‘Mick polished his knobs and now he’s much happier’...

Hey Mick. I have been going down this same rabbit hole for 20 years. I am also a Strat person primarily. I love your content and really appreciate your videos. I have gone so far down the rabbit hole I built a pickup winder and have been winding my own pickups and finally getting somewhere. I have also refinished bodies in nitro cellulose and the neck, tried different bridges and cut my own bone nuts. But it's insane Everything from wire to the individual gauss rating of every magnet makes a tonal difference. Thanks for your content! I love the show and watch live when ever I can. Cheers fellow Stratocaster addict.

The declaration addressed directly to your guitar warmed my heart.

Tip. put solder on the pot first. Then solder the cables to tha solder covered spot. Makes it really easy. Same with jacks.

Looks the journey has come to a conclusion (at least for now!). Blue is a great sounding guitar in your hands but what's more important is the relationship you have with it - it's these things that really matter eh? Loved following the journey, glad you've found a happy place and been fun to part if it (sort of). Si

The ages-old problem of soldering to the backs of potentiometers causes one to wonder why manufacturers do not simply incorporate grounding lugs into their designs.

The biggest thing I love about these vlogs (well, one of) is that you play the before and after things with different levels of gain, different effects and different kinds of playing etc. Whenever I've changed anything on a guitar, the biggest difference has always been in how it reacts to gain and fuzz, but for some reason videos on youTube tend to just do clean tones of a chord across all the pickups and call it a day. Good work mate.

I used to have a ton of trouble with grounding to the back of pots too. I started using flux and my life changed. Wiring is easier now. Food tastes better. The sky is bluer. My sex life improved. I may run for president.

Period correct knobs when you're going for period correctness is 100% correct. Way to go, Mick.

I was deliberately watching this in the background so I didn't know which guitar you started with after the 50/60 install. I guessed the 61 and it was Blue. Mission accomplished.

And following on from tone glue.....tone knobs! Magnificent! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Brilliant view of the journey. Thanks Mick. Stay safe and well. 🤘🏻🎸👍🤘🏻🎸👍

Thank you so much for taking us on the journey with you. You can tell Blue is a special guitar 😊 I was really impressed with that board with only 7 pedals and the sounds you were getting. Hope you are more inspired than ever. Stay safe 😊

I’ve watched this at least 5 times now and it’s just made the rabbit hole bigger.

A top tip for soldering the connections in a Strat - The Two Irons method. Much the same as the single iron method you used, but you use a 100w iron for the spring claw & pot earths. Much faster heating makes those big joints a heckuvalot easier.

Please leave the 50/60's in Blue. What a combination with your playing! Very much heart felt inspirations. You've proofed the end justified the journey! Congratulations!

Attaching the back of the pot ground. Best option I have found and many folks use this process. Join your wires to one single wire lead, heat shrink tube the joint of the multiple wires to one lead and then you only have to solder the one single wire to the back of the pot. Much easier mate. :)

While watching this with my four year old daughter she said “he kinda looks like Andy Griffith!”. Not sure if you ever watched that in the UK but I’d take it as a compliment.

i'm happy that blue is "back in the game", and i'm sad that [Mick's Strat Vlog] doesn't get another season, there was so much to learn from those episodes. maybe you could do a spin off [Mick's *insertguitarbrand* Vlog] ?

Mick, Mick, Mick, The best part of this great vlog was seeing you so happy at the end of this journey! Your smile, body language and excitement were infectious and exhilarating. Just great to see you in a happy place!....and Blue sounds awesome!

Mick - fantastic to see you so happy with Blue again. What a journey you’ve been on. Thanks for inviting us along.

