To Mod or Not?
in the first part of a new series on guitar modding, Dave Burrluck considers the underlying considerations of guitar modding, not least when to mod and when to leave well alone. You have been warned…
Just don’t do it. Or what was it John Page told us recently? “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” What are we saying? This is the start of a series of articles on guitar modding and our advice is, just say no?
There will be plenty readers of a certain age nodding in agreement to those ‘What was I thinking?’ mods of their past. That Kahler vibrato seemed such a good idea on that ‘worthless’ early ’70s Strat. How were we to know the value that that guitar – in original condition – would realise today? There are plenty of other examples, not least all those originals PAFs that were chucked out ’cos we’d just got some DiMarzio Super Distortions. D’oh! We can’t change the past, but we can learn from it.
So, before you start spending time and money ‘improving’ your guitar our advice is to really, really make sure that, first, it’s all playing and working to its optimum. That might mean a pro setup: new strings, a look at your action height, your truss rod, fret condition, nut, saddles, pickup heights – a raft of things you, or a pro, can do to dial in your sound. Play it, gig it. Ask your mates to have a play, to have a listen. Only then begin to consider how to make it better… or at least different.
Be aware – if, after all of that, your guitar still sounds and plays like a bag of soggy concrete, then a new set of boutique scatter-wound pickups, like a high quality microphone, is only going to provide you with a ‘better recording’ of said bag of soggy concrete. Choose your platform carefully.
An Age-Old Pursuit
Players began modding their guitars pretty much as soon as the electric instrument was born. Why? Because there often wasn’t a lot of choice. If you wanted a better pickup for your Telecaster’s neck position, the usual answer was to install a humbucker. Today, there are numerous direct replacement pickups that you can fit – all of which can be reversed if you then want to sell your guitar. Think very carefully about mods that can’t be reversed.
If you do plan to fit new pickups and wiring, for example, do it properly. Don’t hack off the old pickup wire and splice it into the new pickup’s lead. Either remove the original pickup lead from where it’s soldered to (a switch or a pot) or completely install a new wiring harness. Keep all your old parts. They might need to be reinstalled at a later date or simply be good as spares or something you can resell. Same with tuners, bridges or vibratos.
Be honest with yourself. We’re all guilty of convincing ourselves that those new pickups or parts sound ‘great’, much better than what we had before. The last thing you want to admit is that you paid a couple of hundred pounds for a set of pickups and you don’t like them; they don’t suit your musical purpose or your rig. Did that £30 ‘vintage’ tone capacitor really make any difference? Or that boutique wiring loom? Learn to really listen to and evaluate the results of your mods; too many of us are fooled by brand names and specifications. Like the guitar itself, the ‘best’ is simply the one that suits you, your playing style… and your budget.
The Mod Cost
Which brings us to the question of cost. Quality upgrade parts don’t come cheap. You can add a set of smart new pickups, maybe a Bigsby, some new tuners and so on, and although you might spread that over a period of time, it still comes to a substantial amount – money that you could have spent on buying a higher quality guitar. Okay, modding is a valid hobby, a way to ‘personalise’ your instrument and learn some new skills along the way but, aside from the potential expense, there’s the time involved. As one reader commented: “My wife thinks I should spend less time tinkering with my guitars and more time playing them!” Food for thought.