Complete Squier Bullet Stratocaster Upgrade - Sound Check Before and After
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- Опубліковано 5 жов 2024
- In this video I compare the before and after sound of a completely upgraded Squier Bullet Stratocaster, including a tremelo steel block bridge, complete wiring harness and Texas hot wound pickups from Guitar Fetish. Also replaced original tuners with 70's style F Fender replacement tuners and replaced the nut with a Tusq self lubricating nut and nut tree. Was it worth it? Yes! I learned a lot and if I can do it, you can too! This is my primary guitar for slide. You can see my complete "How To" video at: • Complete Upgrade - Squ...
Below are most of the components and tools I used:
Kwikplug Premium Harness - Fits Strat® Harness VTT 5-way switch 250K pots, Black and White Cloth Push Back Wires.
www.guitarfeti...
Trucoil II, Improved Noise Cancelling, Kwikplug Ready!
www.guitarfeti...
Solid STEEL Block "Shorty" "Squier" and Import Compatible 10.5mm Chrome Tremolo
www.guitarfeti...
Black/White/Black SSS Pickguard - fits Strat®
www.guitarfeti...
70s "F" Style Guitar Tuning Machines/Chrome (Set of 6)
www.amazon.com...
GraphTech PQL-7004-00 TUSQ Sleek String Trees
www.amazon.com...
Graph Tech PQL-5010-00 TUSQ XL Self-Lubricating Guitar Nut, Fender Style, Flat Bottom
www.amazon.com...
Copper Foil Tape (2inch x 18ft) for Guitar and EMI Shielding
www.amazon.com...
Buytra Guitar Fret Crowning File Tool Dressing File with Narrow/Medium/Wide 3 Edges Guitar Repairing & Luthier Tools
www.amazon.com...
Guitar Fret Leveling Sanding Beam Guitar Leveler Leveling File Tool Bar Bass Pro Luthier Tool 16” Length (Silver grey)
www.amazon.com...
Music Nomad MN105 F-ONE Fretboard Oil Cleaner and Conditioner
www.amazon.com...
Dreamtop Set of 9 Understring Radius Gauge Luthier Tools for Guitar and Bass Setup
www.amazon.com...
Rock Samurai T-Shirt - www.zazzle.com...
Cutting the before and after sounds directly after one another and always playing the same chords/riffs would make this much more useful!
Thanks for the input Andreas, and for watching! I'll try that out for upcoming sound comparisons.
Great vids on the upgrade. I have an Affinity i upgraded w a loaded tex mex pickguard. That in itself was huge difference. Ive decided to change color and relic. So ill be installing a Wilkinson bridge/tremolo, Tusq nut and string tree, a new jack, and i have Fender Player tuners from one of my MIM strats to use. So you're mods were very similar. Thanks for sharing!
Sounds like a great build Thad! Wilkinson parts are very high quality. I've built two Wilkinson Tele kits that I bought from Stewmac and just sold one. I've also ordered a few tele Wilkinson bridge pickups for a some laptsteels I built. Have fun with your relicing job and build. Thanks for watching.
Can't really tell because the before demo sounds like the mic is right up on the grill cloth and the after sounds more distant. The only thing I hears was that the after strings sounded brand new
That's what I'm saying!!
So much clearer of a tone, much more classic strat like. The previous bullet pickups where extremely nasally; almost to the point that it was hard to listen too (but it depends not the sound and style your after too). Nicely done.
Thankyou and thank you for watching D Myers!
Just got a 2014 Bullet bit of a wrecked axe , gonna try and emulate what you have done plus a new paint job, im in the UK Guitar Fetish ship i guess or have stuff on ebay, thanks for the vid ,,
Thanks for watching and best wishes for your upgrade.
In the middle of doing this as a COVID19 project; bought a Squier Stratocaster "Starter Pack" in Feb 2020. It's a brown sunburst Indonesian made Squier Bullet Stratocaster with all single coils (although it doesn't say Bullet). Doing all FU-Tone brass block, claw, screws and a yellow spring kit. Keeping the stock 6 point tremolo. Using an ObsidianWire 7 point GIlmour re-wire kit (have to drill out the pick-guard pot holes) and the SeymourDuncan Everything Axe set. Will also include the new Fender knobs. Re-did (filed, finished & end-polished) the frets, sanded the entries to the nut and lubricated with graphite. Hopefully, it will be great sounding...
Andor, it ounds like you are going to playing a very sweet Strat soon! Let me know how that brass block sounds. I was thinking about getting that, but they were out of stock when I orded. Those Seymour Duncan's should sound good. Thanks for watching.