@That Pedal Show Fascinating pickup journey, I'm still only half-way through. Lovin it. Tech Nerd Bit - Mick, that's not the ideal Tip for the heavier soldering work. That fine point has less Mass at the business end and so the latent heat available is diminished. i.e. doesn't transfer the heat to the Work so well, even with the Tip being tinned. By making a Pool of solder on the Pot body you would be preheating and making the job of joining the wires to it much easier and quicker. There are special fluxes that help soldering to Steel and Aluminium should your pot surface not be pre-tinned or coated/plated. I stumbled upon an Aluminum flux from La-Co that doubles very nicely onto Steel also (despite La-Co making a separated Steel flux) ; as a bonus it's very good for soldering earthing wires onto aluminised cavity foil. Loathe as I am to make an appeal to authority, but I IS a pro-soldering Ninja of many decades. i.e. I've been getting this all wrong for a lot longer than you have ... 😜

She’s there bud. Sounds spectacular. You have arrived!🤩

Nothing to add other than I love that the journey had a happy ending. Please don't let this be the end of the journey vlogs as they are greatly inspiring.

What a great journey, love all you do Mike (and Dan) but your Strat Vlog is close to where I am with my Strat journey too... So I guess, thanks for doing it for me!! Awesome.

Neat trick to test your pickups/electronics: Play some music on your phone and hold the phone speaker in close proximity to the pickup. Makes the sweep of the tone pot and volume a lot more obvious. PS I love this vlog series!

I heard strat sounds, and then strat sounds. No difference to my ears. But, why am I even watching this? Because it's interesting to see what you can tweak and change. For me it would not matter a bit, but seeing you find a tone and the Happy Place is a joy, Mick! :)

I love you guys, Mick and Dan. You’re truly an inspiration to us all, since I’ve been subscribed to you within this year, I’ve gained so much knowledge. Thank you both. My tone has drastically improved because of Mick and Dan. Much love guys. Cheers! I’m currently going down the rabbit hole modding my Fender Strat!!

Forgot to leave a comment earlier, so here goes... I don't always watch your videos as they're released because it's good to save them up until I have time to enjoy and also when I'm in the right frame of mind. The past two weeks haven't been great fun here, so your recent videos have been the perfect treat for me. Have to say, this one didn't give me any info - other than another pickup brand and their designs - but the enjoyment came from seeing your Strat journey moving along the way and some tasty playing throughout. Of all the music channels I watch, this is the one I look forward to seeing the most. Long may you and Dan continue doing this wonderful stuff.

I went down this rabbit hole last year. After scouring the internet forums, I found there to be a handful of pickup winders (Ron Ellis being one of them) who have that "magic." I went with Don Mare cause many people spoke incredibly highly of his pickups and described them as having a special fair dust, giving it that final 5% lol. Anyway, I love my set. I got his Super Sports ('64 strat based) I think you would really like his Josie Vaughans or his Formvar 50s (the formvars are described by many as the most authentic strat sounding pickups out there). Happy hunting!

Love these videos. Do the black 59 now Mick! Selfishly not wanting the Strat vlogs to end.

Well chuffed for you Mick, you could really see the happiness when you were playing blue at the end. To my untrained ear both sets of the pick ups in blue sounded like there was a tiny bit more sizzle and grit in them, the 61 sounded ever so slightly more rounded. But all in just great to see you happy and enjoying playing blue like you want to! Stay safe to all the TPS Fam

Thanks again Mick... please don't get me wrong but when I see you checking the size of the vintage numbers on the knobs and after that even cleaning them .. It makes me feel less crazy. So thank you for that, really! LOL,.. also another GREAT VLOG! KEEP THEM COMING! Cheers! :P

Very interesting. 64s to vintage, the vintage sounded to have more bass when clean, but less when gained up. Probably due to lower output letting the bass more evenly bloom through. Of course it could also be in the guitar, not the pickups. 50/60s to vintage, sounds closer to me, though the vintage ones have a little more squaky top end in the 2nd position and a little bit of an upper mid thing. Out puts seem much closer. I'd love to shootout the 50/60s vs Markey Foley V2s. Also David Allen gave me some advice for setting his pickups when I had them. Start lower than you think you need, move them up a half turn at a time and at some point you'll hear some sparkle and crispness go away and the notes get louder but slightly dead. Adjust up or down a quarter turn at a time from there to find your personal sweet spot.

