What kind of pickups did srv use

If you are a massive Stevie Ray Vaughan fan and you are looking for authenticity, then there are some further elements to consider when it comes to the guitar. There are a number of distinguishing features of Number One, and we can break these up into 3 categories. I have listed these in full below and have indicated the importance of each of these elements in helping you to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Rosewood has a warmer tone than maple, which has a brighter and sharper sound. For some time it has been illegal to export Brazilian rosewood, and so as a result, it is also quite rare. In fact it is one of the features which makes vintage guitars so expensive. Up until the last few years, guitar fretboards were made using Indian rosewood.

However in , the environmental body CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species restricted the sales of rosewood across borders to crack down on the illegal selling of furniture.

During this time, Fender switched to using pau ferro wood on all of their Mexican and American made models. Both visually and tonally, it is very similar to rosewood, though it is slightly brighter sounding.

However in , the ban on Indian rosewood was lifted, and so Fender have again started to produce instruments with rosewood fretboards.

All of this is to say, there is a tonal difference and a different feel between fretboards made of different woods. And so if you want to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan and are looking for authenticity, it is worth taking this into account. It is for this reason that all of the guitars listed above have either rosewood, pau ferro or laurel fretboards.

When it comes to talking about neck shapes on guitars, there is some confusion. Slightly confusingly, letters A through D are also used to describe the width of the neck, particularly on guitars made in the s and early s. The shape of the neck on Number One is not unusual.

This is one of the most common neck shapes, as it is comfortable and suited to a range of different playing styles. To find a neck like this on a modern Fender Stratocaster is rare. Typically, Strat necks are fairly narrow. A lot of players prefer this, as it allows them to grip the neck of their guitar more easily. Having said that, it all comes down to personal preference.

A lot of guitarists prefer to play guitars with thicker necks. And in fact a lot of guitars — the Gibson Les Paul being one obvious example — have thicker necks. The good news, is that the neck shape of your guitar has no impact on your tone. It only has an impact on the way your guitar feels and plays.

His Strat features a gold bridge, a gold jack input and gold guitar tuners. It also features a distinctive black pickguard with the initials SRV carved into it. Having said that, if you want to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan and you love the look of his guitar, then you can easily buy these accessories. Alternatively, if you want a similar look but without the engraving, you can buy a plain Black Stratocaster Pickguard. If you do decide to alter the hardware on your guitar, you will also need to fit your guitar with a gold tremolo arm.

There are lots of these available, but just make sure you buy one that is compatible with your specific Strat. If you like to use your tremolo, then it is worth noting that Vaughan fitted his Strat with a left-handed tremolo. Either that, or he might have made the modification as a practical adjustment.

This is because arguably it allowed him greater access to his volume and tone controls. It also allowed him to press down on his tremolo arm with his elbow. And this enabled him to use his tremolo without comprising his picking hand at all. If that is the case, then you can get left-handed tremolo systems in gold , or in nickel.

As mentioned above, before you buy anything, just make sure that you check that it is compatible with your specific Strat. A number of years after playing Number One, Rene Martinez fitted the guitar with jumbo frets.

Vaughan had previously used medium-jumbo frets, but Martinez switched to jumbo as Vaughan kept wearing the smaller frets out. And this makes string bending easier.

As such, if you are trying to play like Stevie Ray Vaughan, opting for jumbo frets could be a good idea.

Playing them will feel unusual at first. This is particularly because most modern guitars come stock with medium-jumbo frets. But once you get used to playing with them, they could help you to get closer to those beautiful SRV tones. You can buy Fender Jumbo Fret Wire very cheaply, but changing the frets on your guitar is not a simple task.

So if you do want a re-fret, I would recommend taking your guitar to a local guitar store or repair shop. This is of course significant, as these features enabled Vaughan to play in a specific way.

And that in turned helped him to dial in his signature tones. If you have a Vintage style Strat or a Stevie Ray Vaughan Signature Strat, then your guitar is likely to come with a set of vintage style pickups.

If you want to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan and you are looking for authenticity, then I would recommend one of the Texas single coil sets. Some of the best options here are as follows:. Conversely, if you are looking for SRV style tones, as well as a range of beautiful vintage blues tones, then one of the vintage style pickup sets would probably make a better choice.

Whichever guitar you go for, and regardless of whether you decide to change the hardware and the pickups, if you want to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan, it is worth looking at the set-up of your guitar. The guitar, amp and pedals that Vaughan used of course all had a huge impact on his tone. But so did his playing style.

He was an aggressive and physical guitarist, with a very heavy pick attack and a muscular vibrato technique. And this all helped him to create his searing Texas blues tones.

Yet he would not have been able to play so physically, had he and Rene Martinez not paid attention to the set-up of his guitar. Often the way that a guitarist sets their instrument up is a matter of personal taste. As such, the impact it has on tone can be fairly limited. That is not the case here. And so if you want to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan, there are 3 areas that you should focus on. These are as follows:. Since the very early days of electric blues guitar, there has been a long held idea that heavy gauge strings are better for tone.

And Stevie Ray Vaughan played a key role in perpetuating this idea. Vaughan has one of the best electric blues tones of all time, and he also favoured very heavy guitar string gauges. Although the specific gauges Vaughan used varied at different points in his career, the set he most commonly used ran:. These are very heavy gauge strings, particularly on the treble side of the guitar. The topic of string gauge is one that remains hotly debated amongst blues guitarists.

There are those that believe strongly that you need to play heavy gauge strings to get decent tone. Conversely, there are famous guitarists like Billy Gibbons and Jimmy Page who both advocate using much lighter strings. If you are a feeling a little confused on the subject, then I detail everything you need to know about string gauge in this article here.

