Personal favorite electric guitar mods?

[Scootch]

I once bought a Squier Strat. Used.
Someone, somehow, swapped the middle and bridge. It was interesting. I could now play neck and bridge at the same time.

So I had on hand from an old project some Kent Armstrong pickups one of which was out of phase to allow them to humbuck when played together.

I put one in the neck and the out of phase one in the middle

Now I have
1 neck
2 humbuck 1 and 5
3 bridge
4 weird out of phase 3 and 5
5 middle

Or something like that.

Anyway, it's quite interesting. Believe me.

[JeffreyAK]

For Strat-style guitars (all I've ever owned): Remove slinky stock strings, install 10-52 light/heavy gauge, raise action until you can bend the unwound strings at will and pick as hard you wish on the wound strings without slapping the frets, and reset intonation. An interview with Robin Trower published in Guitar Player sent me in this direction many years ago.

In terms of hardware changes, swapping a stacked humbucker into the bridge position was a huge improvement to my ears, particularly when playing with a lot of amp gain and distortion.

What you like depends a great deal on how you play, though, so someone else would undoubtedly hate my guitar, and I might not like their mods or setup either.

[Steve DeRosa]

Saw this one on some bar-band guy's parts Strat about 30 years ago:

• Retrofit your guitar with a vintage-style 3-way switch, wired Neck/Neck+Bridge (in series/in-phase)/Bridge
• Wire the pots as follows:
  1. Master (N+B) volume
  2. Middle-PU volume
  3. Master tone
• Install a push-pull pot on the middle volume for phase switching

Extremely versatile - lets you get neck/bridge (this one really gooses a tube amp's front end nicely, BTW), as well as all three pickups in or out of phase - every position produces a useable tone, and it looks dead stock (remember how everybody was drilling out their Strat pickguards for all kinds of switches back then? ); FWIW I understand Hank Marvin had his own Strats wired similarly - kinda explains how he got those tones that nobody could quite figure out - and the early-80's Yamaha SSC-500 and recently-discontinued Gretsch 5622T-CB (both of which I own) used variations on the same theme. In addition, if you sink the middle pickup flush with the pickguard and use flatwound 12's you can get the "acoustic" tone I referred to earlier - just might do a Strat of my own like this sometime...

[maxtheaxe]

I'm always trying to think of ways to improve tone, action, etc, so I mess about with my instruments a lot...up to a point. I'm really pretty much hopeless when it comes to rewiring pickups, switches, pots...pretty sure I'd end up screwing something up so I just don't. The only time I will change pups is if I find something that I like enough, I will buy an assembled pickguard and swap out the whole thing...I can manage at least to solder the input jack and ground wire/claw.

Hardware is another matter...I've tried different bridges, tuners, nuts, stuff like that. I've discovered for example that I really like the Wilkinson tremolo I installed on one of my strats...but I also discovered that the saddle set-screws are blued, mild steel that corrodes easily. I've never been able to find replacements for these so I haven't swapped any others for that bridge...it's a pity.

Another bridge that I've found that I like is the Stetsbar Tremolo. I've posted about these here in the past. They are a drop-in replacement on any guitar with a Gibson-style bridge and wrap tailpiece and can be readily adapted to Telecasters and a few other designs. They can be used on a Strat as well, but I like Strat-style trems just fine, so wouldn't use on those. I do think they're an excellent alternative to Bigsby Tremolos. I admit that I've never really cared for Bigsbys, but in the case of the Stetsbar, its a really well-engineered, much more functional trem system that can be set up so that one can change tunings or break strings and the rest of the guitar stays in tune.

Lately I've been contemplating a partscaster build and have been on the lookout for deal on a white Fender MIM Strat, alder or ash with a maple neck/fretboard to use as a platform. Why? Because I always wanted a white strat. I figure it's a good excuse to try some different pickups from what I have. I think I've narrowed it down to either an EMG David Gilmore set up or a Fender Custom Shop Fat 50's...in white pearloid with gold hardware, locking tuners.

Yeah...I get pretty wrapped up in tinkering with these things...wish I knew more about the electronics, but ultimately I just want to get great tone and then PLAY.

[Marley]

I have a 97 PRS Custom 22 that I've had for 20 years. I love almost everything about it except for 3 things. Two I could change and one I couldn't.

It came with Dragon humbuckers and the ridiculous 5 way rotary switch. I never liked the dragons that much. A couple of year ago, I bought 2 Lollar single coils for humbuckers and sent the guitar back to Maryland so they could switch out the pickups and exchange the 5 way rotary for a 3 way toggle switch. Much better now for me. For live playing the 5 way rotary has to be one of the worst guitar designs ever. I played my live fairly heavily for 18 years. Now I can switch pups without missing a beat.

A change I can't make to it is the top carve. The way I play, the top carve is rather sharp and cuts into my right forearm. Nothing I can do about it so I just deal with it but I hate it. I'd prefer an arm rest like on my strat for the same reason we are getting acoustics now with arm rests. Much more comfortable.

[3waytie4last]

I put a 4-way switch and TBX tone control in all my modded Fender-style 2 pickup guitars. My preferred 4-way setup is: series in position closest to neck, then neck/parallel/bridge.

I always make any humbuckers splitable with a push/pull tone pot. Most don't split very well, but sometimes the thin tone works with the right pedal or if picked a certain way. The best split HBs I've had are actually the weird-looking G&L MFD HBs. They sound really good when split.

I've got two different 3-pickup guitars that came from the factory with a bridge + neck position, which is a pretty cool option, but I've never wired a guitar to do that.

[blue]

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa

Saw this one on some bar-band guy's parts Strat about 30 years ago

This is a very good point. For a gigging guitar you may want to maximize versatility OR have one killer tone you sit on (like a Dick Dale type who wants to throw one switch and hit his "signature tone).

For a Home guitar, I'm generally not concerned with a ton of versatility. I just worry about one or two killer tones.

This is why I first got my Fly Deluxe for playing out. I could get ONE great Surf Instro tone, ONE great clean neck pickup "jazzy" tone, and ONE great Heavy humbucker tone. And as good a piezo for acoustic sounds (translation, not very ) as I could get from any soldibody without a modeler. And that wasn't a bad thing to have.

Do I play it a lot at home? Only if I'm learning some super challenging chords and I want the super thin, flat neck.

[redir]

Jerry Garcia's onboard unity gain preaamp loop is one of the coolest mods I've ever come across. I also like the Lindy Fralin Strat blender wiring.

[David Eastwood]

I don't have a list of things I like to do to electric guitars, but I do have a couple of favourites in recent years. One was replacing the stock single coils in my OLP MM4 with a couple of Fender Noiseless pickups I grabbed off eBay for a song. Now, every pickup position is dead silent, and with the sweetest neck, it all adds up to an inexpensive favourite I'll probably never part with.

The second is the StayTrem bridge I put on my Squier VM Jaguar. Infinitely better than the stock bridge, less expensive than a Mastery. Highly recommended. I added their tremolo mod also, which was the icing on the cake. Both made an already impressive instrument a keeper.

[al_az]

treble bleed mod: I hate loosing treble when you turn the volume control down. The cap/resistor added across the lugs on the volume pot works wonders. Volume control now adjusts just volume (what a concept), tone control adjusts tone. Check out stewmac for values.

[Fairlight]

Mastery bridge and trem on the Pro Jazzmaster. Also updated to Lollar JM pups. No mods needed on my '91 Strat Plus. Perfect as-is.