I still love that target burst on the 61! Also, I went through this in the mid 2000’s with a Daphne blue 62 reissue; Lollar Blondes solved this for me, and I played that guitar so much I have to have the frets replaced (they’re basically serated!). It sounds remarkable similar to the 61.

Thanks Mick for keeping me sane during this lockdown , I really enjoy playing guitar , I'm not the best technical player but I appreciate you guys and my guitar even more now. So thank you.

Your "regular" show's great, but the vlogs you two doing are incredible. I'm a real techie nerd by default, so I'm fascinated by anything that goes in depth, just for inspiration. But the recording vlogs you've been doing have got me getting a couple of things down on "tape" (sounds better than "hard drive"). I've played guitar for ages, but always felt frustrated with my playing, always sounding to me like I hadn't practiced enough for my "imaginary punk band", but with you guys, and this lockdown, I've put stuff together that I'm able to listen to for a second time without cringing. Thanks guys for all the inspiration

Wow, that Boogie sounds absolutely wonderful.

So many good sounds. I confess that I cannot discern all the (to my ears) tiny differences in tone that you obviously can, Mick. I wonder if it's a bit like wine tasting. Over the years I've come to be able to pick out more flavors and nuances as my palate gets educated. Maybe the same will happen with my ears concerning guitar pickups/overdrives/fuzzes. Glad you've re-bonded with Blue!

Im happy for you Mick but please dont be done! I love these Strat vlogs so much and its such an inspiration to me that I will start my own quest as soon as this corona thing settles. Oh and thank you!

Mick, I am absolutely stunned by what you have managed with this incredible series of Vlogs. When compared to another Strat in every previous video, the '61 has been like a bolt of lightning directly into my ears, immediately grabbing my attention whether I was actively watching or doing the dishes with headphones on and mind wandering. But with Blue's new pickups, the difference has truly become marginal. I can no longer identify the two from extended playing samples, and even jumping back and forth between specific snippets, the two are very, very close indeed - both in the tone and in how you play them. I'm happy that you have reconnected with your old friend, and excited to see what I can do about the guitars with which I've fallen out of love too!

Well, to my ears, apart from those wonderful low-mids of that '61, Blue came blimming close with 50/60 set, and sounded really good. :)

Never mind the shielding, imagine the havoc that pink masking tape must be reaping, over using your genuine pre CBS tape.

Thanks Mick. Loved the journey. It was very honest. Blue sounds great and very much like the tone you’re chasing, it seems. I almost teared up when you talked about Blue as your mate.

Great playing Mick; doesn't matter which guitar or pick-ups you're using, it's sounding sweet. Glad to see you've reconnected with Blue.

Watching this and other TPS videos. I've come to the conclusion that my old ears are not good enough to hear a lot of the subtle differences that you hear, but as long as you're happy with it and enjoying your guitar again, cool. 👍 I'll keep plugging away and practising and maybe my ability to discern the differences will get better.

Honestly - those Ron Ellis 64's Sound every-bit as Glassy, Chimey & Quacky as the 61 reference guitar. I did the Strat pickup comparison, & decided-on Jason Lollar Dirty Blonde-set = Incredible. Both sets of Ellis pickups sound vintage & Stratty. 50/60's Sounded closer to the Fender Fat-set. I like my pickup-height on the Lower side. Too high is a Sustain killer.

That's a great shout, if you love a guitar and some mods would make it better, then it's a great plan. Modding a guitar you don't love into one that do you rarely ever happens. Love the strat journey, and love hearing Blue and you make that connection again!

Absolutely loved the Strat vlog vids, found them quite therapeutic and calming. Blue sounded great at the end, hoping you’ll find a new project now to share with us. Thanks.

Wow Blue is sounding legendary. I had permanent stank face through the whole jam at the end.

