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I just got done doing some pickup swaps and mods and such, and realized that there are some certain mods that I do to all guitars, regardless of body shape, pickups, bridge, wood, etc.

What mods are a MUST for you on your axes?

Mine is clipping the tone pot and wiring up a single master volume. I never touch the tone knob, and I find that without it, I get a nice added bit of clarity and brightness (common knowledge). I never use more than just the volume, and having one for each pickup is overkill for me, and only ends up confusing me in the end.

modify a guitar?????? what???? who in their right mind would do such a crazy thing????
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

i can't leave anything alone it all must be my style!

-Mike

Since I crave Gibson-style stuff like I crave shaved poo-nanny, I like guitars with the Gibson stop-tailpiece...and then change them over to a Gibson TP-6 tailpiece with quot;fine tunersquot;! This $50 mod (retail discount-or-web) adds the ability to play BONE-F**KING CRUSHING IN TUNE cathedral-filling tones on a properly intonated instrument! It is a revelation...like a perfectly tuned V-12 engine!

This is a NO SH*T mod that does not need permanent mods, and can be transferred to another Gibson in minutes. I need to find out if this mod is transferrable to Epi LPs.

Normaly pickups only. I'm thinking of getting a custom paint job done soon though. What do you think of a bunch of cards over the guitar, like king of hearts and ace of spades over on top of each other like theyv'e been tossed randomly as a paint job, a little showy prolly.

Before I even re-string an axe, it gets some of that damn clear-coat steel wooled off the neck. Not anything dangerous, like down to bare wood, but enough that it doesn't turn to glue with humidity.

Also, any tremelo guitars get the trem-cavity stuffed with tissues. I can't stand that pseudo-reverb from the springs.

No load tone pots,wire a strat's bridge pickup for tone control,Fralin Blender pot,treble bleed mods,split/series/parallel switching..

i generally will put strap-locks on, and change pickups if it is a cheaper guitar, like a mexi strat, which are great guitars to mod. i won't mod expensive instruments, since i see no point in spending all that money in the first place if the guitar isn't what I want.

- Pickups
- Straplocks
- Nuts (if plastic)
- Saddles (if cheap metal or those stupid S saddles that buzz like mad on a Strat bridge)
- Strings
- Fretdress and round off the edges where my frethand rubs

The Godin i'm getting has plastic tuners, do you rekon its worth changeing to something a little nicer on the eyes? Also do you think i should get graphite saddles? is it worth the money?

Yes, and Yes.

It is usually just the pickups for me, but that's what being a tone-hog is all about.

pickups, wireing, stickering, general fu*k-uping etc etc

I burn them...they always nice and crisp afterwards

Nothing but a setup and straplocks... everything else as it becomes necessasry

Depends on the guitar.

Strats/tele's get stripped down and heavily shielded with paint and tape and new pickups in most cases.

The PRS' with rotary switching generally get switched to McCarty wiring or simpler 3 way toggle w/o coil splitting. Pickups swaps on these guitars depends on instrument and application.

The Warmoths almost don't count since they are built from scratch by me any way. The one I built for myself isn't shielded at the moment but its on the shortlist for new projects.

I've done new pups, graphite nut (to accommodate heavier gauge strings), 500k pots and a good setup. I think new sperzel tuners are next.

All guitars get straplocks glued in and I'll use Tri-Flow on the nut.

On Les Pauls I'll generally leave the wiring bone-stock. I get flack from one guy who consistently believes that I need to wire in a master volume.

On Strats I'll wire up the middle knob to handle tone for both the neck and bridge pickup. I've found guitars without tone knobs to be almost consistently useless to me.

Usually just straplocks and full setup to my likeings. Qiute often the pups.

i'm slowly evolving my strat. Right now it has antiquity II SSS config, the switcher goes from middle, neck, to bridge (and the in betweens-neck middle, and neck bridge) for a tele type tone.

the next thing i plan on doing is buying a passive pre wired mid controller (custom tapered pot w/ orange drop, inductor and other stuff i dont want to bother with, all for 17 bucks!) It has a detent at the center of its rotation representing your tone without any alteration. Twist it down and it scoops your mids while 'relatively boosting your treble and bass', turn it up and it boosts the mids, making the pickups sound raunchier.

Whenever i buy a new guitar these days i try to go for one that is perfect the way it is out of the box... As less modding the better... But i have bought many used and beat up guitars that i mod.... I don't like Tone controlls either and if i have to do electronic work i clip them... I like humbuckers and few of my MIM strats i routed out for humbuckers...

Sometimes guitars like my Jacksons that have 2 humbuckers with a 3 way switch and 1 vol and 1 tone... i wire it up differently so i have volume for each humbucker...

These days when shopping for new guitars i don't want to buy an expensive guitar and throw some parts into it i was not happy with... I will customize used guitars and custom parts guitars... I think Warmoth type parts guitars is what i'll stick to from now on! I'm too picky to settle for off the shelf guitars.. But if i bought say a new Les Paul..... i'd want it to remain stock. My old 70's LP has Duncans in it....

WHOFAN