In short though, if you want to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan, I would advocate opting for slightly heavier guitar strings. This is not because heavy gauge guitar strings have inherently better tone. Rather it is because they will help you to play more like Stevie Ray Vaughan, which in turn will help you to better recreate his beautiful blues tones.

Let me explain in a bit more detail:. Heavy gauge strings do have some inherent tonal benefits, which result from their thickness. Broadly speaking they sustain better, have better intonation and a wider dynamic range than lighter gauge strings.

Of these points, the last is the most significant. On guitar strings of any gauge, you can use a soft touch to play quietly. But on thinner strings you are limited by how much you can dig in with your picking hand. When he does this and strikes the strings hard, he instantly adds a power and intensity to his sound, which simply comes from the pressure he applies to each string.

It is not possible to adopt such an aggressive pick attack on thinner guitar strings, and so the variation in tone you can achieve using nothing but your strings and pick is more limited. And this applies to the way that he bent strings and applied vibrato too. Playing in such a physical way is challenging on thin guitar strings, and it is why I would recommend opting for slightly heavier guitar strings if you want to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan.

You might at this stage be wondering just how heavy you need to go with your strings. And here my advice would be to choose the heaviest guitar strings you can, without compromising playability. This point is crucial, as there are some fairly significant drawbacks to using heavy gauge strings.

Heavy strings demand more from you physically. They make it harder to bend, apply vibrato and play at speed. And all of those techniques are crucial if you want to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan.

I speak from personal experience here. As a teenager and after reading that Stevie Ray Vaughan played. In the blues, getting great tone is a compromise between tone and playability. It is about finding the sweet spot where you get a great tone and you can play comfortably. So keep that in mind, and if you are going to change the gauge of your strings, be conservative in the changes you make. So if you currently play. Move to. Then move up to.

You will better adjust to each change and will never be in a position where your fretting arm and fingers are very sore. And so over the course of his career he used strings produced by a whole range of different brands. One of the brands that he used more frequently was GHS. Though I believe that this was largely because they were easy to acquire; not because he particularly loved their tone. As such, if you want to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan, I would recommend opting for a heavier gauge of guitar strings, and then choosing your favourite brand from there.

In reality, there are not that many string sets out there in gauges much heavier than. Although there are some sets of. Vaughan played with a plain 3rd string, and I would recommend you do the same. It is also worth noting at this point that. And it is quite rare to find blues guitarists playing such heavy strings. So if you find that. You will still be able to get some killer tones using slightly lighter strings! Part of what made it slightly easier for Vaughan to use such heavy guitar strings, is that he always tuned his guitar down a half step to E flat Eb.

This was largely to accommodate his vocal range, as he struggled to sing in E. But it also reduced the tension of his heavy guitar strings, which made them easier to play.

So if you have already opted for, or you want to start using heavier guitar strings, tuning down a half step makes sense. It will instantly make your guitar easier to play.

Not only that, but it will help you to sound more like Stevie Ray Vaughan too. This is partly because you will be playing in the same tuning as Vaughan. But it is also because tuning down a half step makes your guitar sound heavier and more powerful. If you want to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan, adopting this tuning will instantly get you closer to his sound. Sep 16, 4. Posts: 13, On most Videos I've seen Sep 16, 5.

Sep 16, 6. Posts: 31, Sep 16, 7. Posts: 2, More than any position, I think he just loved the strat all the way around. Sep 17, 8. Sep 17, 9. Thanks for the great replies folks. As Mr. Eastwood once said, "A man's gots to know his limitations": I know I'm never going to play like Mr. SRV did, so it doesn't bother me if the pups aren't real close to his.

Interesting that Fender felt the need to make the pups as hot as they did though. Sep 18, Posts: 12, I'd have to say that if you boiled it down, he was on the neck pup more than the rest of them.

And while Van Zandt rewound them, I heard that nothing really magical was done - maybe a touch of extra winds, probably on just the bridge pup. Aside from his playing style, Stevie had a wall of amps turned all the way up.

Most of that 'aggressive Strat' tone is gonna come from the amps when you do this especially when one of them is a Marshall Major. Either way, we ended up with a pup that some folks have found real merit in the tones. That very appreciate!!! PA , Jul 28, Messages: 1, Here's my stock Tex Mex strat. This sound good!! Custom Shop 69s are definitely a good option. This is a pretty good demo. Rene Martinez can attest to that. Obviously the more important part is to get big strings 11s or heavier and slam the hell out of them.

If you are not breaking strings then you won't get the tone. He used 13 Gauge acoustic strings at times. This was probably a 11 or 12 that he breaks. Notice how he is always slamming the strings he is playing. If he isn't playing a string its muted by the left hand, but he hits all the strings almost all the time.

PetesWindmill , Jul 29, JP Lace Master , Jul 29, Age: 28 Messages: 3, Well OK then, I'm just going to say that they were designed specifically for his signature guitar before he died. The D Allens are good too because David Allen makes amazing pickups. Just thought I should give you the option. BHighkin , Jul 29, Lot's of activity here tonight Fun thread.

Since some other pickups are being mentioned I also wanted to mention that D Allen's Tru 62's and 69 Voodoo pickups also can get you close.

For what I play I prefer Sliders Vintage 59's but quite frankly all the sets mentioned in this thread can get you there. When running clean you'll hear the nuances between the different sets but the amp you use and speaker combination also has an impact. Assuming you use a pedal some form of Tube Screamer the differences become neglible.

Age: 61 Messages: 37,