Getting a bit of Strat fever. Standard & Slide players chime in!

OK, some of you may have read my "Non-Strat player/project (http://www.tdpri.com/forum/stratocaster-discussion-forum/330900-non-strat-player-thinking-about-strat-project.html)" thread, but it may be taking a new turn. As I said in the previously mentioned thread, I used to play Strats because that's pretty much what all of my heroes at the time played, so it seemed like a natural choice. I eventually grew to dislike the sound of a Strat in my hands, but I think a bit of that might be changing.

I got the idea to do a Strat slide guitar project because of the versatility of pickup options with a simple change of the pickguard. Today, after playing a Standard Strat through one of those Ibanez Tubescreamer amps, I quickly came to love a good many of the slide sounds I was able to achieve with a Stratocaster.

So I need some advice from you Strat guys, especially those who use one for slide.

Things I like About Strats

Light weight
Comfortable
They look kind of cool
Very easy to come by
The neck & middle pups
Maple fretboards


Things I DON'T Like About Strats

Quack (pos 2 & 4)
Bridge pup (no tone control)
the pickup output seems lower than Teles
Rosewood Fretboards
I've had trouble getting good sounds


I usually prefer vintage specs on my Teles, and expected the same with a Strat, but the Standard with the 9.5 radius didn't seem to bother me like I thought it would.

Here are my questions.

Do you guys have any particular thoughts or recommendations for the pickup output problem or is it all in my head?
Is there a wiring diagram for a 4-way switch that includes pos 1-3 for each pup, and pos 4 bridge & neck?
What's your slide setup? String guage, amps, effects, etc.
Can you recommend some Strat slide players to listen too? Videos are a plus.


That's a good start, but I'm sure I'll have more questions. Thanks!

SRV plays slide on a couple songs.... slide thing and give me back my wig

Clapton plays slide on strats. I think he uses either open A or E from memory. Check out 'Motherless Children' and 'Can't Hold Out' on 461 Ocean Boulevard. He also plays slide on a couple of songs on the live album 'Just One Night'.

But the masters of strat slide playing are Ry Cooder (albeit with non standard pickup set ups) and Sonny Landreth (again using hotter than standard pickups). And let's not forget Lowell George or Bonnie Raitt - neither of them are slouches with a slide.

I have to say that I play slide on both my strats (a CS Clapton with vintage noiseless pups) and an old MIM standard with Fat 50's. Both sound good to my ear (or at least as good as I'll ever be able to make them!).

I play slide on a pawn shop parts Strat I picked up many years ago. The body is a hardtail two color sunburst. I don't know who made it but it's nice. The neck is from Carvin with an ebony fingerboard as is the bridge and the pots and knobs. The pickups are a Duncan P-90 at the neck and a JB humbucker at the bridge. It dosen't have a middle pickup. When I used it exclusivly for slide, I used a D'Addario .011 set with the action jacked up a little. When I was sick a couple of years ago it was my bedside guitar and I strung it with .0095's and lowered the action to play non-slide. That's how it is today.

I'm getting ready to build another Strat, this time with more of a vintage design. Old style bridge, three pickups and a maple fingerboard. I have a Lollar rewound "Mighty-Might" pickup form the '80's that I'm going to use in the bridge. I think that'll give me what I want in the bridge position. A little more "oomph" and output.

Builds are fun. You can take your time and do things as you can afford them. And I have a couple of pros to help me with things like set ups, fret work and finishing. Even with those expenses, it'll be cheaper then a new American '57 RI. And I'd want to tweak that guitar anyway.

The no tone control thing on the bridge pup is a real easy fix.

(...) And let's not forget Lowell George or Bonnie Raitt - neither of them are slouches with a slide.


... and both of them play strats!

I had a lot of luck with this project (http://www.tdpri.com/forum/stratocaster-discussion-forum/325196-my-lowell-george-stratocaster-finally-ready.html#post4130719) trying to replicate Lowell George's strat. The main goal was not particularly to live out any fanboy fantasies, but to put to a new use an old mediocre strat copy I had laying around.

It turns out that some of Lowell's modifications are very useful:

- Stronger bridge pickup (I used a Harmonic Design Super 90 which emulates a P90. Well, that's not exactly what Lowell did but it sounds great.)
- Flatwound .11 strings.
- Open A instead of open G or other "lower" tunings (I think the strings, the tuning and the guitar being a strat hold most of the secret of Lowell tone).
- Alembic Stratoblaster which is not indispensable but certainly adds some chime.
- Otherwise, relatively robust compression before not-so-heavy dirt. Lowell does not sound like Sonny Landreth, although they both are/were great.

I play that thing a lot! And it does sound a bit like Lowell.

Oh, and you asked for youtube examples.

