Forcing a Metal Strat tone

[BMFan30]

If you were forced to only place a single coil Strat with that twang included. What would be some tips you would give me to make my Strat sound as metal as possible without modifying it?

I mostly work in the box so that would be most helpful to me but I welcome all tips.

 

[c7spheres]

Just carve it up using a bunch of EQ bands. Cut out what you don't want and boost what to emphasize. After that buffer, boost and compress then peak limiter on it after that in that order. Fine tune levels into amp sim and proceed as normal. Like trying to model an active pickup from a single coil.
- Keep in mind I've never done this but it sounds like it'd work and give sculpting control wherever you end up needing it.

 

[DudeManBrother]

What tools do you have at your disposal? You can get a metal tone with a strat pretty easily. The pickup output is low so you’ll want to push the input. That might be a cranked boost pedal with some drive engaged, or it could be the input volume of an amp sim. You’ll probably use more amp gain than you would with a humbucker, but can also add saturation from a mic pre or saturation plugin to shape some added harmonic content. Lastly, just pay attention to your playing orientation. Single coils will pick up a ton of noise in a few spots, and be pretty quiet in a few, so find the quiet angle and play from there.

 

[BenjaminW]

What kind of single-coils do you have in your Strat? Are they noiseless, true single coils, or stacked?

Not sure what kind of gear you have, but I messed around with my '84 Strat (with true single-coils) and boosted JCM 800, and found I could get a beefier/humbucker type tone by using the bridge and middle pickups with the middle pickup tone knob rolled off about halfway.

You may end up having to mess with your amp and/or pedal settings more than you probably like to you, but if you don't have to, great!

 

[mmr007]

What metal tone are you after? Song? Artist? Any example would help.

 

[USMarine75]

When you say without modifying does that include pickups? Because Dimarzio, BKP, and SD all make stacked HB pickups that sound metal AF.

Otherwise, on the cheap just wire the pickups in series instead of parallel so you can get a wide field HB instead of the strat quack with 2 and 4 positions.

Personally I love the sound of single coils for metal. But it depends on your pickups. Theres many different styles (50s, 60s, hot, etc) and not all are created equal - I've played shit cheap ones and I've played great cheap ones (Duncan Designed are killer).

 

[Yul Brynner]

Dude I was after this for like ten years. It doesn't matter what you do, it will never do as well as a humbucker. I used a boost and eq pedals. I used an overwound single coil like the BKP Sinner. A noise gate will help to kill the hum when you aren't playing but mine was always so noisy you could hear the hum and noise in the background of what I was playing. I wound up just sticking with humbuckers for metal and single coils for the lighter stuff.

 

[spicevam]

I use a tele for everything and haven't had any problems with recreating metal tones yet. I don't really use any special tricks-- single coils work just fine with metal imo.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

10 band eq and slather it in gain. Single coils can handle a shitton of gain ime. I love using hp90s specifically for that reason.

 

[Kaura]

The only problem with single-coils and hi-gain is the noise. Noise gate won't help because the noise is still there when you play. Just make your life easier and get a single-coil sized humbucker.

 

[Yul Brynner]

And even with the stupidly overwound singles, you definitely get the meat to push the amp but you totally lose the twangy chimey single coil sound.

 

[StevenC]

Learn to angle the guitar so you get the least noise, roll down the volume when not playing and get good at muting.

The last strat I played worked great in position 2 for metal, but that was an import NJ and I don't know if it had weird wiring or something.

 

[BMFan30]

What tools do you have at your disposal?

I have a strat. I a small combo amp & a medium combo amp. Have some dynamic Sennsheiser mics. I have a daw, interface & I have plugins.

Amplitude, Revalver, Neural DSP amps, Ignite plugins, Some Nembrini plugs, Honest Amp Sims Reviews suite, some Kuassa stuff, Plugin Alliance amps, Audio Assault & IR's with IR cab loaders.

Been also looking at some STL & Mercurial plugins too.

 

[BMFan30]

What kind of single-coils do you have in your Strat? Are they noiseless, true single coils, or stacked?

