Originally Posted by: Fret spiderboth the pickups and the amp will have a big effect on the tone, probably more so the amp.

emg pickups and someothers (dont know what they are) tend to be active pickups, most pickups are passive.

now to get a higher gain pickup you want a big signal, this is achieved by having stronger magnets in the pickups and more coils of wire round the pole pieces. this is the standard high gain pickup. but these two things have problems if the magnets are to strong they cause the stings to vibrate weirdly, and you get notes that arent the one you are playing (cos weird harmonics occur). and having too many coils of wire will mean that there will be more resistance in the wire ( because it is longer) and capacitance will build up between the coil. this leads to a loss of detail in the sound because and weak components of the signal will be erased by the resistance leaving a less dynamic sound.

to solve this problem emg and other active pickups take a different approach. what they do is use very weak magnets and few coils arround the pole pieces, but then use a pre amp, in the guitar to boost the signal. some people dislike the sound this gives because it lacks some of the nuances that passive pickups have.


apart from changing your pickups or just turning up the dial on your amp there isnt too much you can do about this ( i dont think i may wellll be wrong). strats just wernt built for that kind of thing. but dont get to worried cos witha good amp i am sure you can get close to the tone you want, because the amp will make a very big difference to the tone.