To mod or not to mod….

OilCityPickups

BillDL said:

Sometimes a cheap set of pickups can sound great in a budget guitar and not very good in an expensive one, and vice versa. The pickups usually need to be a good match for the guitar to sound good.  You can throw a lot of money down the drain by seeking the holy grail of pickups.

Absolutely ... the very first thing to do is get everything else about the guitar 'right' and playing just the way you want it BEFORE you think of pickups - if indeed you need to after sorting everything else. Now the price of the guitar or its manufacturer don't come into that equation ...

Here's how I do it.
1. sort action and playability - you can think a guitar has the wrong pickups if you are hampered in actually physically producing the notes you want clearly ... so a good set up starts it all rolling.
2. Get the pickups you have dialled in right as others have said - it can be you just need heights sorted. 
3. I always make sure it's not a poor choice of strings that is hobbling a guitar ... 
4. Upgrade your pots jack (caps are pretty much irrelevant apart from value - paper in oil is just snake oil). This will not change your tone much if at all, but if you are going at some stage upgrade your pickups ... then you wouldn't put a better engine in a hotrod without upgrading the brakes. 

Most of all don't run your own gear down .... an Epiphone LP is a fine guitar and it's not the instrument that matters, it's how you play it.  

maltingsaudio

sweepy said:

 By the time you have finished you could pick up a Les Paul Studio for the same money, just a thought

Yeah but he still might not like the sound of the pickups in that

Jonathangus

maltingsaudio said:

sweepy said:

 By the time you have finished you could pick up a Les Paul Studio for the same money, just a thought

Yeah but she still might not like the sound of the pickups in that

FTFY.

guitarjack66

maltingsaudio said:

What your going to do isn’t irreversible, so apart from a couple of quid lost or gained it’s a no brainer. IMHO you will only gain by the experience. But again do the mod yourself as opposed to getting someone to do it for you and then it will really mean something. Soldering isn’t hard! And it’s a good, skill to learn, the beauty of it is no one knows until you hear the results you wanted.

So nice to read the word 'soldering' than listening to US Youtubers talk about 'soddering' a guitar. I shudder when I hear that pronunciation.
I've heard of loving your instruments but that is going way too far!

OilCityPickups

guitarjack66 said:

maltingsaudio said:

What your going to do isn’t irreversible, so apart from a couple of quid lost or gained it’s a no brainer. IMHO you will only gain by the experience. But again do the mod yourself as opposed to getting someone to do it for you and then it will really mean something. Soldering isn’t hard! And it’s a good, skill to learn, the beauty of it is no one knows until you hear the results you wanted.

So nice to read the word 'soldering' than listening to US Youtubers talk about 'soddering' a guitar. I shudder when I hear that pronunciation.
I've heard of loving your instruments but that is going way too far!

I find is fascinating that Americans can say soldier pretty deftly ... but strangely not solder. Odd how an i can f--k up inhabitants of the land of the free - just one innocuous vowel :-) 

But then tale the sad case of Aluminium -  pronounced phonetically Al-u-mini-um - but somehow mangled into Alumi-numb 

And how many presidents have addressed their fellow 'merkins' ... 

Alterlifeson

50's wiring sounds the way to go to remedy the muddy pickups. It saved me swapping out the stock pickups on my Vintage (brand) SG copy. They are never going to be SD Antiquities but it was a vast improvement.

I think my only stock guitar is my Jackson, although I have been hankering after something more powerful in the bridge.

Roland

maltingsaudio said:

sweepy said:

 By the time you have finished you could pick up a Les Paul Studio for the same money, just a thought

Yeah but he still might not like the sound of the pickups in that

Modification isn’t so much a question of a guitar’s value. It’s more a question of learning about guitars, what makes them sound the way they do, and what aspects give you the sound and feel you want.

Blackjack

Thank you so much guys, there is a lot of ‘food for thought’ here to consider.  I maybe should have said that I have already had it in the hands of my guitar tech and it was him that suggested some of the changes to me.  It’s not even a case of him trying to rip me off as he has quoted me a very reasonable price indeed for doing the work.  I will be taking my time to read through each of your comments thoroughly later and see where I decide to go!

What a great and welcoming community you all are! Thank you so much!

topdog91

1. Mod the guitar as pickups are the biggest practical difference between your Epiphone and a Gibson. Most of the rest is marketing and / or bling.

2. Bonus: I suggest trying to self-talking negatively about your guitar nor ability. Think about what this might achieve.

OilCityPickups

Blackjack said:

What a great and welcoming community you all are! Thank you so much!

