I am not a musician. I am sure I will never be: I have no rhythm, no sense of melody and no ear for music. I know almost nothing about music theory and I am quite bad applying it. But there is something the new technologies are making possible: use musical instruments to make nice noises. In my case, what I really like is an electric guitar with a heavy distortion. Due to this, some years ago (while living in Madrid), I bought a second-hand copy of an Gibson SG. This model tries to imitate AC/DC’s guitarist Angus Young’s guitar. The brand is Magic Star and it costed (if I well recall) around 119€. As I have no ear for music, for me was sounding very good for the price. But with time, I was realising that the sound was soulless, without shine…. The shape and the wood looks nice, but the sound is very disappointing. So with the time I bought a BC Rich Warlock and I parked the SG for some time.
Before going on, something needs clarifying. I have always liked the low tones. Not because I think they make the sound “heavier” or “more brutal”…. mainly is just high tones are a bit annoying but low tones… They have something really attractive. Cannot explain it, it just happens. Said this…. the following picture is self-explanatory:
Yes, 0.070. This figures needed to be tested. I was reluctant to replace the strings in my “new” guitar, so I just thought the old SG-copy could be a good target. But then… I remembered the low-quality sound it had… I needed to do something with that too. So inspired by a work college, I decided to also replace the pickups. The model chosen (after listening to some samples from this work college) were Seymour Duncan Hum-bucker. The decision was also based on a lot of good critics and several years of good reviews. So this project was growing: new strings, new pickups…. Honestly, this guitar needed some cares, so I decided to swap also the nut, the tuners, volume and tone knobs…. the project is gaining body… is starting to be something…. till I heard about coil-split. First time ever I heard about that and, now that the knobs were going to be replaced, implementing this was the right thing to do. The only parts of electrics remaining (jack mono input and pickups selector) should be changed too. So also all cabling would be done from scratch. And why not improving shielding? The original guitar had a lot of noise and I never knew why was it. Now, after opening it, I would say that the problem was caused by poor or none shielding in the circuits. So this was another right thing to do, and a new point in the description of the project. A was a bit disappointed about a Floyd Rose bridge, so I decided to keep the same bridge. So, to sum up:
- Swap pickups: originals for Seymour Duncan Hum-buckers.
- Swap the tuners: I chose some black tuners with lock
- Swap the nut: For no special reason, I decided to complicate more the project and chose this nut with locks…. I think is more how it looks…
- Swap knobs: plastic originals for new chrome knobs
- Swap potentiometers: For tone and volume. Volume ones could be pulled to select among full coil (hum-bucker) or split coil. The tone ones are normal ones.
- Swap all cables for new ones.
- Swap the pickup selector for a new three-way selector: one pickup, both or the other.
- Swap the jack plug for a new one.
- Clean it!
In other words: replace all except the wooden body and neck, and the bridge.
Continues on Guitar Upgrade Project Part 2: materials/parts.