Priorities in modding?

Doug

As a low-tech, near no-tech musician, I read with real interest & admiration the modding plans many of you have. And have done.

Here's two questions about how you prioirtize your mods. Some posts say, "I'm gonna buy that Squire Gelding and throw a pair of hot Sierra Palin pups in there." But you do put a bit more thought into mods...help me on that.

1. How do you decide what to mod first...caps, pots, nut, pups, strings...?

2. And, if each guitar of the same make-model has it's own characteristics of sound & playability, how long do you play & listen (and how do you listen) before deciding what to mod first?

There's so much skill here, thanks for your tips.

Cheers,

johnnykazz

Doug said:
As a low-tech, near no-tech musician, I read with real interest & admiration the modding plans many of you have. And have done.
Here's two questions about how you prioirtize your mods. Some posts say, "*I'm gonna buy that Squire Gelding and throw a pair of hot Sierra Palin pups in there." *But you do put a bit more thought into mods...help me on that.

How do you decide what to mod first...caps, pots, nut, pups, strings...?

And, if each guitar of the same make-model has it's own characteristics of sound & playability, how long do you play & listen (and how do you listen) before deciding what to mod first?
There's so much skill here, thanks for your tips.
Cheers,

Hey Doug. IMO, deciding what to change first depends mainly on how much money you are looking to spend and also what is bugging your ears solely or the most. I can put together an "in-general" type thing so you know what each mod is doing and where they would be utilized the most.

CAPACITOR - In general, the higher the value of the cap, the DARKER your tone will be. As such, the lower the value, typically brighter the sound would be.
POTENTIOMETER - These are in general, opposite of the cap as far as values go. A 250K pot will be darker than a 500K pot which would be brighter, and a 1meg pot even brighter, but this is argued as some say pots have no tonal qualities, where-as I think they do. IMO, 500K is typically used for humb####ers to give it a little more detail since they are typically hotter than single-coils and warmer, and 250K is used for single-coils to kind of take off some of the tinniness or over-detail single-coils can have.
NUT - IMO, What the nut is made of can change the sustain quality of the guitar. I would avoid a plastic nut at all costs if you are interested in having a great sustaining guitar. Graphite and TUSQ are good, and in my opinion, real bone is the best. Some people use metal nuts too which I would imagine have incredible sustain as well. I know some of the Strat Ultra series guitars from the early 90's used a metal nut with a Floyd Rose bridge.
PICKUPS - Pickups seem to be where people have the most knowledge. Humb####ers obviously as they imply "buck" the hum. Depending on how hot they are, your ears may still be able to pick up some hum or noise, but it does its best to minimize it so I would consider them to be more of a minimizer than a hum eraser. Typically, humb####ers have a warmer tone and can get heavier, although I have found that with a coil-split wiring you can get some seriously decent brighter and detailed tones. Single-coils are also terrific as they are very detailed and when overdriven or fuzzed can get some pretty awesome tones as well. I like to have several guitars with different pickup configurations for ultimate tonal variance. If you have the wallet, it would be awesome to have a guitar with humb####ers and one with single-coils. If you don't have the wallet for that, I would recommend a humb####er and single coil setup in one guitar with a coil-split on the bridge humb####er.
STRINGS - I won't talk about brands here because that is all personal preference and you won't find MUCH of a difference across the brand spectrum. As far as size goes, I always look at string size depending on how I have my guitar tuned. If I am using standard tuning or just standard flat tuning, I typically use "regular/standard" size which is 10-46. I currently have one guitar that I tune down a whole step to DGCFAD. For that, I use thicker strings because obviously the thicker the strings, the more tension it will have, so in general I tend to use thicker strings for lower tunings to make sure the tension is correct and the strings aren't floppy like noodles when tuned lower. Some companies you can also buy strings individually, which in my opinion would be good for Drop-D tuning. I.E. - You could use a normal set of strings but buy one thicker string for your low-E so when it is tuned down it retains the tension of the other strings. I use Dean Markley Vintage Reissue strings, but again, preference is all yours.

