ever found a guitar gimmick/mod that you actually liked/use for more than 5 mins?

exocet

Blender Pot on a Strat to 

A) vary amount of quack in Pos 2 and 4

Fade in neck with bridge to give Tele tones.

MikeB

Kinman treble bleed for me 

Roland

octatonic said:

crunchman said:

The one that is a complete waste of time is the Tele 4 way with pickups together in series option.

Agree with that.
It is exactly like a humbucker, only shit.

Disagree. There are solos where I want the sound of a humbucker with the tone rolled back.

Roland

axisus said:

ever found a guitar gimmick/mod that you actually liked/use for more than 5 mins?

Alright. I’ll be doubly disagreeable. If I use something for more than 5 minutes then it’s no longer a gimmick. Innovations that I like:
- tapped single coils
- 4 and 5 way switching on a Telecaster
- rounded neck joints
- strap locks
- forearm and belly contours
- wedge shaped bodies, thin at the top and thick at the control cavity
- wood stain and oil finishes
- clip-on tuners
- hardened frets. I’ll go EVO Gold rather than stainless.
- zero frets. Do these really count as an innovation?
- headless guitars, for no other reason than they help reduce weight.

blueskunk

TBX

lasermonkey

Ebow.
The DIY tremolo arms that I make for all my Fender offsets. They sit further away from the guitar body, are angled differently and are shorter, which puts my right hand where my playing position is.

StanleyAccrington

sweepy said:

E-Bow, had mine bloody years and it sits on my desk next to the pick box, fantastic with delay and a harmoniser, hours drift by 

Ebow.....never heard of them until around 2 minutes ago.

hubobulous

Blower switch for me. Have it on 4 of my Suhrs and find it very useful

Handsome_Chris

One more for the E-bow.  I even keep one in my tech box.

Tremol-no.  Easy to fit, even easier to use.

ICBM

Rickenbacker 'Rick-o-Sound' stereo wiring. With different effects and/or amps on each pickup it can sound like two guitars double-tracked.

Hipshot Trem-Setter. An absolute pain in the bum to fit and set up, but once done it's totally reliable and works flawlessly.

Dunlop 'Ergo' straplocks. Far better than any metal straplock system or even Grolsch washers.

TC Polytune app for iPhone. Quite possibly the best £2.99 I've ever spent on anything musical. It paid for itself several times over the very first time I used it, to set up a Floyd Rose - it probably halved the time involved.

And for the repairers - the Hosco Guitar Cube. Such a brilliant little tool, a real time and hassle saver if you ever have to tighten a pot nut when the knob won't come off.

thermionic

octatonic said:

Push-pull on a strat to add bridge.
Blower switch.
Killswitch.
Hex pickup.

I also have this strange pick called a 'strum rose' that is like a comb, that sort of simulates a 12 string.
I've owned it since I was 16- it is probably the oldest thing I possess other than my genitals.

Reminds me of the Jellifish:



I could never quite work out how it created the effect it did. I bet there's a few of those languishing in long-lost corners of dusty drawers.

axisus

ICBM said:

And for the repairers - the Hosco Guitar Cube. Such a brilliant little tool, a real time and hassle saver if you ever have to tighten a pot nut when the knob won't come off.

That is an awesome idea! Never seen that before

thegummy

Bridge + neck switch on Strat (s1 switch, so neat and tidy) as well as always converting every guitar to master volume and tone if it doesn't already have that

Matt_McG

I have a 5 way switch on my ASAT: bridge, middle, neck, neck with tone cut, series.

I almost never use the series, but I do use the tone cut -- instant jazz mode -- fairly often. I could easily replace it with a 3 way and a switch, I guess.

tone1

PTFE tape on my Strat Trem arm threads

scrumhalf

Clip-on tuners - what a brilliant and cheap idea.

stimpsonslostson

scrumhalf said:

Clip-on tuners - what a brilliant and cheap idea.

This. A special mention has to go to my D’Addario soundhole tuner. Fit & forget, it works beautifully & looks fine even on my (rather spartan) Faith Naked Mercury. 
https://www.guitaranswerguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/nsMicroInPlace1.jpg

(Obviously not my guitar in the picture)

dogload

Treble 'bleed' mod. Use it on all my guitars.

Also the following:
Series/ parallel switches
Phase switches
Coil Tap switches
Neck-in switch for Strat
although not necessarily on the same guitar. All valuable tone mods.

Kebabkid

Blower switch and called a 'Switcheroo' on my old Tom Anderson and the Steve Vai tremolo arm ping/bwing thing

Cork plectrums on acoustic (are they for Ukes)?? Nice even sound when recording, if a little cumbersome

stickyfiddle

Have we said welder nozzle cleaners yet? The perfect tool for tiny adjustments to nut slots