Why A Fender Strat Or Tele With Humbuckers Doesn't Sound Like a Gibson

[Music] so so [Music] ten [Music] so [Music] [Music] from um [Music] so i put humbuckers in a strat fender guitar and it doesn't sound at all like a les paul why is that [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay so there's probably many of you who are like well obviously it's not going to be the same because one's a strat and one's a les paul however in every just about no i could say every video having to do with humbuckers in fender guitars there will always be people in the comments like that's not a real telly that's not a real strat because you put humbuckers in it or it's some kind of like my favorite one is my favorite one is it's like uh the guitar wasn't meant to be that way or whatever who cares anyway when you put humbuckers in a strat or a telly it's never going to sound like a les paul so that whole you might as well just get a les paul thing doesn't even apply completely different and we're going to talk about why it's an interesting thing a couple of things before we start this conversation hit the like button even if you don't agree with me hit the like button anyway because it helps you also it helps my channel but it also helps you because it gives you more content that you like like more guitar content not just this video but other ones too so do that uh the other thing is these pickups the dylan toxtone dafs are at dylantoxtone.com there's a link to them below their killer pickups you heard a little bit of them there there's a lot more to them than just that they're pretty awesome okay let's discuss the difference between a fender guitar and with humbuckers in it and a les paul very first thing that we need to talk about and everybody's going to talk about tremolo versus not and maybe italia is more or less whatever the biggest thing is the scale length so on a guitar the scale length is the distance from the nut to the saddle down here on the high e and so that on a fender guitar is going to be 25 and a half inches on a gibson les paul or an sg is going to be 24.75 okay so why does scale length matter when you pluck the string it produces a transverse wave that like travels down to the nut and comes back but as it does that it does it in a particular i don't want to say rhythm but okay if a static string is vibrating an open string like this okay there are dead spots and live spots along that string they're called nodes and antinodes okay and the way you identify them is you take from here to here and you divide it in half then you take from there to there and you divide it in half and then you take there from there and you divide it in half okay now what's interesting about it is uh is that from here to here and then let's say from here to here is about half and then from here to here is about half on those points the string doesn't vibrate as much as halfway in between those points it's a really simplistic way of explaining this but the reason it matters is because where the pickups are in relation to the quote-unquote dead spots or less vibrating spots than the other ones it's not exactly the right terms people are going to get the comments and tell me i'm saying this wrong but i'm trying to keep it simple that affects where you put the pickups along the string so there is thought gone into if i move the pickup a half inch this way or an inch this way okay where it's where it sounds the best but if the scale length is shorter so let's say we cut three quarters of an inch which is what a fender is we cut three quarters of an inch off this or a gibson three quarters of an inch off this string then all of a sudden everything changes the frets get closer together okay which changes so i don't know if you know that or not but when you change scale length it's not just the entire length of the guitar the frets actually accordion together so a shorter scale length guitar from here to here is actually skinnier less less space the whole thing squishes up that changes everything so then that changes where the pickup gets placed in those nodes or antinodes put them on the screen so you can kind of get a visualization of this even though in real life it's not exactly what they do but more or less so that is also why an sg doesn't sound like a les paul because the spacing which we'll get to in a minute but this where the pickup is in relation to those nodes or antinodes is a different place on an sg versus les paul same exact thing with a fender because the scale length is different then the pickups are in a different spot in relation to those nodes and antinodes the distance between the two pickups is different on a les paul versus a fender again placement under wherever that node versus anti-node is half the string half that distance half that distance half that's on down that also so if you were to examine this in comparison to a les paul it would be in a different place the other thing is the distance between the two pickups is different so the distance between the two pickups on a les paul versus an sg is different the distance between a strat and a telly with humbuckers in it is different it's all different so none of those guitars are going to sound the same because of the way the string vibrates over the pickup because the way the string vibrates over the pickup is the number one key to how this all works in the first place now we could go on and on into um you could say well i thought you were going to use a tele for this video because in your last video uh about gibson versus apophone i mentioned that i was going to use a tele well i forgot that i didn't have a telly when i said that out of habit i say telly because i have telly's a lot but i don't right now but i had this guitar and i was like all right well we're gonna put humbuckers in it so last night during our patreon hangout we did it live we actually built up a pickguard we installed the pickguard we did that