@@StevenParente Cool, I will - I figured the difference will be slightly more than a MIM Strat, but like you said in your detailed video, it's a project that lets you know how to do it all and it will let me swamp pickups out later.
Yes Andor! It's a great way to understand set-up and everything about an electric guitar.
Andor Kiss Did a similar upgrade with a black 2005 Indonesian made Squire Affinity Strat, but used Fender Tex Mex pickups and added a Lollar base plate to the bridge pickup, fattens the bridge tone a bit and adds a Telecaster type bite!
GFS steel “shorty” block.
Used a solderless wiring kit from “The Rhoadhouse”, (brilliant) all cloth covered wire and CTS pots and Sprauge black beauty capacitor, wired with a master tone and a blender pot so neck and bridge and all 3 pickups are possible! Came wired with a free Switch Craft jack socket!
Also I find the squire necks a bit narrow at the nut so changed the neck for a Fender licensed maple neck by Mighty Mite, (Highly Recommended) which I shimmed with “Stew Mac” .25 shim. Is full Fender width and easier for me to play! (Sold original neck on eBay)
The neck was used and came with Wilkinson EZloc tuners which hold tune even when using the trem which I have set up floating, so will keep for now!
Is now a fantastic sounding and playing guitar for around £300 that can compete with guitars costing much more than double!
I’ve recently added a few small upgrades like genuine Fender knobs, Fender bent steel bridge saddles, Fender chrome jack socket boat, Fender pick guard screws and a tortoise shell pick guard, all of which help give the guitar a better quality feel!
Love it!
@@ces69 that sounds like an amazing upgrade that Andor did. We should all do videos showing how these upgrades sound. I bet people would really be interested. Especially now... with a little free time on our hands.
YOU MAN, I DID SAME SAME, MINE IS SQUIRE STANDARD, SAME AS YOURS, UPGRADES LOADED PICK GUARD CUSTOM SHOP 1969 , SOUNDS AMAZING. BUT ALSO HAVE FAT FIFTY PICK UPS THAT I SWITCH BACK AND FORTH, AND THEY SOUND BEST. WORTH EVERY PENNY. GREAT JOB. ADJUST THE SADDLES HEIGHT, LOCK YOUR STRINGS IN THE TUNERS YOU GOT UNDER OVER, AND YOU GET WHAT LOOKING FOR LIKE I DID MY STRAT . SOUNDSLIKE HENDRIX. GOD BLESS
Thanks for watching Joey!
Great video, I watched the modded one as well & really enjoyed it. I just got the used 2020 strat bullet with white artic color & really like it. Just changed the pickups with Wilkinson, prob will upgrade other parts too. Thanks for the video!!. Cheers!!.
Thank you! The Wilkinson Pickups are pretty good. I've now built two Tele style Stemac kits and they sound great. I've also built 3 lapsteels using a tele bridge with Wilkinson bridge pickups and they sound really good. I'll be releasing a video about the last build soon. Again, thanks for watching!
@@StevenParente Awesome!! Look forward to it.
the looks is bery similar to squier classic vibe series..mamzing
Yes! The vibe series has better hardware and a larger headstock. Upgrade the bullet and you have a similar quality. Thanks for watching Zoliana.
Fantastic! You should be well pleased with yourself and the results!! Bravo!
Thank you Mydejavooo... and for watching. I'm planning to post some videos playing this Strat soon.
It sounds great.
wow love the sound good job from algeria
Aloha Mohamed and thanks for watching!
Great job ! 😀👍🏼
Thank you David!
Good job Sir, super amazing 👍👍❤️
Thank you Iqbal. And thanks for watching!
That sounds AWESOME. great job!
Thanks for watching CutlassS1968! I'm planning to do some more videos playing slide with it. It's been over a year and is still sounding great.
Fender stratocaster sound great job amazing 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Thanks a lot YY Hendrix and for watching!
The tuners are clearly doing a worse job than the ones in there before.Obviously action plays a role in overall stability but a guitar that goes out of tune that much will kill your soul before you've even worn out the strings.Definitely sounded way better tonewise though.
so clean
Thank you Tanner and thanks for watching!
Steve: Thanks for doing this series. It was just what I was looking for. Question: The higher action afterward was caused by ___________?
Aloha Stan. I raised the action to play slide. That's what I'm primarily using this guitar for. I've lowered it to be able to fret some notes and it still works well for slide. You don't need to set your action high, you can make it as low as you like, providing your frets are level and your truss rod is adjusted. Thanks for watching!
@@StevenParente Thx Steve.
Well done! 👍👍 🎸🎶 🇺🇸.
Thanks for watching!🎸👍
I just picked up a Fender Bullet off a classified ad. Right now it sounds terrible, so I am considering some upgrades to improve the sound. It's been about 10 months since you posted this video. Are there things you would do differently today? How happy are you with the upgrades now? Thanks.
