Home › Forums › Discuss Your Gear › Fender strat Mid Range boost modification
- This topic has 23 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 5 years ago by snakechisler.
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March 10, 2019 at 6:40 am #127862
I have a USA 1988 fender strat and a fender 100 watt valve amp I have never been happy with the sound, it sounds thin I have tried various pedals but still not happy with what’s coming out of the AMP . I’m told their is a modification you can do to the guitar ,to beef the sound up. its called a MID RANGE BOOST KIT,apparently Clapton has this modification has anyone had experience with this modification.? don’t want to ruin my guitar if it dosnt work PS the sound im looking for is blues and the guitar to sing when I need it .Thanks KSK
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March 10, 2019 at 7:14 am #127866
Here’s a demo of a boost player that was available on a Mexican special run a few years ago he does a great demo musics universal the language is German some comments are in English so you’ll get the gist
Ugly bones Dupree
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March 10, 2019 at 7:15 am #127867
Ugly bones Dupree
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March 10, 2019 at 7:25 am #127869
If you haven’t tried one yet, you could always give an Ibanez TS9 (or TS808) Tubescreamer a try. This is a mid range boost pedal and with its tone and gain controls, you might be able to dial in the sound you’re looking for. You can find these used for $80 or so (TS9’s, that is… TS808 will cost you double).
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March 10, 2019 at 8:56 am #127877
Hi Kevin, what is the Fender amp you have, I’m not aware of 100 watt valve amps from Fender.
I have a Fender Eric Clapton signature Strat. That guitar has the midboost and a treble boost stock actioned by the 2 tone knobs. It is fantastic sounding and very versatile, it adds a 20db boost in mids and creates a warm distortion that can be more or less muddy with the treble boost. It works great.
Having said all that, before you do anything to your guitar, what do you want to hear coming out of the amp? Is there a song or players tone that you could use to exemplify what you’d like to hear? I have several Fender amps and honestly can make any tone I want except thrash metal even without pedals using my strats or a les paul. if you can be more specific we can help figure it out.
Roberto
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March 10, 2019 at 6:25 pm #127905
Maradonago The AMP is 2008 fender twin reverb tube amp the sound I want is slightly overdriven with sustain if you listen to EC with john Mayall and the blues breakers playing Hideaway that’s the kind of tone im looking for. Regards KSK
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March 11, 2019 at 4:33 pm #128003
Hi Kevin, thats a holy grail tone for sure. So the original is played on a Gibson Les Paul thru a Marshall 2×12 30w combo amp, today called the blues breaker, no pedals just tube distortion. Wow didn’t know the Twin came in 100W, thought they were 85W max, thats a beast of an amp! Which is your problem to overcome, it has massive clean headroom, meaning it won’t distort easily. I have a Fender Supersonic at 60W and a Fender Custom 57 Twin at 40W. While I get there faster on my Marshall 50W, I use a Les paul in either fender amp dialing back tone on bridge pup and I’m at blues breaker tone, with volume around 5 and I like it better on the Fenders. I can also get there with the Eric Clapton strat using the midboost, best on the 57 twin sounds great but not a les paul, I can also get there with a regular american standard strat and pedals but no where near as nice.
So you have multiple paths and the challenge of a very clean very loud amp. The boost will work on a regular strat and you’ll need pedals, the Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal does a great job is the one Id recommend into your clean Twin with the midboost almost all the way up. Maybe you can try that pedal alone before you start taking your strat apart or spending serious money, but a strat is a strat without help….you could also put a humbucker pickup on the bridge of the strat.
The more expensive route is getting a les paul and will sound the best
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6bDuYkuiIs&t=1272s here are some more pedal ideas…..
Roberto
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March 10, 2019 at 2:08 pm #127890
What about trying a common ordinary equalizer pedal? Lowering the treble and bass is the same thing as boosting the mid-range. Considering that your amp is 4 times bigger than most home amps, you have plenty of scope left to play around with.
