Working and changing on guitars

[Oldhippie]

I often read in the forum about buying a new or used Epiphone. Lots of proud new owners seem to just receive their guitar and want to change things right now. When I bought my guitars (the new ones) I tested the guitars in the shop and liked the guitar or not. I mean soundwise and designwise...the knobs, or the Bigsby and so on.

 

The only thing I changed on some of my guitars was the nut. I changed it to Tusq. But I never thought about changing the PUs, because I like the sound of the fabric ones! To change the potis may bring a slightly better sound, but can you hear the difference honestly??

 

To change the bridge into a rollerbridge on my Bigsby-guitars is what I´m thinking about, but only, if I have some "left over money". My Riviera P 93 and my Wildkat are the ones I use the Bigsby and all I can say is, that they stay in tune quite well!!

 

Why are so many guitarists buy a guitar because of the sound and then change the whole things?? Are they not better buying a different guitar at all ? When they play the guitar with an amp using pedals for distortion and things like that....do you really hear that much difference in sound? Or is it just imagination?

 

This is only my personal opinion and maybe I´m totally wrong, but for me the Epi-sound is alright !

What do YOU think ???

[Oldhippie]

Personally, I think the answers are much more about psychology than they are about tone. Simply put, people believe what they want to believe, regardless of whether or not the belief has any basis in fact. Vitamins, organic food, auto fuel additives, weight-loss aids sold on TV, etc.. The list is endless, as is the number of believers who will vehemently defend the beliefs.

 

My personal favorite (to mock, that is) guitar belief is about pots, wires and capacitors, with bridge pins coming in a close second.

 

Now, watch the fur fly.

 

For more on the subject, read this: http://www.amazon.co...rds=being+wrong

 

Yeah, this is, what I try to ask in my bad english. Thanks for the link.

[amx05462]

ive never had to change pickups on any epiphone guitar ive owned. pots are another story. they mostly use the small cheap pots and some of there switches and output plugs are down right crap. on the les paul 56 gt i had to completely rewire it because the tone controls didnt work at all and when going in there i noticed the wring was cheap stuff and un shielded.. again . ive never had to change pickups..

[RIX]

I have to agree with you; that is with new guitars. If it doesn't have what you want then maybe your looking at the wrong guitar, but that is just my personal opinion. I like to focus on the setup and strings first of all to obtain the best playing guitar possible. Most of the time your just making adjustment and not having to replace any hardware.

[tweed2]

For me, I believe it's a sickness. I can't have a guitar that is stock. For instance, not one of the 7 guitars that I currently own has the original pickups, strap pins or nut. And only one has the original knobs. Of course, all have had other things like bridges, tailpieces, pots, tuners and other things that I've lost track of. It's become a joke with my buddies, when I get something new, just how long it will be until I start swapping parts.

 

Why? Maybe I just want a better guitar. Or something different from everybody else. So far, I like every improvement I've done and don't feel I've "gone backwards" pn any of them.

[Greybeard]

Of all the guitars I've owned in over fifty years, I've only extensively upgraded one. That was my recently purchased Epi ES-345 that had the input jack fail after plugging it in for the third time. I loved the look of the guitar and it felt great, but after such a premature failure of a simple part, and going into it and seeing what a cheaply made part it was, I had no confidence that the rest of the internal parts were not equally as cheaply made. As I investigated the pots and caps and saw they too were cheaply made, I gutted the guitar and completely rebuilt it with high quality stuff just so I would not have to go into this semi-hollow guitar that was a real bear to work on.

 

I now totally understand people that want the higher quality parts in their guitars. I probably won't routinely change everything on all of the rest of my guitars, but if anything fails, I will definately do a quality upgrade before putting the cheap junk back into any of them.

[mcgruff]

Don't know a lot about the Epiphone range as a whole just the ones with air inside, in particular the dot and 339, so that's all I can really talk about.

 

I do think dots are a good buy just as they are but you've got to be realistic about what a manufacturer can put into a guitar at that price. All the components are going to be chosen from the cheaper end of the scale.

 

However, the basic instrument is better than that IMO and many people seem to see them as a good platform for upgrades. You'd have to have a bit of a DIY streak to want to get into that and you won't get your money back if you ever come to sell the guitar. Still, there's the chance to get a really nice instrument set up just the way you want it for a fraction of the price of a Gibson 335.

 

Changing pickups gives you a lot of scope to tailor the sound to your own needs; different designs all have different outputs and tonal balances. The rule of thumb for 335's seems to be low-output, vintage PAF-style pups with features like: scatterwound, low number of windings, asymmetric coils, alnico II, and unpotted - all the "bright" design options to stop the mids getting out of hand. Maybe you'll prefer something hotter though.

 

The latest epi pro-buckers are pretty good and if I'd bought a new 339 (fitted as standard?) maybe I'd be happy sticking with them. However, I've got 57CH(G) in my dot and they're definitely too muddy. A 335 should have some thickness but it should also have definition, clarity and responsiveness. It's hard to describe.