I have no idea to be honest. There are 4 pickups, I'm not well versed on guitar pickups either.

The top pickup is by itself by the end of the neck, then another single in the middle. But the bottom 2 seem to be stacked, I'm guessing. Since they are 2 pickups close together.

All the pickups are going straight down vertically, without any slanted pickups like you see on some strats.

I don't even think this is a real strat. It seems to be some knock off. lol has a fender logo but I'm 100% sure it's fake.

Someone left it here one day so I suddenly got a free guitar, because I'm actually a bassist.

 

[BMFan30]

What metal tone are you after? Song? Artist? Any example would help.

It seems I can get good Black metal, atmospheric black & post metal tones pretty painlessly. But I want to incorperate more death metal playing but want to reach something a more blackened death sound.

Seems hard to get tones like that for me, but I'm sure I still have alot more tone dialing to do. I'm starting to maybe believe that I really do need either P90 or humbuckers for the tone I want.

I think there's no real substitute. I do like the twang of that middle pickup on strats too though.

 

[BMFan30]

When you say without modifying does that include pickups? Because Dimarzio, BKP, and SD all make stacked HB pickups that sound metal AF.

Yeah I meant using what seems to be surely a fender strat knockoff as is but squeezing as much metal mileage as I can with a daw, plugins & Impulse responses. But there may not even be a workaround it seems. Was afraid of that.

Personally I love the sound of single coils for metal. But it depends on your pickups. Theres many different styles (50s, 60s, hot, etc) and not all are created equal - I've played shit cheap ones and I've played great cheap ones (Duncan Designed are killer).

I've heard this too about them not being equal. I like the twang on it too though, it has it's place. But I think I will need a humbucker or p90 pickup guitar for the types of tones I want.

 

[akinari]

If the bridge pickup is connected to a tone pot, roll it down to thicken it up some.

 

[BenjaminW]

I have no idea to be honest. There are 4 pickups, I'm not well versed on guitar pickups either.

The top pickup is by itself by the end of the neck, then another single in the middle. But the bottom 2 seem to be stacked, I'm guessing. Since they are 2 pickups close together.

All the pickups are going straight down vertically, without any slanted pickups like you see on some strats.

I don't even think this is a real strat. It seems to be some knock off. lol has a fender logo but I'm 100% sure it's fake.

Someone left it here one day so I suddenly got a free guitar, because I'm actually a bassist.

If it looks something like this, you should be good to go because a humbucker will be perfect for anything metal:

 

[BMFan30]

Dude I was after this for like ten years. It doesn't matter what you do, it will never do as well as a humbucker.

I was afraid of exactly this because I use a gate, guitar plugins, amps, IR's but it's still missing something that I can't put my finger on so that's why I started this thread.

I was coming to the same conclusion after 3 months of chasing a tone that I think only another guitar can give me.

A noise gate will help to kill the hum when you aren't playing but mine was always so noisy you could hear the hum and noise in the background of what I was playing. I wound up just sticking with humbuckers for metal and single coils for the lighter stuff.

Exactly this, even with noise gates, the noise would still come through at exactly the frequency of my playing. Even when the gate would cut the audio off past a certain threshold, the note I played would inevitably bring back the same noise that it would cut back off again lol frustrating.

The only problem with single-coils and hi-gain is the noise. Noise gate won't help because the noise is still there when you play. Just make your life easier and get a single-coil sized humbucker.

Exactly my only gripe with it, otherwise I LOVE the sound of the tones with the twang to be perfectly honest.

 

[BMFan30]

10 band eq and slather it in gain. Single coils can handle a shitton of gain ime. I love using hp90s specifically for that reason.

I considered p90s in addition to the humbuckers as well.

I use a tele for everything and haven't had any problems with recreating metal tones yet. I don't really use any special tricks-- single coils work just fine with metal imo.

Tons of people tell me their Tele's are not lagging behind any other guitars for hi gain metal tones. I heavily consider buying a Tele as well.