"And everywhere that Mick went the Tube Tape Echo was sure to go"

Sadly, it's comforting to see someone else have the same problems I have, with changing out pickups. It sounds beautiful!

Thank you, Mick. What a wonderful and gratifying journey you've shared. It is indeed an emotional thing and a personal one. "Decision making with multiple uncontrolled variables." I believe my 20 year old recollection of Daniel Ellsberg's PhD subject is accurate enough. Yours is a moving example of how the unifying aspect of deeply personal feel can guide away from the chaos of so many potential variables. (including soldering fun!) LOVE it when you got into the studio and could just CRANK it up! I'm envious, particularly in living through the coincidence of an unexpected construction project taking my barn studio out of commission and isolating in our house presently. (i.e. loud amps sitting silently in the corner while hours are spent mostly on iZotope Spire, thank you Dan!) The beginning of your Blue journey last year felt alarming from here. The end of this vlog post hit more emotionally than I expected. Is that a symptom of yearning for this result? Anyway, yours is an honest, thoughtful and caring example of staying with it. Happy days. Cheers, brother.

I love these vlogs, I recently bought the strat I've wanted for the last 10 years (finally!) And am very tempted to do some plastic adjustments - but not until we're out of lock down and I've had it properly setup and looked at as I just didn't have time before we all got stuck inside. Amazing strat Mick!

43:00 Every since the harmonic trem episode with Joey, whenever I hear one on the show I ask myself, 'do I need a harmonic tremolo?' The answer, of course, is yes. Yes, I do need a harmonic tremolo.

Glad to see you feel bonded to Blue again. Also, thanks for the discussion on pickup height. I’ve never really stressed that much about that particular topic but it was really helpful to hear your perspective on it.

The rabbit hole is deep!! I built a partscaster and settled on a Seymour Duncan SSL-1 in the bridge, a Texas Special in the middle and an Eric Johnson in the Neck. There are so many great choices you can chase the right sound forever IMO.

Sounds good. I bet "new blue" would sound amazing with a treble booster and gunned Ac30. Rory Gallagher for days.

Mick, I think those 50/60's sounded amazing. How different were they from the Fender Custom Shop pickups? Feel, balance, tonal difference eat..?? Keep up the great work guys! I love your videos and they have gotten me through this isolation, so thank you!

Hi Mick, Brilliant VLOG 👍👍👍. I love the sound of the 50/60's, really nice warm tone without losing the bite of a Strat! Excellent backing music for the pup installation, 44:13 absolutely beautiful 👍. I am glad it's not just me that needs an extra hand when soldering the Ground wire to the Volume pot, lol. Take care mate ♥️👍. Melbourne, Australia.

This is my favorite part of TPS. I eagerly wait for the next of these videos. Absolutely brilliant.

I may be missing something in translation, but Mick said he’s obsessed with knobs!

I've been a longtime proponent of lowering Strat pickups. All four of mine are lowered on the bass side as shown in this video, not much past the mounting screw tops. Each Strat has different pickups. To each their own. I just prefer the sound of the pickups lowered.

I love Ancho Poblano PU in my Fender CS strat..I did upgrade the vibrato to Wudtone CP 50 (narrow 54 mm string spacing) and Highwood saddles (10.8mm) which made noticable difference in tone&playability. Guitar got also CRYO tuning which took it to another level in resonance and playing feel, like really well played/seasoned vintage strat. Definitely recommend all this upgrades!! Rock on!!🤘

Last video I commented saying your new pickups sounded awful, these ones sound GREAT! I knew you were hearing what I was, it's just hard to admit to yourself after you spend money and put in work. Glad you made the change, these sound much better.

Hi Mick, did you see Paul Davids's video about his control knobs? He chucked his in a freshly pulled shot of espresso.

Make a J shape with the end of the wire so that it fastens around the lug, squeeze it with some long nose pliers, then solder. That way you have a mechanically sound joint and you're not relying on the solder to hold it. It helps to put some flux on the back of the pots too.