 

The other electronics are also very important to the sound. The ohm resistance of tone & volume pots, and the tone capacitor values, act like low pass filters so you need to choose these carefully. I've no idea what comes as standard in a dot but the rule of thumb for humbuckers are 500k tone & volume pots, and 0.022uf tone caps. Quite a few people seem to prefer 0.015uf caps (a little brighter) on the neck, or both. I've also heard of setups with 250k volume pots and 1 mega-ohm tone pots. There's no fixed rule, and different pickups may react in different ways. It's probably a good idea to experiment with some options on a breadboard before tucking it all away inside the guitar.

 

Incidentally, I'm cap-agnostic: orange drops, paper in oil, unicorn hooves - whatever dood. It's a capacitor. I don't want to be closed-minded but it would take a double-blind test to convince me otherwise. Orange drops will do just fine.

 

There's also some cool stuff you can do with the wiring scheme. There are simple mods to add coil taps or you can go the whole hog with Jimmy Page wiring which gives you almost infinite combinations of coil taps, out of phase settings, and pickups in series, all without altering the look of the guitar. OK you'll probably never use at least half the new sounds but I bet there are a few you do. I think the 335 is already quite a versatile guitar and mods like these let you push the envelope just a little bit more.

 

Bettter quality components are going to stand up to heavy use better. So, if something does fail one day, it may be a good idea to whip everything out and replace it with CTS, Bourns, or similar. Fix it so it stays fixed: you really don't want to be doing F-hole surgery any more than you have to.

 

Nuts seem to get replaced a lot and, if they're all as bad as mine, I can understand why. The slots do have to be carved very precisely but you can buy them pre-slotted. Replacing a pre-slotted nut should be a fairly easy job but ask me later (I've got one in the post).

 

By now you're probably thinking: "OK everything else has gone but at least he's left the bridge and tuners". You thought wrong. If you're going to fit a Bigsby, ideally you'd add a roller bridge and locking tuners to aid tuning stability. They're kind of nice to have anyway. Coming from a (grooveless saddle) acoustic guitar background, there's something that just looks wrong with little metal wedges with big chunks gouged out of them. The gentle curve of a roller bridge looks like a much better way to support a string.

 

And locking tuners, well, who doesn't want locking tuners? Especially when you're stringing up a Bigsby...

 

I don't care how my guitar looks, or about vintage correctness. It's a musical instrument: it just has to sound great, feel responsive, and play like butter. You can certainly do some worthwhile upgrades, if you want to, without getting lost on a unicorn hunt.

[Dennis G]

I'm in the "leave it alone till something breaks" for the most part crowd. The exception is my Dot, which got a total p/u, wiring/pot/cap upgrade. Like mcgruff said, it's a good platform to upgrade with. The difference was quite noticeable, and I now have a 335 quality guitar for still less than half the price of a Gibby 335. No plans to ever sell it or I wouldn't have done the upgrade.

 

The only other mods I've made are adding a Bigsby to my Casino, putting Lollar P90's in my Wildkat (only because the bridge p/u died), changed the p/g on my MIM Strat from white to red tortoise. Other than that, all are pretty much stock. If something breaks or dies, I look at upgrading at that point, but normally, not until then.

[milod]

I'm in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school.

 

OTOH, from '64-80, I messed with guitars a lot. A whole lot.

 

Oddly the guitars I still have from that era of my life are unchanged from stock except for what I consider stupidly removing the pickguard from a full hollow I used for country/rock. On the other hand, that guit had already been messed with a bit, Grovers, bridge and tailpiece... Oddly it's an old Harmony now doggone 60 years old and everything works fine - and although it was on the high end of Harmony instruments, it wasn't top of the line.

 

My Dot, btw, doesn't need any changes as far as I can tell.

 

m

[Whitmore Willy]

Is it worth it to watch in HD?

It's the same picture, television show or movie without it!!!

 

Did I just buy the wrong TV?

Should I have bought another brand?

I want to play a LP. I'm not paying for a Gibson.

Do you really think Seymour Duncans sound like Epiphone pickups?

If my intonation is off because my bridge is not wide enough should I have bought an other guitar or

simply an other bridge?

If the taper on my pots does not suit my style, should I have bought a different guitar?

 

Willy

[bigneil]

Often when purchasing a guitar ... I'm not looking at what it has to offer "as is". I'm eyeing up its potential as a modding platform. It's very enjoyable and rewarding, and I get just as much from it as I do from playing them.

 

Born to tinker

[Oldhippie]

Oldhippie, are Germans just as gullible about such things, in your opinion.

 

mmhhh, I don´t understand your comment.....explain it to me, please.

[Whitmore Willy]

In America, it seems that a very large proportion of people latch on to frivolous, baseless beliefs. I was wondering if it was the same in your country.

LOL

I've got to give that one to you!

Look at all the people that still think it is alright to text or talk on the phone while driving.

