NeoConMan Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 We've all heard the stories - guitars destroyed by accident, stupidity, or at the hands of a wood butcher... What are some guitar mods you DIDN'T do? I was gonna do some wiring mods to my Custom Shop EDS-1275 double neck. Some of you may remember. Decided against it when I couldn't finalize a plan I liked. I rarely play the thing anyway, and I don't know if the wiring mods would change that. If I used it regularly for a gig, maybe I would - but I don't play gigs. (Don Felder had a pretty cool set-up on his though....) I've flirted with putting a Bigsby on just about every guitar I own. Les Pauls, SGs, 335, Guild BluesBird - you name it. Then I had the notion to do it up right on my Ash Telecaster - put one of these; On this; I mean, I LOVE my Tele and I think it would be a badass mod. But an Ash Telecaster is so simple, so pure, it seems a waste to drill all those holes in it... Gonna have to find another Telecaster! So anyhow, I'm down to a mod I've been mulling over for four years. I posted elsewhere in the P-90 thread that I'm gonna put some soapbars in my Les Paul Deluxe Goldtop. http://forum.gibson.com/index.php?/topic/63579-p-90-aficionados-stand-and-be-counted/ And it's reversible. The mini-humbuckers are okay, but they just don't really have a particular tone that I can use. Thin and brassy for a humbucker, not near as sweet as a big single coil like the P-90. Thinking Seymour Duncan Vintage, but I dunno yet. What about you guys? What guitar mods did you change your mind about? Maybe un-modded a guitar? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 Actually, you likely could make a case that I "unmodded" a guitar by disabling the Bigsby. In fact, I did it on two guitars. My old Harmony "jazz" guitar has a tunomatic bridge. I'm not sure what came with it. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 A former friend (gory details withheld) has destroyed countless guitars with his 'improvements'. In the 80s he added a middle pickup to every non-Strat he owned, put humbuckers in every P-90 hole, and if there already was a humbucker in the hole he swapped it out for a hotter humbucker. That's not counting the 100 or so guitars that got spray canned. I'm conservative about mods. If a pickup absolutely sucks, then we'll talk. Tuners that don't work? Sure. Let's discuss tuners that will work and will fit with the least mod. If a basket case comes my way, then all bets are off, like the '64 Melody Maker with chiseled pickup cavities and painted with white latex house paint. I refinished it antique white, added a white Dimarzio, custom cut white WD guard, gold Schaller fine tuning bridge, gold tuners... basically everything metal besides the frets was gold. The guitar was destroyed before I got it, so I figured 'shoot the moon'. Nuts and saddles made of plastic are usually (not always) replaced, just to get it up to the minimum acceptable level, but I don't replace run of the mill bone with left handed Methodist walrus tusk because it's an 'improvement'. Sometimes I think this whole modification nonsense is some deep rooted psychological need to 'one-up' the next guy or at the very least to tell the world 'the factory stuff isn't GOOD enough for me'. Sorry for the caustic rant. I guess I've seen one too many vintage Strat headstocks with locking nuts screwed into them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinner 13 Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 A former friend (gory details withheld) has destroyed countless guitars with his 'improvements'. In the 80s he added a middle pickup to every non-Strat he owned, put humbuckers in every P-90 hole, and if there already was a humbucker in the hole he swapped it out for a hotter humbucker. That's not counting the 100 or so guitars that got spray canned. I was that kid in shop in high school, always sanding off finish, making clear plexi pick gaurds, reshaping bodies ect, ect. ruined a couple of what would have been great "vinatge" 80's Axe's now. but I don't replace run of the mill bone with left handed Methodist walrus tusk because it's an 'improvement'. I almost peed my self on this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FennRx Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 Historic Makeover Package A I was about a minute from pulling the trigger, but chickened out....I'm actually glad I didn't though; $2700 is just too much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Plains Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 ^ I'd like to get a Package A one day but you're right about the price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andre S Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 I did more or less everything I wanted to do to my Les Paul so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturn Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 To borrow an idea from an old country song "when a guitar doesn't get modded, I did it " I'm one of those "if it aint' broke, don't fix it" guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy R Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 Hmm well obviously I'm a bit of a believer in both sides of this question. I think Neo nailed a good point with the "best mods are reversible mods". I agree with that 100%. I too also hate to see a vintage instrument destroyed especially if it were done recently and not at a time long ago. At the same time if a vintage instrument is unplayable due to something that could be fixed I think it is ridiculous not to fix it. What good is a guitar you can't play? Key word in this is unplayable. I also believe in making a guitar your own. If you have a guitar and it would be perfect if it only had ( insert whatever here) then in my mind go for it. Paint and such is also a choice to be made with your instrument if it expresses who you are and you like it. Music is about individual expression so why shouldn't your instrument reflect that? When I buy a guitar I buy it for me. If I'm afraid of screwing it up because maybe later someone else won't want it then it really doesn't belong to me, I'm just borrowing it. If I buy it as an investment then it's not really a musical instrument to me. I too hate to see some of the vintage stuff that has been destroyed but also keep in mind that in many cases it wasn't vintage at the time it happened. Just my 2 cents Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stein Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 my first guitar was (is) an '83 squire strat, and at one time i actually had a floyd rose i bought for it but changed my mind before i did it. what is interesting about that is that while the axe may not be worth much, (and i have had many more valuable axes) i am forever grateful i didn't, EVEN THOUGH i think when it comes to floyds, that is problably the most appropriate axe to do it on. i don't ALWAYS cringe when i see a mod on what would be a priceless guitar. for instance, in the case of say a locking tremelo, if it was done back when metal was popular, it is still in a way a piece of history. reverence for guitars means nothing to me without consideration for the poeple who played them and the love they had for them, regardless of wether the music remains popular. take a 70's or late 60's lp with say a dimarzio pup in the bridge-the origional pup may be long gone, but that is an origional dimarzio in there, something that was the thing to do. so where do we put our reverence? to the players who played them or the workers that built them? it may be ironic that it seems the thing to do now is "restore" old guitars to the way they left the factory undoing the "mods" that players did and felt they needed when they got the guitar. consider a guy restoring, say, a '61 335, and he goes "i can't believe they got rid of the origional pickup", and in turn rip out and toss an origional duncan in the process. so, where are we SUPPOSED to stand on mods? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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