Aloha John, it's been over a year and half! The Bullet is my main slide guitar now, that's why I set the action so high. Everything I did to it in the video, I'd do again. The heavy bridge block helped a lot. The tuners I bought are very good. I'm pretty happy with the pickups. I might experiment with the pickups because they are easy to change out with the kwikplug system. But these pickups sound great, especially when recording. I just like to fiddle with tone a lot. Most everything I used I listed in the description with links. I'm planning on making some more video's playing this guitar. Thanks for watching and best wishes with your modification.
@@StevenParente Looking forward to hearing you play the slide guitar some more. How is the weather? Nothing but rain this last couple of weeks in Oregon.
Stay tuned John, I think I'll be able to create a video by next week. The weather has been nice the past week. It's been around 82F and partly sunny. I used to live in Seattle and know how the Northwest can be. It's beautiful country, including the Oregon coast. We're heading into hurricane season, so we'll see how that goes. Aloha!
Sounded mean with the slide!
Thanks for watching Nasty Gary! I'll do some more videos playing slide with it soon. It's been over a year since this video. The tuners are working out really well. The pickups are still sounding great.
Can you upgrade a squire Stratocaster bullet. With an affinity pickguard and pickup. Can it fit the bullet.
Thanks
Aloha Victor. There's probably not a large difference, but I don't have the measurements for the affinity. You should search online. If you have a few basic tools, or can afford them (dremel, router, drill, scroll saw) you can cut and finish any pickguard and rout out the body cavity to fit pickups. I wouldn't think it would take much. Thanks for watching!
I have to say something, ı guess the pu's not a good like a 5 bucks pu. Maybe you should look to the toneriders. But it is looking fantastic.
Yeah, it's hard to say what the original pickups were. I'm trying to find out more about them, where they were made. They had an OK sound, but very muddy, which can be cool. But if I want distortion, fuzz, gain, etc., I'd like to choose that using effects pedals or through my amp. I want to have a clear sound if I need it. The Texas wounds cost more, but I get much more dynamic range. They are also super quiet. I was just jamming with a friend and I played a little slide and it sounded great. Thanks for watching!
I just bought a Squier Bullet as a "project guitar" myself. Did the quick-plug wiring harness drop right in or did you have to make them fit? I want to replace the electronics, but I've been told that some pots wont fit into a Japanese or Indonesian strat. If everything fit, I may go to guitarfetish and get their wiring.
BTW the strat sounds great! I hope it's a great slide guitar for ya!
Aloha Digital Friar - The wiring and components were easy to assemble, although it was a tight fit, especially after doing the shielding. I did carefully bend a couple of leads to fit. The guitar plays really well and sounds great. If you do the Guitar Fetish package, you may want to dremel a little bit in the cavity (or chisel). Just a little would help and it's pretty easy to do. Unfortunately, I sheilded everything and found out later. I might do this eventually, but it isn't causing any problems... so haven't made the effort. But if you do it, just take a little wood out of the cavity where the volume and tone pots are. Thanks for watching!
The pots will fit in an Indonesian Squire, but you will have to drill the holes to a larger diameter in the pick guard for the pot stems to fit through, as they are larger.
@@cementheed Thanks for the input Andor.
It dropped right in!
Could I ask why the action is higher after the mod? I have watched your upgrading video but I might have missed it
Aloha Tianli. I'm using this guitar for slide work, so made the action higher. Thanks for watching!
Awesome
Thank you Luke!
Greetings from Virginia Steven! 🙂
Aloha dixee6!
You did great showing the before tones, then you played live in a chair from a diffrent distance and not at all having an environment for a clean comparison. Do better.
Thanks for watching Christopher. The mic placement and settings were very similar. I measured. But I understand where what you're saying. Noted!
@@StevenParente you're pretty cool, keep makin videos! Not many ppl can take constructive criticism, I was lookin to upgrayedd my bullet and will use this as valuable reference. Thank you.
Me regalas un Stratocaster rota solo quiero una guitarra
No 2 or 4 positions on either before or after...must don't care much for out-of-phase tones.
Sounds way out of tune
It just had new strings and they were still stretching. Also, this guitar has very high action for slide work and when pressing down on a fret it will knock it out. Check out this video, I lowered the action a bit and the strings are settled in. I also wound a set of custom pickups. Thanks for watching. ua-cam.com/video/VXK3v_VGago/v-deo.htmlsi=ELb51QKPvHkTeWPB
@@StevenParente still a good review. Enjoyed it. 😊
Thank you Pete!
awesome but no night and day difference! it was very good before
Thanks for watching Chris!