HOW DO YOU PRIORITIZE YOUR MODDING?

[Doug]

As a low-tech, near no-tech newbie musician, I read with real interest & admiration the modding you've 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 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 tons of skill here, thanks for your tips.

Cheers,

[paul_]

I only mod guitars if there's something wrong with them as far as my personal tastes are concerned.

Unless they're really cheap, that generally means I have to own them first. Pickups would generally be first, pots/switches etc... don't need replacing immediately unless you need a different value for a new pickup.

Stuff like bridges and tuners, I have to play the guitar for a couple string changes before I decide to start messing with that stuff.

All of my best guitars are stock. That's kind of how I gauge a good one, in fact.

[George]

Both my main players have no load-tone pots and one has different pickups but that's about it. I modded the hell out of my Jaguar but in retrospect I would have appreciated it more and kept it stock if I'd have had a Strat a Tele type guitar alongside it - but I wanted it to be a workhorse and got pissed off with it. I think if you have a decent enough spread of guitars you won't need to do major mods except pickups or pots anyway.

[Doug]

I only mod guitars if there's something wrong with them as far as my personal tastes are concerned...Unless they're really cheap, that generally means I have to own them first. Pickups would generally be first, pots/switches etc... don't need replacing immediately unless you need a different value for a new pickup...Stuff like bridges and tuners, I have to play the guitar for a couple string changes before I decide to start messing with that stuff. All of my best guitars are stock. That's kind of how I gauge a good one, in fact.

Thanks, Paul. Makes sense. And you raise another question.

Some guitarists I respect have told me that when they identify a tonal quality they want and can't get, the first mod should be the cap, then see if that does it before new pups.

Other opinions?

[Doug]

Both my main players have no load-tone pots and one has different pickups but that's about it. I modded the hell out of my Jaguar but in retrospect I would have appreciated it more and kept it stock if I'd have had a Strat a Tele type guitar alongside it - but I wanted it to be a workhorse and got pissed off with it. I think if you have a decent enough spread of guitars you won't need to do major mods except pickups or pots anyway.

That sounds sensible. Thanks for sparing me going through a version of your Jag experience. Ouch!

What's a no load tone pot?

Cheers,

[HNB]

I normally just change pickguards and such. Pots if I think it is too bassy. Pickups if pots don't help.

[paul_]

What's a no load tone pot?

A no-load tone pot is one that takes the tone cap/pot out of the equation when the tone knob is turned up all the way to 10, sending your volume pot to the output jack for pure unadulterated highs. On 1-9 it still works as a regular tone control.
On traditional tone pot wiring there's still a slight effect when the tone knob is turned all the way up, with a no-load it's a tad brighter.

[Doug]

What's a no load tone pot?

A no-load tone pot is one that takes the tone cap/pot out of the equation when the tone knob is turned up all the way to 10, sending your volume pot to the output jack for pure unadulterated highs. On 1-9 it still works as a regular tone control. On traditional tone pot wiring there's still a slight effect when the tone knob is turned all the way up, with a no-load it's a tad brighter.

I'm filing your reply, Paul. Clear explanation of something I'm gonna put to use sooner or later. I hope others find it useful, too. Tho most here are pretty knowledgable.

Cheers,

[Doug]

I normally just change pickguards and such. Pots if I think it is too bassy. Pickups if pots don't help.

Okay, thanks...that's helpful.

Cheers,

[aen]

Both my main players have no load-tone pots and one has different pickups but that's about it. I modded the hell out of my Jaguar but in retrospect I would have appreciated it more and kept it stock if I'd have had a Strat a Tele type guitar alongside it - but I wanted it to be a workhorse and got pissed off with it. I think if you have a decent enough spread of guitars you won't need to do major mods except pickups or pots anyway.

That sounds sensible. Thanks for sparing me going through a version of your Jag experience. Ouch!

What's a no load tone pot?

Cheers,

It's a magical little device that essentially bypasses the tone pot, making your pickups EXTRA SCREECHY AND METALLIC. (usually)

[HNB]

I normally just change pickguards and such. Pots if I think it is too bassy. Pickups if pots don't help.

Okay, thanks...that's helpful.

Cheers,

Not sure if that was a sarcastic thanks, but it is true. I used to sell guitars that didn't sound right to me. I learned changing pot values makes a huge difference in sound. If I still can't nail the sound I want, I move to pickups. Most of the time pots do the trick. I tend to go for 500k or 1megs most of the time.

I have learned to keep guitars that feel good. I can always change and adjust sound, but a crappy feeling guitar is harder to fix.

[Doug]

I normally just change pickguards and such. Pots if I think it is too bassy. Pickups if pots don't help.

Okay, thanks...that's helpful.

