Shortscale Owners... List your mods and tweaks.
Moderated By: mods
lol my stang is still stock, first i wanted lace sensors, then i wanted bareknuckle, then i became broke, then i stopped thinking about it.
now if i could i would put a humbucker or anything with more bass and heavier sounding for fuzz and dist in it, in the neck so i can still have the bite of the bridge pickup sound.
now it's like punk, noisy, surfy : stang
heavy fuzzed stuff : hondo sg
would be great to have it all in one guitar. the sg is shortscale too, shorter than the stang too, i would never mod it with anything, love the pickups in it, but sometimes i think what if these awesome pickups could be put in a guitar that's gonna be a bit more sturdy and feeling more like you have a guitar in your hands and not a flimsy piece of wood.. but i still love it.
now if i could i would put a humbucker or anything with more bass and heavier sounding for fuzz and dist in it, in the neck so i can still have the bite of the bridge pickup sound.
now it's like punk, noisy, surfy : stang
heavy fuzzed stuff : hondo sg
would be great to have it all in one guitar. the sg is shortscale too, shorter than the stang too, i would never mod it with anything, love the pickups in it, but sometimes i think what if these awesome pickups could be put in a guitar that's gonna be a bit more sturdy and feeling more like you have a guitar in your hands and not a flimsy piece of wood.. but i still love it.
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Phil O'Keefe
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- Posts: 519
- Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2010 10:50 am
- Location: Riverside CA USA
Some maintenance tips...
Wax potting pickups can make a great deal of improvement, but it you get the wax too hot, you'll melt the bobbins and ruin the pickup. I prefer Mr Zogs Sex Wax (Best For Your Stick) - three or four cakes in a cleaned out soup can heated over a gas burner, with the temp at around 130-140 F or so. I dip for about 15 - 20 minutes, and gently move the pickup around in the wax a few times to make sure it gets into the entire pickup - if bubbles are coming out of the pickup, it needs to stay in longer. Wax can be messy, and it is easier to use a disposable container to pot with. Surfboard wax is cheap, has always been available locally, and smells good. It's always worked great for me too.
I occasionally use Loctite blue thread locker on loose metal parts on bridges etc to secure things and keep them from coming lose or rattling around. Never use red - it's darned near impossible to remove / adjust later.
Need to fill some screw holes because a pickguard is not lining up, or because your old screw holes are stripping? Wooden handled Q-Tips are ideal. Stick the stick end into the hole and break it off level with the top. For end pin screws, you may need to use two, but for pickguard holes, one is a perfect fit. In a pinch, toothpicks can be substituted, although I prefer the wooden cotton swab handles.
If you don't like the occasional shock when holding your strings and touching a mic with your lips, you can wire a .001uf 500V capacitor and a 220K resistor in parallel inline on your string ground and greatly reduce the chances of getting "zapped" while still keeping the hum reduction advantages of the string ground wire. You can still get "bit" if you touch your control plate or other grounded metal parts of your guitar and a mic at the same time, but most of the time, it happens when you're holding the strings and singing.
Pots with push / pull DPDT switches built in can be really useful for all sorts of wiring tricks. I have one in the volume control of my 94 Tele Special and have it wired up as a phase switch - out for out of phase, and pushed in / normal for normal in phase wiring. While I have my MM set up with standard Duo Sonic switches and wiring at the moment, I may install a DPDT switch equipped pot into it for some other wiring tricks eventually.
Wax potting pickups can make a great deal of improvement, but it you get the wax too hot, you'll melt the bobbins and ruin the pickup. I prefer Mr Zogs Sex Wax (Best For Your Stick) - three or four cakes in a cleaned out soup can heated over a gas burner, with the temp at around 130-140 F or so. I dip for about 15 - 20 minutes, and gently move the pickup around in the wax a few times to make sure it gets into the entire pickup - if bubbles are coming out of the pickup, it needs to stay in longer. Wax can be messy, and it is easier to use a disposable container to pot with. Surfboard wax is cheap, has always been available locally, and smells good. It's always worked great for me too.
I occasionally use Loctite blue thread locker on loose metal parts on bridges etc to secure things and keep them from coming lose or rattling around. Never use red - it's darned near impossible to remove / adjust later.
