How well can you emulate a Super Distorsion with a Strat PU?

[roadtonever]

I've been reading the thread Basic resonant peak and Q factor manipulation.

This raised a question for me. Given that you have an average spec vintage style strat bridge pickup, how close could you get to a Super Distortion by altering the circuit? Will it be as satisfying to play as the real deal for high gain settings?

I'm curious in particular to hear from anyone that took on such a mod. How did you wire it, and how did you find the results?

[antigua]

DiMarzio makes a pickup called the "Super Distortion S", and Strat sized "Super Distortion", and it's a fact of life that the size and shape of the Strat pickup makes it impossible for it to sound like a wide humbucker pickup, but nevertheless DiMarzio and Seymour Duncan have Strat sized products that are named for full sized pickups. To the extent that you think the Super Distortion S is a convincing Super Distortion pickup, you can get almost the same results with a capacitor across the pickup. The difference would be the voltage output, a Strat pickup produces less voltage, even if you modify the response curve with a cap. That being said, reducing the treble of a pickup and giving it a more midrange tone does improve the distorted sound, it makes it more crunchy sounding, and smooth. When you distort a signal, treble is produced by the harmonics of the clipping, so if you combine the clipping treble with the natural treble, you get cacophony, and the natural treble roll off of a high output pickup helps create a smooth treble that is mostly consists of just the clipping harmonic treble. So there is value in this mod, even if it won't sound like a full size HB, and not increase the voltage. On a regular Strat, if you turn the tone down to zero, the distorted sound is somewhat satisfying to the ear, but it's way too muffled. The idea here is the same, but to not take it to such an extreme that it's muffled. 

I know that in Seymour Duncan's case, they have a full sized '59 with an inductance of 5 henries, but the "Little 59" has an inductance of 7 to 8 henries. Why do they make the small version hotter and darker? Probably because to their ears, the reduced treble response helps the Strat size pickup better "fake" the full size sound. So they used some artistic license in making two pickups that are different shapes, but supposed to impress you with the same tone. I think you might find the same thing if you try to copy the Super Distortion response, that if you only natch the resonant peak and or the inductance, that it won't sound deep enough, but if you push it a little farther down, with a higher value cap, you will get the thicker tone you're looking for. 

The Q factor of Strat pickups are higher than Super Distortions or the "Super Distortion S" because the real pickups have steel parts, but the Strat pickup does not, but that can be corrected by just rolling the done control back a little. Or if you want, wire a 250k to 500k ohm resistor in parallel with the tone shaping cap to reduce the Q factor on a permanent basis. 

I have some guitars with Strat pickups with tone shaping caps, as well as little humbuckers, but I broke down and set up a few Strats with full sized humbuckers, because if you want the real Super Distortion sound, the fake version with a Strat sized pickup can never duplicate it 100%. IMO, the fake version is just too dark, its fine for crunch, but when you want a good clean tone, it's precluded by the very low resonant peak. 

Also don't forget to turn up the treble on your amp, as you would if you plugged in a guitar with humbuckers. One problem with having a Strat that can do the thin and thick sound is that the amp might have to be EQ'd again to sound ideal, depending. 
 

[roadtonever]

I listened to sound clips of some hot single coils on youtube to get an idea what they sound like in different rigs, in the bridge position.

SD SSL5(6H) - Dull and mid heavy. Surprised that it didn't sound good to me despite the "right" specs.
DiMarzio Chopper(6H) - Again dull and mid heavy. Not slug poles but sounded 98% like the SSL5.
SD SSL4(7H) - Close to a modern distortion humbucker, sounded surprisingly good
Lollar Special(4H) - Close to a classic PAF. Left me with the strongest impression even though it wasn't a distortion humbucker sound.

Overall none had the low end of a humbucker, but the mids and treble did sound close, at least on the Lollar Special and SSL4. Maybe with some EQ you could bridge the gap further.

Not as good as a live test but it seems to indeed point to a 2.3kHz loaded peak as rough target, an average response of the Lollar special and SSL4 that I liked. I'm assuming the bad impression I got of the SSL5 and Chopper was because of bad amp settings. I'll find out soon when I spend some time to playing around with a cap assortment on my own guitar.

[yanyan]

Jun 23, 2021 16:13:01 GMT -5 roadtonever said:

Overall none had the low end of a humbucker, but the mids and treble did sound close, at least on the Lollar Special and SSL4. Maybe with some EQ you could bridge the gap further.

Not as good as a live test but it seems to indeed point to a 2.3kHz loaded peak as rough target, an average response of the Lollar special and SSL4 that I liked. I'm assuming the bad impression I got of the SSL5 and Chopper was because of bad amp settings. I'll find out soon when I spend some time to playing around with a cap assortment on my own guitar.

I'd be interested in your findings. My own Strat has a set of Dimarzios (Fast Track 1 neck, Chopper middle, Fast Track 2 bridge), and from time to time i entertain semi-serious thoughts about switching out the bridge Fast Track 2 with a full-size humbucker like a Super Distortion or Evolution or Crunch Lab. What holds me back is that i would lose whatever Strat-like character i have with the Fast Track 2 and its series/parallel/single switching.

[roadtonever]

Sorry, real life got in the way. I'll get there eventually. In the mean time I've seen one more example of good high gain tones from SC size pickup. Tony Gradys channel on youtube. He uses a high wind zexcoil in a Fender Mustang through a modern high gain amp and it sounds excellent to me.