#172189  by greeenstate
 
Recently purchased a '79 Ibanez ST300 with the idea of doing some wolf type mods to it.

Already have a Strat that has great early 70's jerry tones, but looking to get a bit more tonal versatility in this build. Playing through a late 60s Fender Deluxe Reverb.

My initial thought was to put either a Dimarzio Dual Sound or a DAllen Voodoo69 in the middle, nail the Jerry tone with that one, but then have the neck and bridge be a bit different tonally. Maybe something a bit darker then what Jerry used... a PAF style pickup, Schaller golden 50, Seymore Duncan 59?? But still tappable... or am I an idiot to try and combine all this into one guitar? I play a range of music. Lots of jerry sure, but other stuff as well. Love the overdriven tones Trey gets. Allman Brothers, Clapton...etc... lots of tones to cover. How many can I build into one axe?

One thing I'd need to figure out. I think I'd still like to have the ability to use both the bridge and neck pickups at the same time. The "Gilmour Mod" when talking about Strats, I think? essentially a switch turning on the bridge and neck pickups. Could be a neat addition

I'm looking at pickups and wiring right now first. The Ibanez has a neat little preamp in there, will try to use that before I think about adding a buffer or blaster.

I'd love to get some opinions & advice on my approach to this build. open to anything while I can still get that Jerry middle single coil tone...

Lastly I will say that I love his mid 78 tone (think Redrocks), but I feel like there's a lot more going on there (preamp, power amp, speakers...etc) aiming for that tone might be hard, and maybe single coil wolf (73-75) is what I should aim for w/ the middle pickup.

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 #172190  by Jon S.
 
>> Already have a Strat that has great early 70's jerry tones, but looking to get a bit more tonal versatility in this build. Playing through a late 60s Fender Deluxe Reverb.

>> My initial thought was to put either a Dimarzio Dual Sound or a DAllen Voodoo69 in the middle, nail the Jerry tone with that one, but then have the neck and bridge be a bit different tonally. Maybe something a bit darker then what Jerry used... a PAF style pickup, Schaller golden 50, Seymore Duncan 59?? But still tappable... or am I an idiot to try and combine all this into one guitar? I play a range of music. Lots of jerry sure, but other stuff as well. Love the overdriven tones Trey gets. Allman Brothers, Clapton...etc... lots of tones to cover. How many can I build into one axe?

I'm your soul brah in this regard. I still play Dead (though less these days than in the past) but also a lot of other music, especially originals that are Petty/Wilco influenced, ABB, Stones, etc.

This is how I handled it with my main axe, my heavily modded '98 USA Reverend Avenger (pictured below). The important thing is less my own specific pickup choices, more the overall approach, because there are a millions of possible combinations and you'll know what's best for you.

The bridge PUP is a Dimarzio Super Distortion that I bought new in '76. It's great for Stones and lots of hard rock.

The middle PUP is a Kent Armstrong 6.0 or .2 (I forget now) Strat PUP that was originally this guitar's bridge PUP. I like it as much as the David Allen pickup on the Scarlet Fire Wolf I had but sold earlier this year.

The neck is a Fralin Steel Pole 43 wound at 9.0K (P90-ish) and tapped at 6.0K (Stratty).

The 5-way is wired bridge - bridge and middle - middle - neck tapped - neck.

I also added an OBEL and on-board active CAE buffer (the CB1 is basically the original Cutler preamp designed for Jerry). There's also a minitoggle to turn the OBEL on and off (the buffer is always active when a cord's plugged into the guitar).

Between all of this, the guitar covers all of the musical ground I need it to. That's why this guitar has become my #1. So it is attainable, good luck with your ongoing research, and return to tell us what you end up with!

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 #172203  by greeenstate
 
Man that guitar is friggin cool. It's just so different.

Do you mean the reverse when you talk about your 5-way wiring? (Bridge tapped-Bridge instead of Neck tapped-neck?).

That Fralin pickup has me thinking... I do love those Travis bean tones from 75-77 and that's a p90... maybe put one of those in the middle of mine... I'm torn on whether to go that route or go for a dual sound w/ tap. I think that 77 tone is the best, although 78 is great too (wolf w/humbuckers), I just wonder if there's more going on there aside the pickups in his signal chain that leads to that tone w/ the Dimarzio pickups. P90 style into fender amp could be a great tone.

Then something more traditional (but tappable) w/ the bridge / neck...

Anyone else experiment with this kind of tonal versatility?
 #172204  by Jon S.
 
Thanks.

>> Do you mean the reverse when you talk about your 5-way wiring? (Bridge tapped-Bridge instead of Neck tapped-neck?).

No, as I wrote in my first post, "The neck is a Fralin Steel Pole 43 wound at 9.0K (P90-ish) and tapped at 6.0K (Stratty)." So position 4 is the neck PUP tapped, position 5 is the full on neck PUP.