Need to fill some screw holes because a pickguard is not lining up, or because your old screw holes are stripping? Wooden handled Q-Tips are ideal. Stick the stick end into the hole and break it off level with the top. For end pin screws, you may need to use two, but for pickguard holes, one is a perfect fit. In a pinch, toothpicks can be substituted, although I prefer the wooden cotton swab handles.
If you don't like the occasional shock when holding your strings and touching a mic with your lips, you can wire a .001uf 500V capacitor and a 220K resistor in parallel inline on your string ground and greatly reduce the chances of getting "zapped" while still keeping the hum reduction advantages of the string ground wire. You can still get "bit" if you touch your control plate or other grounded metal parts of your guitar and a mic at the same time, but most of the time, it happens when you're holding the strings and singing.
Pots with push / pull DPDT switches built in can be really useful for all sorts of wiring tricks. I have one in the volume control of my 94 Tele Special and have it wired up as a phase switch - out for out of phase, and pushed in / normal for normal in phase wiring. While I have my MM set up with standard Duo Sonic switches and wiring at the moment, I may install a DPDT switch equipped pot into it for some other wiring tricks eventually.
Jag:
Taped bridge posts
Filed high and low E slots in saddles
Trimmed down the intonation screw on the low E
Changed bass-cut to series-parallel switching
Replaced bridge pup with JB Jr
Replaced lost knobs with some neato old silver stereo knobs
Super Sonic:
Removed neck pickup
Replaced bridge pup with GFS Crunchy Pat
Removed associated switch and volume pot for neck pup
New nut during lefty conversion of the guitar
Drilled new strap button hole on the upper horn
Removed strap button from neckplate and put in a normal length screw
Replaced string tee with a roller tee (this was while I was troubleshooting the weird buzz issue)
*Planned changes*
Drill out new route to move controls and jack to the lower side like it ought to be
Fill in the old route for the controls
New pickguard based around the above change
New tuners
Taped bridge posts
Filed high and low E slots in saddles
Trimmed down the intonation screw on the low E
Changed bass-cut to series-parallel switching
Replaced bridge pup with JB Jr
Replaced lost knobs with some neato old silver stereo knobs
Super Sonic:
Removed neck pickup
Replaced bridge pup with GFS Crunchy Pat
Removed associated switch and volume pot for neck pup
New nut during lefty conversion of the guitar
Drilled new strap button hole on the upper horn
Removed strap button from neckplate and put in a normal length screw
Replaced string tee with a roller tee (this was while I was troubleshooting the weird buzz issue)
*Planned changes*
Drill out new route to move controls and jack to the lower side like it ought to be
Fill in the old route for the controls
New pickguard based around the above change
New tuners
euan wrote: I'm running in monoscope right now. I can't read multiple dimensions of meta right now
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- BADmin (he/him)
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- Joined: Mon Apr 17, 2006 4:16 pm
- Location: Esco-A-Go-Go
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i'm pretty minimalist these days when it comes to upgrades because i know my tastes change, so i'll go back to OG configurations quite often. that said, here's a list of what i've done to shortscales in the past:
all
schaller strap locks - gotta have 'em. some folks don't like the look, but i both don't notice nor care until i get close up to a guitar that has strap locks. and when i do, my reaction is always "NOW THAT'S A SMART MUSICIAN."
'97 jag-stang
lil screamin demon in bridge - when i was gigging the jag-stang a lot, this guitar was the backup. and there was even a point when i was using it as the main selection with the jag-stang as the backup. really wish i didn't need to sell it a few years ago for the cash since you cannot find them very easily (nor the un-modded deluxe toronado i sold at the same time for the same reason).