all live in real time it took about an hour and a half we did that on our patreon live hangout it was really really fun it was real really cool so anyway now that it's done and you hear it and you heard it in the beginning it doesn't sound like a les paul and that's why it will never sound like a les paul on a strat the other thing obviously is going to be the tremolo system in the back right so the tremolo system in the back um and when you float the bridge now i don't have it floated here the client that is ending up with this guitar um we're gonna we're gonna leave it flat for him but that is also gonna make a difference the other thing that's going to make a difference is the break angle of the string so on a fender guitar the break angle of the string is really really sharp it goes straight over the string and then back through the body on a les paul as we know it goes from the tuna matic bridge out to the stop bar tail piece that break angle is different that that that affects the downforce or the amount of downforce on the over right here at the saddle which affects the tone as well so all of those things matter we could get into wood we could get into construction we could get it into bolt-on versus glued on set necks all of that may have a factor but the number one most important thing is the scale length and the distance between the pickups and then the distance oh here's the other thing too the distance from the pickup to the saddle and what's interesting about this is on a strap versus a telly it's the same uh or very close but from a strat to a les paul or a telly to a less pile it's not the same so the difference between the pickup from the pickup to the saddle is not the same distance and as you probably know you know when you flip your pickups further away from the saddle you get more low frequencies and closer to the saddle you get more high frequencies and more mid-range so if we were to move the pickup this way closer which it is on a strat or a tele even if it's a humbucker it's going to give you more it's going to still kind of sound like a strat or a telly i don't know if you noticed that when you heard this but it it still kind of sounds like a strat even though it has humbuckers in it in the neck position in the middle position it sounds like a telly in the middle position and then the bridge it kind of sounds like a telly not really but kinda you know what i mean it's closer to a telly than it is to a les paul that's because of the architecture of all of this scale length stuff it's really kind of cool and the reason i bring it up is because so many people want to spend so much time comparing stuff like how do you make this the same as that well why can't we just allow everything to exist in its own little world and be its own flavor which is exactly what a strat is with humbuckers in it or a telly with humbuckers in it it's just a little bit different flavor and if you're a 25 and a half inch scale guy or gal you may just like that scale length of a guitar because the tension of the strings is different you know because as you shorten the scale length like to a les paul they get a little slinkier they feel the 25 and a half inch feels a little different and of course all of the neck profiles that come with fender guitars are a little different um obviously so all of those things if you like the way a fender guitar feels put hamburgers in it and don't let those jokers on facebook tell you you can't this is a fun one because it's so controversial to so many people i think it's cool i think you should just try any combination in any guitar one of the other videos i want to do is a couple other videos i want to do related to this is i was actually playing this guitar this morning and i was thinking man i have to like really juice the amp up more like it's just different these pickups these dafs are lower output than say the p90 that's in my sg and a lot of people think that because it's a single coil it's a lower output pickup but p90s are actually higher output so we might do a comparison between this guitar and that guitar for output purposes talking about how you have to set up your amp different stuff that's a really cool thing too just kind of down the whole rabbit hole of the differences between these guitars and why you pick a different flavor um even though it seems that it should be the same it's not it's really fun stuff i really i really like this stuff well i'll tell you what uh this guitar has to get shipped off this week so maybe i will shoot that video real quick before it goes um the p90 versus the daf thing since i have this guitar handy and uh we'll do that make sure you hit the like button and the subscribe button make sure you check out the patreon and the little join button that's down there i think because we're doing some cool stuff for you all early content all that kind of stuff and i hope everybody has a fantastic day thanks for hanging out and we'll see you in the next video get in the comments let me know do you have a humbucker that quote-unquote guitar that quote-unquote shouldn't have humbuckers in it or what crazy pickup designs and like combinations that are unconventional unconventional do you have or that have you tried that you like or that you want to try maybe we could do that too some weird combination of something that'd be kind of fun let me know in the comments

Channel: DylanTalksTone

Views: 162,078

Keywords: dylan talks tone, strat vs Les Paul, fender vs Gibson, guitar comparison, guitar how to, dylan talks tone podcast, dylan talks tone guitar setup, floyd rose, les paul vs strat, tele with humbuckers vs les paul, strat with humbuckers, humbuckers vs single coils, humbuckers in a strat, strat with humbuckers vs les paul, telecaster with humbuckers vs les paul, humbuckers in a tele, humbuckers in a fender

Id: PO7OeyG9oqw

Length: 13min 46sec (826 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 06 2021