Sunjamr Steve
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March 10, 2019 at 4:29 pm #127893
A recent episode of That Pedal Show talked about putting the amps mid control on full with the treble and bass on zero.
Apparently it’s something Robin Tower does anyways worth a try see if it helps given its a no cost option 😉
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March 10, 2019 at 6:39 pm #127910
Would the Boss Blues Driver BD2 be a way out here I think it might. There are a couple of versions and it would be worth trying out. They are the BD2 and The Waza model a souped up version of the BD2 but 1/3 more price. I use one with my Strat and its pretty well on full time to get great blues tone!
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March 13, 2019 at 4:04 am #128090
Would the Boss Blues Driver BD2 be a way out here I think it might. There are a couple of versions and it would be worth trying out. They are the BD2 and The Waza model a souped up version of the BD2 but 1/3 more price. I use one with my Strat and its pretty well on full time to get great blues tone!
JohnStratI’ve n3 noiseless in my strat my mate has texas specials he has to use a tube screamer in the front end as an always on (even on 0 gain) I don’t. I’m guessing a similar use of the BD here.
It’s funny how what appears to be similar pickups have a completely different interaction with an amp. -
March 13, 2019 at 4:42 am #128091
Maradongo I thought about what you said about the amp its turned too low and is probably not driving the tubes, and gives a clean sound out even the gain is switched on.
I’ve found the manual that came with the amp it defiantly 100 watts, reading on the amp has a low power option this done apparently by removing the second and third large tubes and setting the impedance selector to half of the total speaker load which is 8 oms this will apparently will produce 15 watts in the out put low setting. worth a try, may able me to get the sound I want with out blowing the roof off, will let you know.-
March 13, 2019 at 8:54 pm #128143
Kevin since I love this topic, here’s some food for thought:
Roberto
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March 13, 2019 at 1:14 pm #128109
Kevin I ran into the same problem with my mid 60’s blackface Fender tremolux amp. Even though it is only 30 watts, it has a lot of clean headroom. I played a 60’s model Fender Mustang through it, and the single coils just didn’t do much for me. I didn’t think the amp or guitar were any good. Too clean and too thin. But I was wrong.
It took me awhile to realize what a great amp it was, but only when the volume was turned up to 10.
Even at 30 watts, that’s too loud for at home use. So I use this amp with a gain pedal in front to get a little more drive or dirt.I do have a Clapton strat with the mid boost. It is useful for some situations but I don’t use it much. I think you might be better off trying a gain pedal of some sort.
I love my tube amps, but driving those tubes is hard on hearing if you aren’t careful.
Good luck in your quest and let us know what you come up with.
That twin reverb is one Fenders best amps. -
March 13, 2019 at 4:53 pm #128122
A recent episode of That Pedal Show talked about putting the amps mid control on full with the treble and bass on zero.
Apparently it’s something Robin Tower does anyways worth a try see if it helps given its a no cost option
That is an easy option to try
You are correct that Robin Trower does adjust his tone setting like this as does Jeff Beck. One difference though, both use Marshall heads and due to the tone stack difference between Fender & Marshall, the Marshall tends much more heavy on bass than a Fender
By the way, Robin Trower has a new CD coming out later this month, I know that it will be great like all of his music. Hoping that he will have a show close by again. Seen him twice in recent years and he’s great in concert. Not bad for 74 years old.
https://www.trowerpower.com/ -
March 13, 2019 at 5:52 pm #128128
Kevin
To add to Roberto’s & Richard T’s thoughts of needing to crank a tube amp, depending on your budget, you could go with an attenuator that would allow you to crank the amp to get the sound that you are looking for while keeping the overall volume at a usable level.
One thing to consider about attentuators: there are 2 types – resistive and reactive.
With a resistive type, they use large ceramic coated resistors of either 4, 8 or 16 ohm and maybe a fan to keep it cool.
