Post by bowyn on Sept 5, 2012 16:33:20 GMT -5
So, what was the build/project/modification that got you interested in doing more than playing the with volume/tone/pickup selector... and convinced you that you could make a better AXE?
Here's my story. Please feel free to post yours, and, because this is the gallery, please post pictures
! Guitar Porn!
Some background info:
After my divorce, I had one guitar. It's a black Ibanez RG270. Made in Korea and one of the early models, I'd find out later. I played and recorded everything with this guitar. I had nothing else. I managed, somehow, to make it sound pretty decent for both heavy rock and lighter, almost acoustic sounding stuff when recording, but it was always a job, and I could never just whip it out and play something for someone and be satisfied with what I heard.
(Original stock Ibanez RG-270 that I paid far too much for)
Now, I'm not a great guitar player. I consider myself a rhythm guy with dreams of guitar-godhood. I wish I could play better, but I'm rusty from years of neglect and very self-conscious. Don't get me wrong, when I'm alone and it's during the day so as not to destroy my neighbor's sleep, I like to turn it up and just play whatever comes through my soul, however well I can play it and I AM A GOD for that time and it fulfills me somewhat. But realistically, I can carry rhythm and vocals but I'm not an accomplished lead player.
Anyway, after I started jamming with a good friend of mien who has the same model of guitar as mine, just a different color, I kept picking up his guitar, cause it sounded better. I couldn't figure out why his would sound better than mine, then i noticed his had little V7 and V8s and stuff on the pickups. Mine didn't.
We talked a lot about getting different guitars and such, but it was deep water I wasn't comfortable stepping into at the time. As far as my thinking went, if you want a better guitar, you buy a better guitar. While that can certainly be true, I eventually did some reading up on my guitar model and started getting curious.
The body is basswood. I realize that's used for cheaper model guitars, and this is a cheaper model Korean Ibanez, make no mistake. I think being aware of that helped kick me into "F@$K it" mode. Anyway, about basswood: turns out, there nothing wrong with it. It's not a "wood of choice" but it's not "bad" by any means. I realize opinions on that are going to vary wildly and I may get POOPOOed for saying it, but, while I'm not ignorant of Alder, Ash, and Mahogany (among others) I am the furthest thing you'll ever find from a snob about this stuff.
So, anyway, the way I saw it, it's got a good body and neck, no need to mess with those.
I checked out more info on the pickups. It seems with this initial model they sound PowerSound pickups. I've never encountered them before or since, but the general consensus seemed to be that they suck. Since this gave me an idea of what was bothering me about the sound, I went with it.
So, this started me thinking "hell, if these idiots on the internet can change their pickups out, so can I!" A few soldering iron burns later I was all set... or so I thought.
Again, as I mentioned in my Tele build post, I knew nothing of pickups. Since I had heard of Dimarzio in connection with Ibanez, I checked them out. I went to the website and looked for the most ball-crushing pickups I could find. Sadly, that was only about 5 years ago...
Don't get me wrong, ball-crushing pickups are a lot of fun and they have their place, but I sort of grin at my thought process back then.
I picked the Dimarzio D-Activator X neck and bridge humbucker and a Dimarzio Cruiser SC sized HB for the middle.
All ball-crushing aside, these pickups are absolutely wild. Yeah, they crush balls, but they're also very very musical. The Cruiser in the middle is actually one of the nicest sounding middle pickups I've ever used. It tamed the aggressiveness of the bridge and like a good drink of milk after eating peanutbutter. It's got bite on it's own, but it's also got a sweet smoothness that I love.
That was mod #1. My issue was that in order to balance things, I had to raise the Cruiser almost right up to the strings and lower the D-Xs all the way to the body. With my clumsy playing style, I was constantly plinking the rails on the Cruiser.
I'm not sure what made me take the second round of mods to it, but when I did, I already had several more guitars, and this Ibanez has a sentimental value, so I decided to do it up right.
I'm usually pretty restrained in my "Blingage" but I felt this was the one to get my Gangster on.
(forgive the picture quality, using a camera phone)
TobyCat would like to interrupt this photo presentation for a moment to make sure the guitar is ready to be displayed. We pause for his inspection
Okay? Okay, we're ready...
So, here is the After shot. Lighting is crap and so is my camera phone.. and it's 1:00am.
It's a little gaudy, but it's also the guitar I've had the longest and it has some sentimental value as well, so I wanted to give it the "royal" treatment.
Added chrome pickup rings and some crazy gold bar covers from a guy in the UK. Changed the black knobs for gold and chrome knobs. Added blue abalone stars to break the black up a bit. I like the blue and gold together.
At the time I regretted going too hot with the pickups, as it did limit the guitar a bit, but after collecting more guitars and being able to pick which guitar I want to use for what, I like the fact that if/when I want to play something aggressive, this guitar almost plays itself.
The Cruiser has been removed here, due to issues balancing with the neck and bridge HBs. It lives on in a later project.
This middle pickup.. well, that's a secret. I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you.
I pulled EVERYTHING out of this guitar. All wiring, all jacks, plates, switches, everything except the wood. Replaced the pickups and wired them up with some CTS 500k pots. Custom wired the blade switch to give me coil-splitting options on the neck and bridge (I actually went back and did this a little later when I learned more about pickup wiring options... initially I just had it wired stock Ibanez 5-way) .
Kept the chrome locking nut base but replaced the locks with gold, and the screws with chrome. Added a gold string retainer for Bling.
Whatever the stock tuners are, they've always worked very well, smooth and tight, so I kept them.
Anyway, that was the first guitar modding I ever did.
