Recomendation for a good intro electronics/pickup/mod book?

Painting? Routing? Set-up tips? Or just straight-up making a guitar from scratch? Post here, and post pics!

Moderated By: mods

JamesBenjamin
.
.
Posts: 14
Joined: Fri Sep 26, 2008 6:26 pm
Location: Bristow VA
Contact:

Recomendation for a good intro electronics/pickup/mod book?

Post by JamesBenjamin »

I'm looking to start tweaking some of my guitars, but haven't done anything of the sort since high school, when I was sort of just soldering things together and hoping not to blow anything up.

So does anyone know of a basics/mid-level book (or two or three) on guitar electronics I might want to look into?

My first project will be replacing all the electronics in a epi lp special so that's fairly simple (it only has one "p90"), but I have another guitar to tackle this summer that will be a lot more involved...

Thanks!
User avatar
bassintom
.
.
Posts: 1474
Joined: Sun Dec 24, 2006 3:00 am
Location: between rock & hardplace, N.J.
Contact:

Post by bassintom »

You can find a shitload of wiring diagrams on the Seymour Duncan site.
Welcome to SS.Org.Tread lightly,and wear a steel plate in your pants.JK :)
I learned everything I know about building guitars here.
User avatar
Fran
The Curmudgeon
Posts: 22219
Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2006 5:53 am
Location: Nottingham, Englandshire.

Post by Fran »

Welcome.
There are general guidelines with most designs, 'rule of thumb' type thing. But theres nothing wrong with breaking rules ;)
User avatar
hotrodperlmutter
crescent fresh
Posts: 16665
Joined: Sat Apr 04, 2009 10:29 pm
Location: Overland Park, KS, USA

Post by hotrodperlmutter »

bassintom wrote:You can find a shitload of wiring diagrams on the Seymour Duncan site.
Welcome to SS.Org.Tread lightly,and wear a steel plate in your pants.JK :)
he's not kidding about either.
dots wrote:fuck that guy in his bunkhole.
User avatar
DGNR8
.
.
Posts: 4220
Joined: Sat Sep 30, 2006 2:51 am
Location: DC Area

Post by DGNR8 »

Make sure the metal plate is grounded to the one in your brain pan.

This is theBOOK I started with. It's good for all around repair and maintenance. Erlewine is the tech at StewMac. He has a lot of cool tools, and some that he helped invent. I go there every few weeks or so.

What kinds of mods are you thinking about?
Yell Like Hell
JamesBenjamin
.
.
Posts: 14
Joined: Fri Sep 26, 2008 6:26 pm
Location: Bristow VA
Contact:

Post by JamesBenjamin »

That stewmac site looks pretty good, I bookmarked that sucker to come back to it later.

If replacing the original p90 in the epi goes well (one of the pots is shot, so i'm going to replace everything) then i might try a pedal mod or two. I have an extra DS-1 i'm itching to do something to, i just don't know what yet.

I also have another guitar in peices that is wired weirdly - the hb pickups have a knobs blending the split hb pickups, i'd like to replace the knob action with switches. but that guitar has been in peices for years, i'm not sure how its set up now, i'm going from memory. i do have the electronics bagged and marked well for when the time comes, though.