Beginning My Quest For TONE | Modding My Fender Strat

Join me in my journey to find the best Fender Strat tones I can! Inspired by Mick Taylor of That Pedal Show!

In this episode, I swap out the original 50’s scratch plate for an Gold anodised plate, and swapped out the pickups from the custom shop 50’s set, to the Radioshop RSV57 set!

I’ll be filming another few episodes as I have acquired a bunch of pickups to test out!

#fender #stratocaster #mods

Video edited by John Hollingworth

⬇️⬇️⬇️ Feel free to read this ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Hey guys, I’m Rabea. I'm the lead guitarist in Toska, Frog Leap & Dorje where I write music, make songs and have a great time with my mates. I also have my own line of guitars with Chapman Guitars, and I’ve designed numerous products with some really cool companies, such as the Victory Amps VX Kraken. Anyway, i hope you enjoy my videos, thank you for watching!

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Rabea Massaad - Grinding Gears EP

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Peace & Love

[RasDrewes]

Rabea can you please make a full guitar collection? I know it might be a lot of work to do, but I would love to see it :D - Great Content btw

[CSFiction-]

Ok, somehow I'd managed to never see the innards of a custom shop strat and oh my god, that has to be the sexiest cable management I'd ever seen. Holy shit

[eddyjok]

You could dip the pickup covers and knobs in coffee for a few hours to “age” them. Works like a charm.

[edwinbarker]

Useful tip Bea: when soldering by the switch, tilt the while thing, so nothing can drip into the switch itself, otherwise it can ruin it for good ;)

[rickfeith]

What a gorgeous cleanish tone at the beginning. Beautiful.

[ResoBridge]

My experience of aluminium pick guards is that, with single coil pickups, eddy currents induced in the aluminium have a muffling effect on tone. Some people like this, but I found it reduced too much high end. The effect is measurable as a small change in inductance. About 4% less at 1000Hz when mounted in aluminium compared to measurement in air or mounted in a plastic guard. As far as I know Fender started using the gold anodised aluminium guards for looks and for electrical screening in 1957 but soon dropped them. One possible explanation for this is that once a player wore through the gold anodising, aluminium particles worn off the exposed surface turned their fingers black. Later on from 1959 to 1967 Fender fitted a thinner aluminium screening plate under a plastic guard. This also has an effect on tone, but being thinner, not as much as the previous gold anodised pick guards.

[tobuslieven]

The change in tone from 6:20 to 16:55 is insane. I'm blown away.

[dylanrobinson]

"It's a polite guitar." I feel this sentence. It's Such a fantastic great description, and It's so simple but relatable. Love it Bea!

[partriotsfight]

54 yrs old, been a Strat guy since I was 15 and just love them. I just landed a Richie Kotzen Red Strat after years of trying to get my hands on one here in the US and it is the glassiest most beautiful sounding and looking Strat I’ve ever owned

[musicnphotos]

For what it’s worth, after trying a lot of Strat pickups, I’ve found that narrowing down the options into 2 categories, the 50s style and 60s style pickups, is the best way to stay sane through this process. I’ve been watching you play in all of the Andertons videos for years, and now your own videos. My guess is you will prefer the 60s style Strat pickups, because of the more assertive sound they provide. The trick is to find the right spank, without harshness, so you can feel the sweetness in the tone. I have a Fender 57 reissue Strat which I love, but eventually I found that the 50s sound was not right for me. After looking into it, I realized that my favorite Strat players were all using mid 60s Strat pickups, including Hendrix, which I know you love too. I actually ended up with, and recommend the Fender 65 vintage pickups which I found to have the right balance between being more assertive, and still allowing the important dynamic range needed to let the subtlety of your playing to come through. Congrats on your success and best of luck with your journey!

[dave]

Love the Project, but I'd resolder the Ground (Black) Pickupwires with a Soldering Iron that has more Power.
The Solderjoint looks pretty cold and might cause Trouble down the Line. The Joint should form a dome and be nice and shiny

[davedavem]

"The neck is SO fat" - puts his hand round the neck like a mere mortal holding a chopstick...

[FxckingHostile]

When you first pulled the pickguard off.. That wiring job is a fucking work of art

[moreorlesslikeso]

My impression is that the sound is somewhat stronger beefier, more bass and mids – maybe actually sounding a bit less like a typical "vintage strat" – than before. It immediately reminded me of when I replaced my 70s Strat original pickups with Kinman "Blues" type pickups in neck and middle position years ago. Of course it's hard to remember exactly from this distance but there's that spontaneous impression like I heard that type of "shifting" of the overall sound before. And as you said: you probably can't tell on the spot if it's really "better" than before because it's just – well – "different" and you've probably got to have some time to relate to it playingwise before making up your mind on some sort of solid basis.

Interestingly with my Kingman's going in a similar direction soundwise I've over the years developed a feeling that I might like to have a bit more crispness back (like the old pickups had) – especially for rhythm or chord playing. So I put in a treble bleed mod, which did the thing. Having played a year or so with this "clearer" less mid/bass sound I find myself thinking today that I actually may remove that treble bleed mod again to get back the original beefy Kinman Blues sound I had then been going for in the first place and which really reminds me of the sound of those Radioshop PUs...

I guess this illustrates in a way that the perception of a guitar's sound and the personal preference of a certain sound may well change gradually over time and so it can be quite hard to decide on what's better (or worse) in the long run. On the other hand you probably have other guitars where you never felt the need to change anything at all...

[tolvajakos]

i am just doing a 3-tone sunburst strat project with maple neck. i'll go with black scratchplate and plastics, HSS. i'll go with a schaller megaswitch e 5-way, it splits the humbucker in position 2 and 3 (without additional switches or push-pull pots). yes, in mid position you get one coil of the humbucker and the neck together! positions 1, 4 and 5 are the same as on a regular 5-way.

[_RLP]

Cool sounds there, mate. Seems to me that the extra bass on the Rshop ones has more to do with height than the pups themselves. So far, I prefer the originals, but let's see how it turns out, since Mick sent you a set of pups too...
You've had the anodized plate for awhile now, which means we've been hearing the nodded strat for a few weeks- when you get to the end of this pickup journey, maybe give us a "wrap it up" video, showing all the sounds/pickups you've had (original, radioshop and Mick's) ?
Cheers

[Yupppi]

I liked how the new pickups were "stronger" or "sturdier", but maybe even a bit too powerful. If that tone could be translated to a bit gentler one. Maybe that could be changed by screwing the pickups lower. The originals were a bit too sharp and thin to my taste. Interested in seeing what you end up deciding and what's the tone that you're after. That song around 18 minutes btw sounded so much like Dan's song vlog song :) Just after the Pink Floydish lead.

[paulbradshawguitar]

changing the tremolo/bridge can have a huge effect as well, I'd heartily recommend Wudtone (UK based), installed one of their tremolo bridges on my frankenstrat, made a really nice difference, well worth checking out

[ericvalverderosado]

I think my perfect strat would be like Misha’s custom Jackson that looks classic but have the modern sound available from the bridge pickup and the classic from the single coils

[bdhere]

Rabea playing a strat is just magnificent. The what goes around cover he did is insane.