Ha ... you didn't mention tonewoods, Gibson quality control, Rob Chapman or current guitar prices ... thus you neatly avoided being torn to shreds by a pitchfork waving mob. ;-)    

Lewy

As others have said, mod away to your heart's content. But....if the main impetus for changing pickups is that your guitar sometimes sounds muddy, that could be nothing to do with the pickups and other ones could sound just as muddy. So, first question is what are you plugging your guitar into, what EQ is available and how have you got that set?

Ddigger

OilCityPickups said:

But then tale the sad case of Aluminium -  pronounced phonetically Al-u-mini-um - but somehow mangled into Alumi-numb 

To be fair, they do also spell it differently.

Yorkie

Blackjack said:

What a great and welcoming community you all are!

Yes, we are a greatsch community. But some people speak with no filtertron. 

BillDL

@Blackjack.  Should you decide to have a technician change your pots, ask whether they are imperial ("USA spec") or metric ("import spec").  Should you ever decide to change the knobs yourself you need to know what type of pots they are so you can buy knobs that match.  USA spec imperial ones have a 6mm shaft with 24 splines (vertical ridges that form a saw tooth perimeter around the shaft end that locate in the matching grooves on the inside diameter of the knob).  Metric ones have a 6mm shaft as well, but only have 18 splines.  Alpha branded pots are metric, CTS used to only be USA spec but now come in metric, and Bourns I think is always metric but not sure.  Knobs are available in matching 18 or 24 spline versions usually just referred to as USA or Import.  You can usually shove a mis-matching plastic knob onto a pot but it will chew into the plastic, can end up loose, and it might not stay on if you remove it and push it back on again. When shoving on knobs, take off the cavity cover and push against the back of the pot while pushing on the knob or it can push the back right off the pot.

Neil

OilCityPickups said:

guitarjack66 said:

maltingsaudio said:

What your going to do isn’t irreversible, so apart from a couple of quid lost or gained it’s a no brainer. IMHO you will only gain by the experience. But again do the mod yourself as opposed to getting someone to do it for you and then it will really mean something. Soldering isn’t hard! And it’s a good, skill to learn, the beauty of it is no one knows until you hear the results you wanted.

So nice to read the word 'soldering' than listening to US Youtubers talk about 'soddering' a guitar. I shudder when I hear that pronunciation.
I've heard of loving your instruments but that is going way too far!

I find is fascinating that Americans can say soldier pretty deftly ... but strangely not solder. Odd how an i can f--k up inhabitants of the land of the free - just one innocuous vowel :-) 

But then tale the sad case of Aluminium -  pronounced phonetically Al-u-mini-um - but somehow mangled into Alumi-numb 

And how many presidents have addressed their fellow 'merkins' ... 

But then Americans wonder why Derby is pronounced Darby over here.

And as for Cholmondeley -  pronounced Chumleigh and Beauchamp as Beacham?

I really think we have the monopoly on weird spellings and pronunciation but that said I like the eccentricity of it. 

guitarjack66

OilCityPickups said:

guitarjack66 said:

maltingsaudio said:

What your going to do isn’t irreversible, so apart from a couple of quid lost or gained it’s a no brainer. IMHO you will only gain by the experience. But again do the mod yourself as opposed to getting someone to do it for you and then it will really mean something. Soldering isn’t hard! And it’s a good, skill to learn, the beauty of it is no one knows until you hear the results you wanted.

So nice to read the word 'soldering' than listening to US Youtubers talk about 'soddering' a guitar. I shudder when I hear that pronunciation.
I've heard of loving your instruments but that is going way too far!

I find is fascinating that Americans can say soldier pretty deftly ... but strangely not solder. Odd how an i can f--k up inhabitants of the land of the free - just one innocuous vowel :-) 

But then tale the sad case of Aluminium -  pronounced phonetically Al-u-mini-um - but somehow mangled into Alumi-numb 

And how many presidents have addressed their fellow 'merkins' ... 

Almost a different language!

OilCityPickups

Ddigger said:

OilCityPickups said:

But then tale the sad case of Aluminium -  pronounced phonetically Al-u-mini-um - but somehow mangled into Alumi-numb 

To be fair, they do also spell it differently wrongly. 

There ... corrected that ... 

Offset

OilCityPickups said:

And how many presidents have addressed their fellow 'merkins' ... 

I can't un-hear that now!

Lestratcaster

I'd say go for it. I've learnt that changing the hardware can make a difference as well as the electronical components. For example my Squier Strat had its trem block replaced and it made a huge difference to the sound. Add to that new tuners and an Earvana nut, its made the pickups shine and sound even better.

monquixote

OilCityPickups said:

guitarjack66 said:

But then tale the sad case of Aluminium -  pronounced phonetically Al-u-mini-um - but somehow mangled into Alumi-numb 

And how many presidents have addressed their fellow 'merkins' ... 

Unfortunately it's the Americans who are right on that one.