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(edited to add youtube links)

Sounds like you just need some high-output pickups and the tone control rewiring. Or how about an HB/SC/SC Strat?

Some good stuff guys. Keep it coming. You know, as much as I like Lowell George, I didn't realize he played a Strat. Don't know why I thought he played a Les Paul. Thanks for the video links.
Sounds like you just need some high-output pickups and the tone control rewiring. Or how about an HB/SC/SC Strat?
That's kind of what I'm beginning to think as well. As I told a friend of mine, I was really getting some nice, down home Mississippi Delta sounds yesterday. Some of that may have been the new slide I bought as well. It's a Fender Anodized Aluminum slide, and I really dig it.

I'm kind of thinking I might want to stick with some Strat single coils for now, but with a little more output like Matthias said. Any thoughts on pups? Someone mentioned Custom Shop Fat 50s, anything else?

I just saw Lowell's Strat at the R'nR Hall of Fame. A run of the mill guitar with some cool mods to make it work for him. I believe he used a Tele pickup at the bridge and two Dyna-Comps (into a Dumble).

Slide on a Strat? Check out our TDPRI brother Ed Ricco (voided3 here and on YouTube). Here's Ed playing Strats:

...with three pickups...

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...with two pickups...

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...and with a single pickup.

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He has many, many more clips on his YouTube channel, and a ton of interesting posts here.

Quack (pos 2 & 4) - use the tone controls to reduce the quack
Bridge pup (no tone control) - can be easily wired to the bottom tone control
the pickup output seems lower than Teles - not necessarily; easy to change pups to higher output
Rosewood Fretboards - also come with maple fretboards
I've had trouble getting good sounds - spend some time with it
Is there a wiring diagram for a 4-way switch that includes pos 1-3 for each pup, and pos 4 bridge & neck? - add a push-pull pot to the bottom tone control which will give you the bridge/neck pups
What's your slide setup? String guage, amps, effects, etc. - I dpn't have a slide guitar per se, I just use my basic Strat or Tele when I want to play slide - no special set up.

Strats. My first love. Can never not have a soft spot.

I LOVE the quack. So stratty. No other guitar can get that sound. My fav. positions are 5 and 2. But ...... if you don't like it, you can get a 3-way. I have a buddy with a 3-way pos. switch - no possibility of quack. Personally, I don't see why he would want it, but he loves it. Sounds like you would, too. P'up output is a bit low, but I'd make up for it in my amp, rather than get higher output pups, which would sound less stratty the higher output they were.

Happy stratting to ya.

Seems to me the 2 & 4 quack is THE reason to have a Strat. You can coax the 1-3-5 sounds out of a Tele.

I agree with the 2/4 positions but also the Strat neck is a main reason I like a Strat. I don't get there with a Tele and I am not saying I don't love a Tele they are fantastic just the Strat neck and the Strat 2/4 positions are very distinct to a Strat.

Sonny Landreth has been using Strats for a number of years.

And he's not bad at slide, I hear.

(Oops...missed part of Del's post. Oh, well...second opinion!)

I love strats. I love all pickup positions, how much contrast there is between the 2/4 and the 1/3/5 positions, how I can use the pickup switch as a tone control.. I don't roll back the tones on a strat like I do a tele unless I'm running the neck pup through a lot of gain.

My thoughts-- low pickup output is great, because I can crank up my amp in a commensurate manner and it sounds so good.

They really benefit from a non transparent compressor like a dynacomp as a boost. You could even consider wiring a preamp with a little bit of gain into the guitar.

You might want to also think about adding tone control to the bridge pickup, getting beefier pickups, esp in the bridge; a series "bridge on" or "neck on" wiring mod; the four way you desire would be cool and easy.

Dont let the quack enthusiasts get you down if you don't like quack. There are other good sounds to be had; fat 50s pups are nice, well my fat 50s middle is great, not too hot but not a weakling ; might be greater lifted from the tone control (Jimmie vaughan wiring I believe?)

I agree that you just need to wire the Bridge Pup to the bottom tone ctrl.

I also agree that a SC sized bridge bucker is a nice add for some different flavor -espscially if you don't care for quack. I don't live for quack, but it sure is nice to have right there. I'd consider splitting the bucker.

I only play a bit of slide on electric- using both Strat and les Paul, both set up a touch high (really just not super low) with 10's. I play my serious slide on a National.

For me Rosewood IS the fretboard mat'l for Strats. YMMV.

By the way, the American Standards with the no-load tone control actually controls the middle and bridge...

I find that a bit of compression through a tube amp helps my sound. Any of the guitars mentioned work great. String guage is a personal choice too. I like 10s or 11s , but Bonnie Raiit uses 9s!

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