(pardon the typos, I'm a terribly typist and I'm trying to post this in between doing work, will come back and clean it up ASAP)
Here's my story. Please feel free to post yours, and, because this is the gallery, please post pictures
! Guitar Porn!Some background info:
After my divorce, I had one guitar. It's a black Ibanez RG270. Made in Korea and one of the early models, I'd find out later. I played and recorded everything with this guitar. I had nothing else. I managed, somehow, to make it sound pretty decent for both heavy rock and lighter, almost acoustic sounding stuff when recording, but it was always a job, and I could never just whip it out and play something for someone and be satisfied with what I heard.
(Original stock Ibanez RG-270 that I paid far too much for)
Now, I'm not a great guitar player. I consider myself a rhythm guy with dreams of guitar-godhood. I wish I could play better, but I'm rusty from years of neglect and very self-conscious. Don't get me wrong, when I'm alone and it's during the day so as not to destroy my neighbor's sleep, I like to turn it up and just play whatever comes through my soul, however well I can play it and I AM A GOD for that time and it fulfills me somewhat. But realistically, I can carry rhythm and vocals but I'm not an accomplished lead player.
Anyway, after I started jamming with a good friend of mien who has the same model of guitar as mine, just a different color, I kept picking up his guitar, cause it sounded better. I couldn't figure out why his would sound better than mine, then i noticed his had little V7 and V8s and stuff on the pickups. Mine didn't.
We talked a lot about getting different guitars and such, but it was deep water I wasn't comfortable stepping into at the time. As far as my thinking went, if you want a better guitar, you buy a better guitar. While that can certainly be true, I eventually did some reading up on my guitar model and started getting curious.
The body is basswood. I realize that's used for cheaper model guitars, and this is a cheaper model Korean Ibanez, make no mistake. I think being aware of that helped kick me into "F@$K it" mode. Anyway, about basswood: turns out, there nothing wrong with it. It's not a "wood of choice" but it's not "bad" by any means. I realize opinions on that are going to vary wildly and I may get POOPOOed for saying it, but, while I'm not ignorant of Alder, Ash, and Mahogany (among others) I am the furthest thing you'll ever find from a snob about this stuff.
So, anyway, the way I saw it, it's got a good body and neck, no need to mess with those.
I checked out more info on the pickups. It seems with this initial model they sound PowerSound pickups. I've never encountered them before or since, but the general consensus seemed to be that they suck. Since this gave me an idea of what was bothering me about the sound, I went with it.
So, this started me thinking "hell, if these idiots on the internet can change their pickups out, so can I!" A few soldering iron burns later I was all set... or so I thought.
Again, as I mentioned in my Tele build post, I knew nothing of pickups. Since I had heard of Dimarzio in connection with Ibanez, I checked them out. I went to the website and looked for the most ball-crushing pickups I could find. Sadly, that was only about 5 years ago...
Don't get me wrong, ball-crushing pickups are a lot of fun and they have their place, but I sort of grin at my thought process back then. I picked the Dimarzio D-Activator X neck and bridge humbucker and a Dimarzio Cruiser SC sized HB for the middle.
All ball-crushing aside, these pickups are absolutely wild. Yeah, they crush balls, but they're also very very musical. The Cruiser in the middle is actually one of the nicest sounding middle pickups I've ever used. It tamed the aggressiveness of the bridge and like a good drink of milk after eating peanutbutter. It's got bite on it's own, but it's also got a sweet smoothness that I love.
That was mod #1. My issue was that in order to balance things, I had to raise the Cruiser almost right up to the strings and lower the D-Xs all the way to the body. With my clumsy playing style, I was constantly plinking the rails on the Cruiser.
I'm not sure what made me take the second round of mods to it, but when I did, I already had several more guitars, and this Ibanez has a sentimental value, so I decided to do it up right.
I'm usually pretty restrained in my "Blingage" but I felt this was the one to get my Gangster on.
(forgive the picture quality, using a camera phone)
TobyCat would like to interrupt this photo presentation for a moment to make sure the guitar is ready to be displayed. We pause for his inspection
Okay? Okay, we're ready...
So, here is the After shot. Lighting is crap and so is my camera phone.. and it's 1:00am.
It's a little gaudy, but it's also the guitar I've had the longest and it has some sentimental value as well, so I wanted to give it the "royal" treatment.
Added chrome pickup rings and some crazy gold bar covers from a guy in the UK. Changed the black knobs for gold and chrome knobs. Added blue abalone stars to break the black up a bit. I like the blue and gold together.
At the time I regretted going too hot with the pickups, as it did limit the guitar a bit, but after collecting more guitars and being able to pick which guitar I want to use for what, I like the fact that if/when I want to play something aggressive, this guitar almost plays itself.
The Cruiser has been removed here, due to issues balancing with the neck and bridge HBs. It lives on in a later project.
This middle pickup.. well, that's a secret. I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you.
I pulled EVERYTHING out of this guitar. All wiring, all jacks, plates, switches, everything except the wood. Replaced the pickups and wired them up with some CTS 500k pots. Custom wired the blade switch to give me coil-splitting options on the neck and bridge (I actually went back and did this a little later when I learned more about pickup wiring options... initially I just had it wired stock Ibanez 5-way) .
Kept the chrome locking nut base but replaced the locks with gold, and the screws with chrome. Added a gold string retainer for Bling.
Whatever the stock tuners are, they've always worked very well, smooth and tight, so I kept them.
Anyway, that was the first guitar modding I ever did.
(pardon the typos, I'm a terribly typist and I'm trying to post this in between doing work, will come back and clean it up ASAP
)