With a reactive type, my guess is that they use a bank of resistors, inductors and probably a bank of transistors to emulate the change of load that a speaker produces.If you hold an ohm meter on the 2 leads of a speaker and gently move the center of the speaker cone back & forth, the resistance shown on the meter will vary, it won’t remain at a steady 8 or 16 ohm. This is what the output of an amp deals with in real life – as that speaker cone moves, some of that resistance, referred to as inductive reactance, pushes back against the output transformer. On some high end stereo speakers, for very brief moments, the resistance may drop to Zero, which is in reality, a dead short; an amp has to be built well enough to withstand a load of that magnitude, thus the reason for heavy output transformers and large storage capacitors
With a resistive attenuator, the amp will see the same load at all times.
With a reactive attenuator, it “reacts” as a speaker would to give you a more realistic output.There are a few companies producing reactive attentuators, there may be others, to name a few:
Tone King Ironman II
Rivera RockCrusher Gold Face
Rivera RockCrusher
Two Notes Torpedo Captor
Universal Audio OxSweetwater would be a good source to contact for further info
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March 14, 2019 at 9:58 am #128166
Hi everyone have taken the middle tubes out the amp and set the impedance to 8 and also set the treble and bass down to zero and the mid to full it sounds 100 percent better still only got the volumes set on set on 3 on both channels loud enough still doesn’t sing like the German guys strat hes using a marshall amp, maybe Ill invest in a gain or blues pedal. regards Kevin
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March 14, 2019 at 11:11 am #128170
Tube screamers and their clones give you a mid range push and roll the treble off a bit, my mate has a Mooer Green mile which sounds fine the compact tube screamer gets a good write up as well
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March 14, 2019 at 1:15 pm #128174
The fender in the videos got an atomic humbucker in the bridge and it’s got active pick ups, they made a limited run a few years back, its full name is fender fsr hss tbx boost player and it’s made in Mexico they did the one in the video and another in a clear amber colour with a rosewood c shape neck. There might be some used bargains out there now.
Ugly bones Dupree
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March 14, 2019 at 1:50 pm #128175
Just a bought a mooer green mile tube screamer wont be here for a week or so , let you all know the results. thank you all for some good advise and information. haven had to strip my pride and joy.
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March 14, 2019 at 3:31 pm #128182
Kevin i should have pointed out that Brian used a Boss BD2 in many of his lessons pre kemper and indeed may plug it into his Kemper. So if you are not happy I would think about it as a second choice but hopefully you will be sorted out with your Mods and pedal.
All the Best JohnStrat -
March 14, 2019 at 7:43 pm #128195
I’ll throw my 2 cents worth in here. I have a Keeley 1962x boost pedal that does a pretty good job of replicating that 60’s Marshall combo tone. I’ve not tried it on a clean amp, I’ve used it as a boost through my Origin 20 and as a volume control in the effects loop of my (insanely loud, even at 5 Watts) SV20H. I was specifically playing some Clapton Bluesbreakers riffs and it was coming darn close to them with my Les Paul. A little expensive ($200-is) but considering the flexibility of it, it’s a pretty good value for me.
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March 15, 2019 at 3:18 am #128198
Thanks Mark sounds like a plan apart from spending 35 euros on a tube screamer which I have received yet .ive managed so far to keep my strat intact, im going to try this set up first, I think also my main problem is the amp is too loud even after taking valves out. and has to be set so low the effects don’t work properly, I would love a les Paul they naturally have that sustain tone. I will endeavour to keep trying different set ups till I get a sound which im comfortable with.PS the wife said she will divorce me if I buy any more guitars, might be worth getting another one HA HA
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March 26, 2019 at 6:12 am #128911
At Low volumes I’ve found the Tube Screamer on Zero gain and a compressor to be the way forward for me on single coils.
One thing that may dominate your sound is the speaker.
I run a Celestion Greenback G12, when auditioning speakers it sounded a lot more lively articulate and open at lower mid volume in comparison to the Celestion Vintage 30 which to me sounded boxy and dull till you turned the amp up to near full volume where it really shone.
The downside with the G12 is that it really doesn’t like very high volumes and you get speaker breakup which isn’t nice.Hope this helps
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