Hey Mick! So glad you updated us on your strat journey. Hope you and your Family/TPS Family are heathy and keep rocking🤘🏼Howdy from Texas.

Mick you can make any guitar sound good. This was a very compelling video and learned a lot about sweating the small details in chasing tone. Thanks for all the hard work in creating this content.

Man that ‘61 is crazy good. You’ve gotten Blue to a great place. I think you’ll always be in search of “that sound” until you sell a kidney and buy a vintage strat. Then the rabbit hole just changes.

I've tried all sorts of boutiquey stuff but what got me out of the rabbit hole was the Evil Sheep Experience set. Cheap as well for hand made.

Brilliant ending, Mick! Happy for you! I wanted to share with you, a bit over a year ago a similar thing happened to me and my CS ES 355. After watching your strat vlogs I got in a very similar rabbit hole to get my 355 as close as possible to an early ‘60 one, the nicest guitar I’ve ever heard. I changed everything that I thought it could improve paying attention to every tiny detail and I was done a couple of months ago. Recently I went to Norman’s and to GuitarCenter Hollywood, played a lot of vintage 335/345/355s and you know what? I’d still pick mine. I know now that my 355 will always be my guitar and the entire process made my bond even more with it, it’s a very magical feeling and a wonderful place to be. Blue is obviously your guitar and I’m glad you’re happy with it. Thank you for the inspiration.

I really appreciate the fact that Mick is as obsessive as the rest of us guitar people. I thought I was going out of my mind when all I could do was dive deeper and deeper into guitardome but now I see that it's more common and it's a thing. Good on you for searching and finding.

Tip: The best and easiest way to solder pots - get a real solder gun, and tin everything first. The higher wattage gets everything hotter, faster, so you reduce the risk of burning out the pot. Given how much you were "sweating" that job, it will reduce your "solderer's stress". ;-) They also can be used for heavier electrical work around the house. I also agree with you about "Revised Blue" - she and you are in a good place now, congrats.

The sound of your Blue Strat was close to the Sunburst but no cigar. There is a noticeable difference in the sound of the Sunburst. No biggie though, I think you're an Incredible guitar player and you know your stuff. God bless you !

Hats off for the meticolous and patient couple therapy! 💪⏳🎸❤👦👍

That 50/60 is impressively close to the 61, congrats! Trying as hard not to comment on anyone's guitar mod clip but this one I can't resist... to my ears compare to the 61 one it lacks only the zing and the airiness of the original which is really, really impressive. I'm a big fan of a raw vintage + wudtone combination, I mention this because these are the two brand that, to me - after trying many other choices, they really do what they advertise. When I put them together(wudtone block & plate + rv springs & saddles) they really add zing and airiness that you can't achieve from modding the circuit because it's in the material not the circuit. Another thing that might sound crazy but the truth is with vintage caps every single one is different so the final thing that I always do is to connect the extra lead wires hanging off the pickguard, assemble the guitars and audition all the promising caps for the project as much as I can till I'm there. There's no holy grail when it comes to how each nos cap would react to certain set of pups, for the pio the lower the voltage almost always sound better. There! I've totally geeked out. hahaha but hey, it's covid time! Everyone's busy in front of the computer, right!

I think Mike have done what he said can't be done. When talking with JayLeonardJ about teles and strats Mike said that on strat if you play "someone" you sound just like them. I think the Blue would sound like SRV playing the Blue not just SRV. Also 30:53 Harry Potter and the curse of the rabbit Holes.

Talking about rabbit holes... Eric Johnson recommends using springs 1,3,4 and 5 in the block.. Not 2... because that's how to get the best sound apparently. 😄

Hi Mick, You'll have less trouble soldering the ground to to back of the pot, if you get a blob of solder onto a roughened bit of the pot first, and then solder the wires on to that. Cheers.

