Then lastly, I started to think the mint green guard looked a bit wrong, and set the blue finish to look more teal, and it looked more plastic-y than my other strats. I really like 70's style black out plastics on strats.
Here's how it started:
So, I snipped out one of the PCB mounted treble bleed capacitor/resistor network for the single coils (there is a second one in these AM Pro II's on the double gang 250/500k piggyback volume pots), and replaced it with the 100k resistor and 102pf capacitor that I found to work great in my American Special strat. I left the humbucker pot with the Fender treble bleed, but added an extra 150kohm resistor across the lugs.
I shielded all the cavities with Titan RF blackout tape and fitted an admittedly overpriced Bareknuckle Pickups shielding plate under the scratchplate.
I put a second potentiometer nut and two washers on the push/push pot UNDER the guard, to bring the proud thread –– and thus the knob –– much closer to the scratchplate.
I fitted Fender locking tuners.
I closed it all up with some new black plastics. I didn't have a black strat switch tip in my parts bin though, just a telecaster version... so for now it's got one of those.
Pics were taken in the dark... will take better ones tomorrow if anyone wants a better idea of how a black guard looks on these Miami blue strats.
For the first week of ownership, I did my usual decking the trem and getting the relief and action where I wanted them, and then put some real time in playing it (I didn't have much work on, and what gigs and practices I had I used the new one for). I haven't put it down much.
This allowed me to make a few observations, and get an idea of what, if anything I might want to change. There were only a handful of things.
1) The V-mod II single coils are great pickups, very nice sounding, BUT the treble bleed that Fender install on these guitars makes them sound quite thin anywhere around 6 and down.
2) I have aluminium grounding plates behind the pickguards on my other strats, and they're notably quieter than this guitar, stock when playing in front of my computer and camera/recording setup.
3) I'm much faster at fitting new strings on my guitars with locking tuners.
4) ... and this is the weird one... when the humbucker (a Fender 'double tap') is split, and you're in position 4 on the switch, the bridge tone control no longer has any effect BUT if you roll down the volume it still gets way brighter than it is on full chat.
5) I disliked how much the push/push tone pot that splits the humbucker would stick up, both when engaged and disengaged.
Then lastly, I started to think the mint green guard looked a bit wrong, and set the blue finish to look more teal, and it looked more plastic-y than my other strats. I really like 70's style black out plastics on strats.
Here's how it started:
So, I snipped out one of the PCB mounted treble bleed capacitor/resistor network for the single coils (there is a second one in these AM Pro II's on the double gang 250/500k piggyback volume pots), and replaced it with the 100k resistor and 102pf capacitor that I found to work great in my American Special strat. I left the humbucker pot with the Fender treble bleed, but added an extra 150kohm resistor across the lugs.
I shielded all the cavities with Titan RF blackout tape and fitted an admittedly overpriced Bareknuckle Pickups shielding plate under the scratchplate.
I put a second potentiometer nut and two washers on the push/push pot UNDER the guard, to bring the proud thread –– and thus the knob –– much closer to the scratchplate.
I fitted Fender locking tuners.
I closed it all up with some new black plastics. I didn't have a black strat switch tip in my parts bin though, just a telecaster version... so for now it's got one of those.
Pics were taken in the dark... will take better ones tomorrow if anyone wants a better idea of how a black guard looks on these Miami blue strats.
