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What are the best/worst mods you have ever done to your LP


Nickblues1

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I can honestly say I have never modded any of my Les Pauls. At first I didn't buy a guitar if I didn't like the tone, so no need to mod them. But I got to the point where I collect, so I occasionally buy guitars simply because they are cool looking, or rare. I also make and repair the occasional guitar. So my modding is usually done on repairs or guitars I have made. The coolest mods I did were on a guitar I made. I inlaid it with some gems, and some gold and silver wire. Electronically I put in a HSH (humbucker-single coil-humbucker) arrangement of pickups. For each humbucker, I put in coil taps, and tuned coil taps, then I added a 5 way switch. In total I think there are 90 different pickup/tone possibilities. It is a bit of a Tim Allen Binford thing LOL, but I learned a lot in doing it.

Tonally most people switch out their pickups. Most people do not realize that you can do a lot of tone modification for under $10. Switch out your caps, switch out your pots, put in treble bleed circuits (only takes a resistor), put in coil taps.

Your tone control allows you to bleed frequencies to ground. The capacitor(cap) acts as a filter and determines the range of frequencies that the tone pot controls. So with just that you can do a lot for your tone. A treble bleed circuit is just adding a resistor in parallel with your cap. It allows some of the frequencies that the cap blocks, to squeek by.

I think one of the most misunderstood and wasteful mod is putting on locking tuners. Locking tuners are meant for tremolo guitars. The only function they do on an LP is make string changes easier.

I think the worst thing you can do an LP or any guitar is to add a tremolo to a guitar that doesn't have one. Hacking into the body can be messy if not done professionally. Same with adding humbuckers to LPs with single coils. Why buy a guitar that you are going to have to cut into, when there are tons of others out there with the pickups and tremolos you want? By the way Gibson is re-introducing a Floyd Rose equipped LP at NAMM.

One of the most common tone quests is vintage LP tone. You can literally spend thousands on this quest. Original PAFs can go for thousands of dollars each. It can be a very rewarding mod if you are into vintage tone, but it can also be very frustrating. All that said, I have a pair of boutique Timbucker pickups on the way to me after 2 years on the list waiting for them. Now I just have to decide which LP to put them in.

Sorry I couldn't directly answer you, but maybe I have given some people something to think about so that they can add to the thread. Some people can be very innovative, and I think it will be cool to see what others have done. I will let you know where I put the Timbuckers and how they sound, when I am done.

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My best mod is I installed a 3-way toggle designed for a 3 pickup Les Paul. This allows me to do a little wiring trick where I can have a dedicated tone control for the bridge without affecting the sound when in the middle position because the 2nd tone is taken out of the circuit in the middle position.

This gives me a tone control for the Neck and Middle position and a bridge tone with no overlap.

 

Also the Faber Tone-Lock locking Tailpiece Studs and Spacers were a great mod.

 

-Eddie

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mine happend by accedent i was playing at my shcool talent show and the guy that tunes them for u dropped mine and the switch broke off i was going to kill him till i relised it was my band that was on stage i slung my strap on and joined in half way throught the song but we won lol

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Changed the pups in my classic to 57 in the neck and 57 + in the bridge, also i changed my volume and tone knobs to gold reflectors, like the the '60 reissues, i always liked the reflectors on my 345 and i like the look on the LP as well.

 

 

peace

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Best mods i have ever done: putting a TP-6 bridge on my Les Paul Standard Faded Honey Burst, as i really like the sound of the guitar and dont use the volume and tone knobs too much, this is the only mod i could do to this guitar, I didnt have any tunning problems, but i have this type of bridge in other stop tail guitars as well and now cannot live without it. Anyway it increased the already great sustain of the guitar, and the looks are awesome.

 

I also modded a Epiphone Special that I got like 14 years ago (i think it might be one of the first series of epi specials as it was made in korea and at the time there were onli two colors available: black and sunburst)

 

I replaced the pickups and electronics with EMG Zakk Wylde set (81-85), which comes with cables, pots, and everything you need. I replaced the tunners with gibson vintage looking ones, the stop tail with a Schaller fine tunning stop tail (gibsons wouldnt fit), the bridge with a Schaller roller bridge, added a gibson pickguard, added Schaller straplock system, changed the color to satin white, added some reflective details, and moved the toggle switch to the position it is in les pauls.

 

A $190 guitar with $350 mods, that now sounds better than every "under $1000" guitar i own or have owned, and better than my $1800 peavey wolfgang custom and my fender showmaster. The only guitar I have that sounds better is the Gibson Les Paul for obvious reasons.

 

I have a question, i have read on several posts that active pickups sound allways the same and when using them it doesnt mattar wether you have a plywood guitar or a mahogany or whatever guitar. Is this true? If it is, i cant believe people spend money on expensive guitars to replace pickups with actives... i did it to a cheap guitar and improved the sound, but i don´t think it would improve the sound of my gibson les paul (i don´t think you could improve the sound of a real les paul with a million bucks!).

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