 

I do have to say that I do believe the world is flat....(I read it on the internet)

 

Willy

[SGgypsyboy]

Too bad Epiphone can't just specify a quality wiring harness in the first place! It would only add about 30-40 bucks to the retail price which we could all afford and at the huge orders they would place for the harness components they would get a major wholesale discount. Too logical I suppose .

 

The specified wiring harness on most all Epiphone models is complete junk which is a well known fact. The pickups are ok and subjective anyway. Let the purchaser mod those and save us the wiring hassle.

[SGgypsyboy]

In guitar terminology a wiring harness is considered the pots,capacitors, switches, jacks, and all the wires of the connected circuit once soldered and assembled.So the assembled circuit is by definition a wiring harness because it contains insulated wiring and assembled components formed into a set assembly circuit.

 

Nice try at making seem like an idiot....you failed.

[SGgypsyboy]

Not trying to embarrass anyone, but if you're the overly-sensitive type.... In YOUR guitar terminology, probably informed by often-inaccurate guitar forums, it might be a harness, but it's not. It's an control assembly.

 

I'm the type that would smash your face into splintered bones if I could get a hold of you. LOL

[Oldhippie]

Is it worth it to watch in HD?

It's the same picture, television show or movie without it!!!

 

Did I just buy the wrong TV?

Should I have bought another brand?

I want to play a LP. I'm not paying for a Gibson.

Do you really think Seymour Duncans sound like Epiphone pickups?

If my intonation is off because my bridge is not wide enough should I have bought an other guitar or

simply an other bridge?

If the taper on my pots does not suit my style, should I have bought a different guitar?

 

Willy

 

Hi Willy,

I did not say that changing technic on a guitar is not nessessary or not "better" !! But some of the socalled better sounds of the guitar are subjective. Yes, you can measure frequences and things like that to see a difference but the human ear is not that sensibel. If you change the PUs...I would say, you have a different guitar.

[bigneil]

If you change the PUs...I would say, you have a different guitar.

 

The guitar is the wooden body and neck assembly, the pickups, wiring and hardware are just adornments that can be changed like an outfit of clothes....in my opinion.

 

that's like saying, if i take the the engine out of my ford and put in an aftermarket one, my car is no longer a ford.

[milod]

Actually I'd say if you change the pups, you've a different guitar.

 

Were that not the case, why would we find SGs apparently otherwise identical sold with HBs and whatever the lastest flavor of P90?

 

Were you replacing standard pups for that model because something broke, it ain't a different guitar, just a repaired one. Replacing them is like putting a '60 Olds engine and drive train into a '40 Ford. It ain't really a '40 Ford any more. Even upgrading the engine from the same marque - e.g., replacing a 6 with a small block 8 of the same marque - you've no longer the same model of car. A Sunbeam with a 4 was the Alpine, with the 8, a Tiger.

 

m

[Oldhippie]

The guitar is the wooden body and neck assembly, the pickups, wiring and hardware are just adornments that can be changed like an outfit of clothes....in my opinion.

 

that's like saying, if i take the the engine out of my ford and put in an aftermarket one, my car is no longer a ford.

 

I agree with you !

 

 

For me it looks like we have two groups of guitarists.

 

The first goes into a shop, tries a guitar and says " Wow...I like the sound and the design" and off he goes. He is satisfied with the sound and never changes anything, unless it´s broken.

 

The second group buys a guitar, doesn´t matter what the sound is like, because they will change all the electrics anyway.

 

 

 

 

[Whitmore Willy]

...it looks like we have two groups of guitarists.

The first goes into a shop, tries a guitar and says " Wow...I like the sound and the design" and off he goes. He is satisfied with the sound and never changes anything, unless it´s broken.

The second group buys a guitar, doesn´t matter what the sound is like, because they will change all the electrics anyway.

I'd call that a fair assessment.

The rest is a matter of semantics.

(IMHO)

 

Willy

[mcgruff]

You can have cheap, you can have good construction, and you can have good electronic bits: but you can only have two. Buying a guitar with the first two and then fixing up the third could be an inexpensive way to quite a nice instrument.

 

Plus it's always nice to learn some new skills. I'll understand my guitars much better if I've worked on them a bit and I'll save on repair bills in the long term.

[RobinTheHood]

I must be in a third group, then. I buy some guitars that are fine the way they are and do no mods, and I buy other guitars because they are good modding candidates or because I like some features but not others.

[Gunner]

I must be in a third group, then. I buy some guitars that are fine the way they are and do no mods, and I buy other guitars because they are good modding candidates or because I like some features but not others.

Bingo! Me too.

[RIX]

So after reading all the comments about mods and keeping in mind my own comments on mods here is a issue that I have notice, but didn't know there was a fix.

 

http://www.stewmac.com/tsarchive/ts0182.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ts0182

 

I'd be interested it trying this one and think I have the parts on hand to give it a try. I just got to find where I put them.