'62 avri jaguar (2005 model)
gfs dream 90 in bridge & mean 90 in neck - i don't own two of these guitars. the first was stolen (along with my jag-stang) last year, and the kind folks at shortscale.org saw fit to chip in and buy me a replacement when they were being blown out at $300 on musiciansfriend last year. eternally grateful!!! and the upgrade is something i recommend all owners of this guitar consider. if you really like the dragsters, okay, stop reading. but if you are on the fence at all, this is worth the $60 and 1 hour of your time. you'll end up with something with definition, clarity, and versatility in both clean and overdriven settings. in my opinion, the stock pickups don't compare.
classic vibe duo-sonic (2009)
lil screamin demon the bridge position - courtesy of mickie's attempt to get these at the r-word price of $99 for everybody who wanted one of these guitars when an online retailer had them on sale as a loss-leader one day. my wife got one for me, and i proceeded to immediately swap out the bridge pickup because i'd had the duncan one sitting around since abandoning a bronco build project (moneys, hassle, etc). this guitar is now my living room guitar. it sits on a stand in the corner so i pick it up often to strum and noodle while i'm on the couch. it's fun and plays great!
all
schaller strap locks - gotta have 'em. some folks don't like the look, but i both don't notice nor care until i get close up to a guitar that has strap locks. and when i do, my reaction is always "NOW THAT'S A SMART MUSICIAN."
'97 jag-stang
- sperzel locking tuners - i'd never get these again, mainly because i've found the slotted machines to get the job done well enough to make locking tuners superfluous for the most part. if i did ever want to employ locking tuners again, i'd go schaller like what came on my old ad fat strat. they were more comfortable to use as the sperzels dig into your fingers.
- lil screamin demon in neck position - did this when i was anti single coil pickups. . . wouldn't do it again.
- jb in bridge position - i stand behind this upgrade. never got on with the stock jag-stang humbucker, and (as fran pointed out in another thread) replacing pickups is pretty common cij/mij instruments. . . a point worth repeating. the jb was a good, moderate output option with tons of expressiveness built-in.
lil screamin demon in bridge - when i was gigging the jag-stang a lot, this guitar was the backup. and there was even a point when i was using it as the main selection with the jag-stang as the backup. really wish i didn't need to sell it a few years ago for the cash since you cannot find them very easily (nor the un-modded deluxe toronado i sold at the same time for the same reason).
'62 avri jaguar (2005 model)
- lil jb in bridge position w/ push pull coil splitting - allowed me to get more of teh kurdtz tonez w/o routing or cutting the pickguard. as much i liked the sounds, i decided eventually it was better to employ something like this on a jag-stang or other already-humbucker-equipped instrument. the stock pickup is back in it. <3
- tom bridge - BIGGEST. MISTAKE. EVER. fucking thing never intonated right, and all the problems associated with jags remained. plus, the motherfucker who did the "upgrade" for me pulled out and threw away the bushings, chipped the paint around them, and drilled the holes out deeper to accommodate the tom posts. as a result (and after restoring this back to the stock bridge), i always tell my horror story to n00bz to dissuade them from making the same error. YOU DON'T NEED TO DO THIS. A STOCK BRIDGE CAN BE SETUP FINE. SAVE YOUR MONEYS.
- removed the mute - not a true mod as it is just a measure of removing extra hardware i don't need that just exists as a potentially rattling element. i know how to palm mute just fine, thx. bridge cover, though? that stays on, baby. looks CLASSY.
gfs dream 90 in bridge & mean 90 in neck - i don't own two of these guitars. the first was stolen (along with my jag-stang) last year, and the kind folks at shortscale.org saw fit to chip in and buy me a replacement when they were being blown out at $300 on musiciansfriend last year. eternally grateful!!! and the upgrade is something i recommend all owners of this guitar consider. if you really like the dragsters, okay, stop reading. but if you are on the fence at all, this is worth the $60 and 1 hour of your time. you'll end up with something with definition, clarity, and versatility in both clean and overdriven settings. in my opinion, the stock pickups don't compare.
classic vibe duo-sonic (2009)
lil screamin demon the bridge position - courtesy of mickie's attempt to get these at the r-word price of $99 for everybody who wanted one of these guitars when an online retailer had them on sale as a loss-leader one day. my wife got one for me, and i proceeded to immediately swap out the bridge pickup because i'd had the duncan one sitting around since abandoning a bronco build project (moneys, hassle, etc). this guitar is now my living room guitar. it sits on a stand in the corner so i pick it up often to strum and noodle while i'm on the couch. it's fun and plays great!