Cheers,

Not sure if that was a sarcastic thanks, but it is true. I used to sell guitars that didn't sound right to me. I learned changing pot values makes a huge difference in sound. If I still can't nail the sound I want, I move to pickups. Most of the time pots do the trick. I tend to go for 500k or 1megs most of the time.

I have learned to keep guitars that feel good. I can always change and adjust sound, but a crappy feeling guitar is harder to fix.

Woah, I'm glad you're checkin, HNB. No, I wasn't bein sarcastic. But I know it's hard to tell sometimes in email or forum mode, especially if you don't know the person.

What you're adding about selling or not, and the practical value of changing pots, sounds wise and this is exactly why I posted my question. I really am in early learning and trying to sort out the myths, half-truths, and purely subjective opinions from the sensible, time-tested wisdom.

So you go for 500K or 1 meg pots. Most of my guitars are traditional single coils (Mustang, Duo-Sonic) or P90s (LP Special, Epi Casino, Gibson BluesHawk). What pots do you find come in most single coil guitars?

Cheers, friend,

[paul_]

So you go for 500K or 1 meg pots. Most of my guitars are traditional single coils (Mustang, Duo-Sonic) or P90s (LP Special, Epi Casino, Gibson BluesHawk). What pots do you find come in most single coil guitars?

Fender single coils traditionally use 250ks whereas P90s use 500ks like a humbucker. A lot of lower-end Fender copies use 500ks to beef up dull sounding single coils though, particularly ones with ceramic magnets versus alnicos in my experience (the cheaper GFS assembled strat guards certainly do this, and many Squier Strats like the affinity/older standard series)

1megs will make a guitar VERY bright. Certain humbuckers like the Super Distortion can handle this just fine... on a single coil strat it's going to be super spikey. A member of this board had a Strat with a 1meg volume and no tone control, he called it the "tinnitus-caster".

There is no correct way to do it, though many set-ups can be too dark/bright for the average bear... I find putting a rail (or other buckers presumably) in a Strat's bridge position tends to come out too dark (too muddy for the bridge position) unless you also nudge the pots up to 500ks along with it. The remaining 2 single coils do not sound terrible in this situation, though they will be brighter than stock.
Similarly, the previous owner of a Les Paul I have had replaced the bridge pickup volume pot with a 250k by mistake or whatever.. I thought "wow, this bridge pickup is muffled sounding" so I replaced it with a Super Distortion... also muffled sounding. When I changed the pot back to a 500k, whooooa. That was what I wanted the whole time.

You have to strike a compromise when mixing/matching Fender singles with buckers, but if you have a bridge bucker or bridge P90 I would always use at least 500ks. Being too bright is better than being too dark, because you can turn the tone knob down... you can't put it up to 15.

edit- just as I say there's no "wrong way" to do it, there's no blanket rule either... Jaguars and Jazzies use 1meg pots on their lead circuit.

[HNB]

Woah, I'm glad you're checkin, HNB. No, I wasn't bein sarcastic. But I know it's hard to tell sometimes in email or forum mode, especially if you don't know the person.

What you're adding about selling or not, and the practical value of changing pots, sounds wise and this is exactly why I posted my question. I really am in early learning and trying to sort out the myths, half-truths, and purely subjective opinions from the sensible, time-tested wisdom.

So you go for 500K or 1 meg pots. Most of my guitars are traditional single coils (Mustang, Duo-Sonic) or P90s (LP Special, Epi Casino, Gibson BluesHawk). What pots do you find come in most single coil guitars?

Cheers, friend,

Cool. I saw the "Thanks...." and thought maybe you were being sarcastic. No biggie at all. Text is hard to interpret most of the time.

Jaguars are single coil and have one meg pots. Jazzys are also single coil with one megs. Those are what turned me on to upping them. (Especially with my humbucker guitars.) 500k is normally the lowest I go on my guitars because I like brighter. If it is too bright, I turn the tone pot down a bit. Normally I don't find a need though.

[George]

Both my main players have no load-tone pots and one has different pickups but that's about it. I modded the hell out of my Jaguar but in retrospect I would have appreciated it more and kept it stock if I'd have had a Strat a Tele type guitar alongside it - but I wanted it to be a workhorse and got pissed off with it. I think if you have a decent enough spread of guitars you won't need to do major mods except pickups or pots anyway.

That sounds sensible. Thanks for sparing me going through a version of your Jag experience. Ouch!

What's a no load tone pot?

Cheers,

It's a magical little device that essentially bypasses the tone pot, making your pickups EXTRA SCREECHY AND METALLIC. (usually)

The effect is really not as extreme as that at all; it's just useful when using neck pickups and heavier gain so it's a bit less muddy. Just a little something to have up your sleeve so you can be heard in a mix.