That ‘61 Strat is an amazing guitar! Clean it’s very Strat, and sparkly, with any kind of gain/fuzz it totally shines. Total righteousness! Love the time lapse Fuzz sound...so sweet!

I like the sound of the Seymour Duncan Alnico 2 pros. Very old style sound....that Buddy Holly vibe. I think its the combination of the low impedance ....something like 6.4 ohm AND them being Alnico 2. I'm getting similar results from my Parallel Universe Strat bodied Tele with the Nocaster Alnico 3 poles and low impedance again. I can hear what I mean in the sound of the tri-burst 61 you're playing. I know the reason i chose the SD AP2s was i could afford them.....and they were great.....I'm sure there are more nuanced pups out there .....but you have to budget when its how you earn a crust.

Sometimes when you turn off all the pedals you realise how sweet a strat and an amp can sound

Mick! I've been a fan of this channel for quite some time now. I'm a Strat and Tele guy and LOVE everything you do to your guitars... especially Blue! The tones you consistently get from your guitars is truly amazing to me. Sometimes I think these video's are a bit too long (lack of time on my part), but I'm always happy when I watch them to the end... to get the full effect! LOL! Great job and great playing, my friend. Very inspiring!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the way you articulate bonding with your instrument. I’m delighted for you envious beyond expression.

I think the Strat sounds best when you play it Sir Mick ;)

Finally someone describes measurements in millimetres.

My ears with my reference monitors can't tell a difference between blue and that 60's strat. I'm sure better ears could hear the differences though. Also your playing at the end is super inspiring mate!

Nicely done. I like the shout out for the other pickup manufacturers, for the pick guard shield and why you went with the choices that you made. Nice summing up. Blue's done!

Not 14, but I'm a ginger teenager with a full grown dark beard since lockdown. I can only apologize Mick

Ever try an old Fernandes Strat? Ya never know.

Good on you, Mick, for bonding again with your guitar. A guitar without passion is probably just a few pieces of wood for many people. Glad to say I've liked your Strat so much that I've ordered a Sonic Blue G & L S500 to be my first single coil guitar and hope to fall in love with it as well! Cheers to you and Dan, thanks for all the content.

Solo from the new song sounds fucking superb. Mick, you’re an inspiration for a lot of us out here in many ways. Thank you.

I think I’ve gone one step further into the madness... I’ve ordered a new, lighter body for my strat 😅

Your Blue Strat sounds better than the 61 strat.

Mick, pro tip, sometimes the soldering iron tip isn't bad, it just needs a good scrub. What I mean is you get a carbon build up on soldering tips after they have been used for a while without a good cleaning which insulates/seals the heat in so to speak. I keep a small fine file, about 1 to 2 cm wide and about 15 to 20 cm long, around and knock that stuff off before starting and you would be amazed at how much hotter it will get and thus quick to melt your solder. Some folks keep a bit of course brass wool in a can or small bowl and scrub the tip in there to burnish off build up. I mod old tube gear to convert into guitar amps and use the soldering iron all day sometimes days in a row trust me, I figured this out a long time ago, it works.

Sounds fantastic! From what I could tell the 61 Strat had more low end and mids. Once the 50/60 set went in, sounded a lot closer to me. Loved the tone. Well done mate.

Strat vlog was my favorite TPS offshoot. Absolutely fascinating. Thanks for bringing us along.

To flow solder on a pot, you need a good soldering iron. I would suggest a flat tip, well tinned, not a rounded one. Put the solder on the pot first, then tin the wires and solder them to the solder on the pot. Should work fine, I don't have any problems using this technique. Also helps if you have a heat adjustable soldering iron, turn it up higher than you would normally have it.

Glad you are now in a happy place with "Blue" probably best you give your friend his '61 back now. That should help. Great video.

A wonderful journey Mick incorporating much more than guitars. Fabuflippinlusly brilliant. I can see myself going down the Fat 60s route maybe come Christmas. Once lockdown is over I will get my new pick guard fitted and the bridge mod done by my equivalent of Dan. Fabulous.