I hope this helps a bit, at least to look at which each thing would do, and decide what is bugging you the most. For example, if you feel like your pickups sound great but they are a bit too warm or dark for your taste, maybe try changing the cap from a .047 to a .022 and maybe think about upping the OHM rating on your pots from 250k to 500k. Again, hope it helps a bit and maybe HNB can give you some input as he works on his guitars personally and frequently.

Mad-Mike

To answer #1 - it really depends on the guitar, the circumstances, and the particular issues....I'll just give some examples of how I went about things....

My 85' Kramer Focus 3000 was a lemon - the locking nut broke, I replaced it. I got sick of looking for hex keys, I got a hacksaw and cut slots for a flathead screwdriver into the lock screws. Bridge pickup dies, I get a better pickup. High E keeps hanging on the pickup - I get a pickup ring and mount the pickup flush with it. Wiring goes bad, I build a new pickguard and add features I want to make it more Jaguar/Jazzmaster-like. Floyd Rose caves in and I'm totally broke - I buy a second hand Kahler and bolt it on with cylinder head bolts from a Lawn Mower engine. Headstock breaks, I add 2 screws to reinforce the weak area where the break happened. Wanted a floyd rose again - built a support using brackets from the back of a Computer and installed the original floyd again.
My Jag-Stang, in a total contrast, had all the parts there, but over time I Found things that would make it more convenient as my main guitar. Can't do phase changes with active pickups? So I rewired the bridge pickup switch into a pickup selector, and rewired the neck one to activate an EMG Pi2 Phase inverter on the neck pickup when slid towards the bridge. Wanted to get that Les-Paul-With-Neck-Pickup-Off switch flippy thing that chops the sound up - I left the forward of the neck switch blank and use that for that effect. I wanted to emulate single coil guitars - so I put a stupidly high value cap on the volume knob for a treble bypass - instant Tele on an active humbucker! Wanted more treble/high mids wide-open - I cut the trace inside the tone pot to make it no-load.
My Jaguar was bought with the intent of returning it to stock. So I got it in, I played it, I compared it with clips from the Fender Jazzmaster and Jaguar pages and found despite 500K pots and Cool Rails that it sounded perfect so I left those alone. But I did not like the feel of the Tune-O-Matic that the previous owner installed, nor did I like those rails pickups with all the black-space around them. So I saved my money, bought some Jaguar pickup covers and claws, cut them flush with the cool rails, installed them, found the screws too short, so I bought longer ones from the hardware store, and installed them. Then I yanked the TOM, ground out the wood filler with a Dremel, and put in a stock Jaguar bridge and thimbles. After that, I tackled the usual Jag bridge demons, but still wanted the same bridge/saddles/sound - so I got 2 stronger springs for pickups - put them on the high and low E saddles, angled those till the action screw holes act as a "lock", boxing in the other 4 saddles, and all was great.

To answer #2, it all depends on what I bought the guitar for. Some are BARGIAN instruments, like, for example, I'll buy a Crate strat copy and rebuild it and modify the wiring to sound better than original, and pot the pickups, and all that jazz, but I won't play it at all first, I'll just dig in and fix the faults that are already apparent before tackling any issues/preferences.

In the cases above, I played all those guitars for quite awhile beforehand. My Kramer lasted 2 years without mods before I started "mutilating" it. My Jag-Stang was stock for 6 months until I got the curiosity to pop the pickguard and find the atrocity the former owner did putting those EMGs in it. My Jaguar I played first to see if I really needed to spend $200-300 returning it to stock and "70's-ifying" it to get what I wanted (my benchmark was a 63' Jag with all original hot factory wound pickups), and found I only needed to spend roughly $20.

To me, it's all subjective, each guitar has it's own journey with me.