Stratocaster with Thick Single Coil sound?

Mainly because the market, and especially the Strat market, has rejected ceramic pickups as being cheap and unworthy and must be replaced as soon as possible by good Alnico pickups. That means that you only find them on the cheapest of Strat-oids, further reinforcing that impression.

 

I have a feeling that you could contact Mr. DiStefano at Cavalier and tell him what you want.

That’s what I did and he gave me what I asked for !

 

Insightful. Seems silly, doesn't it?

Do tell.

 

I have a 1969 Strat I bought in 1976. I was playing in a rock and roll band, and experienced exactly what the OP describes. I was playing in a band with another guitar player that used a Les Paul. I replaced the bridge pickup with a DiMarzio SDS-1, a hot ceramic pickup. I didn't know dick about ceramic/alnico at the time, all I knew was now I could get a thick, rock and roll tone when I couldn't before. That pickup is still in the guitar and I'll never change it.

Another choice is the DiMarzio Chopper T. I have a cheap Tele knockoff with a CT and it sounds great too. Ritchie Kotzen uses that pickup in his namesake Tele.

 

I can only reply with what has worked for me. The modern Strat is design unique with its 5-way switch. The tone in positions 2 and 4 has been described as quack or humbucker like. It has less treble than the pickups played singly. I have a Mesa Boogie amp with Clean and Blues channels. I use both of those channels for clean tones. My Strat is brighter than any of my other guitars. I can use very similar Clean channel settings for my Telecaster, SG, Annie, and my Strat in positions 2 and 4. I switch to the Blues channel for pure neck, middle, or bridge Strat pickup sounds. My settings on the Blues channel have less treble than the Clean channel. I've also raised the mids and bass. My Stratocaster bridge pickup does not have the same sound as my Tele Bridge pickup, but what's the point of having four guitars that sound pretty much the same? With optimized amp settings, I don't have ice pick from my Strat in positions 1, 3, and 5. My Strat is wired for seven sounds. I play all three pickups combined through the clean channel and get a beautiful dark tone from it. I play the bridge and neck through either the Clean or Blues channels and it's like being able to select a series or parallel sound at the same volume. Mesa Boogie makes switching between channels easy. Doing this on a DDRI is impossible but you may be able to get close with an equalization pedal. I generally eschew pedals, but it's impossible for anyone to have all possible combinations of guitars and amps on a stage with them. I've really come to appreciate my gear, right down to the nuance and even nuisance. We tend to complain a lot about the nuisance part on this forum but it's not usually too difficult to get past it and find in it something that makes a guitar a joy to play.

 

I explained what I wanted for my neck pickup, which was a Firebird pickup, and that I wanted the other two pickups to balance well.

I have a Firebird neck, a Tele neck in the middle and a Tele rear. Worked out great !

 

Four dollars and ten minutes of work and your problem will be solved

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/322428023806

 

Actually the Tex Mex bridge pickup is very strong. (7.8 ohms?) But the real solution to the problem is installing the Clapton Mid boost. I have it in all 3 strats now. I use just a touch at maybe 1-2 for any pickup a lot. Or for boosting and making the bridge pickup full and smooth on leads it's great at 3-5. For slide work 5+ is great. It's like adding another available control dimension to the guitar.

 

The thickness comes from how you use your amp and/or pedals. The cool thing about strats and teles is that you can pile on the volume and gain and when you back it off, you've got the glassy clean sounds Fenders are famous for. Strats have been around for 60+ years. Study up on some of your favorite players and consider the whole rig. Replacement pickups and trick wiring schemes can help but a lot of great music has been made with stock, off-the-rack guitars into a really good amp.

 

I never considered ceramic mag pickups as "Fat". Alnico mag pickups sound fat to me.

True that you can tweak the amp controls or use a pedal, but those Fender Fat 50's pickups with A5 mags sound pretty fat to me. Member Deneb makes some great Strat pups with Neodymium magnets that get that glassy tone and the fat tone too. I was impressed with the demo vids and looking forum to trying my set on my Strat partscaster when I get the time to install.

Other than the amp/pedal tweaks, you can swap that ceramic bar mag for a Alnico bar or experiment with some Neodymium magnets. You could try a bottom plate or try some wiring tricks. Just wiring the bridge pickup to a tone knob helps tame the treble.

Then you could just put a Tele bridge pickup in the pickguard or even a P90. The SD Quarter Pounders are good, someone makes a Strat sized P90 toned pup.

Lots of ways to get there, try the cheaper route first and go up from there til your happy. Wiring mods, magnet swaps and plates are cheaper than buying more pickups.

 

I guess it depends on your definition of fat. You (the OP) seem to be describing hot, which does not necessarily equate to fat.

I think I can get a pretty fat tone from the Fat '50s that are in my Strat, but as others have said, I think it has a lot to do with the amp, and/or pedals.

 

You can definitely have a pickup in the bridge that is too thin for good classic rock tones. I went through that when I got a set of fender CS ‘69s. I absolutely love the neck and middle ‘69 pickups in my strat, and they are still in. But the bridge was very thin sounding... and it’s tough to work with that when you want a thicker fuller classic rock tone that overdrives well.
So I got a Duncan Antiquity Surf bridge... just the right amount of mids to thicken things up, but still maintains a nice cutting strat tone. Perfect for what I wanted.
It sounds like what you are wanting is just a hotter pickup wind that brings in more mids.

 

Wiring a tone knob to the bridge pickup helps a lot too.

 

^ Works for me!

 

Nothing wrong about a (weak) vintage Strat bridge pickup if you set your amp right:

 

Yep, ditch the volume knob, and rewire with a master tone and master volume. Hey presto.

 

Roadhouse Deluxe or anything with a mid boost type circuit.

 

Depends on the sound you're looking for. If I want that Buddy Holly or Hank Marvin sound, then only a vintage low output strat bridge pickup will work for me, the way I hear things.

For harder rock, yeah, I put in beefier pickups and there are a zillion you can choose from. I like the Rio Grande Stelly, thats got some balls to it. I also will cut a small bit of wood in the body, under the pickguard, next to the bridge, and put a strong telecaster pickup in it. That works great too.

 

^ THIS.

I've been though lots of stratocaster pickups, and the boldest, most aggressive ones with the most attitude seem to be the stock ceramics that came with the MIM strats.