The best way to upgrade a cheap or sub-par guitar/bass and it's tone

Instant Dan · March 28, 2011, 12:25:56 PM

Upgrade the electronics, p'ups, nut, and any other part that may become trouble (bridge comes to mind on bass). True?

TheWolf IsLoose · March 28, 2011, 12:34:35 PM

Pickups, pots, and possibly tuning pegs.

Hemisaurus · March 28, 2011, 12:46:51 PM

Keep it, as is and examine it.

Pot the pickups, if they are microphonic.
Replace the pots, only if they are scratchy.
Make sure the hardware is tight and secure, only replace it if it's loose and can't be tightened.

VOLVO))) · March 28, 2011, 12:52:38 PM

This is one of my favorite things to do. This is actually how I feel about those Xavier guitars, and some of the shit off Rondo. If you're given a decent platform for mods, you know, a decent hunk of mahogany, solid stick of maple, and some decent fretwork, by all means fucking cut corners to make it as cheap as possible. Cut the hardware quality, who cares, I bought a 109 dollar tele off Rondo, and dumped 150 bucks worth of new hardware/pickups into it, and it rivals my USA tele in qualty/tone. I would even go as far as to say I like the Rondo tele MORE because I don't have to worry about it being stolen, or broken or beaten, because in reality, I paid 259 bucks for it.

Parts I usually gut and redo:

Tuners
Pickups
Nut
Pots/swtiches/add shielding
If there's half-ass fretwork, I give them a dressing (which every new guitar really needs, ANYWAYS in order to get the best action..)
Bridge - only if it sounds like bullshit. I usually rock stainless bridges, depending on what it is. I usually file the chrome out of the saddles, too..

With sites like GFS and Dragonfire, this can be done in a fairly inexpensive sense, and you leave out with a quality instrument for way less than paying Gibson to ship their shit over-seas for finish work.

LogicalFrank · March 28, 2011, 01:10:12 PM

A lot of the time swapping out the wiring harness for something of decent quality seems to make as big a difference in tone as swapping out pickups--and for a lot cheaper. That is always a good first mod. At the very least, it makes your guitar more reliable because scratchy pots and pickup selectors that cut out seem to be the biggest problems on cheap guitars.

Most important thing is make sure it's set up well. No guitar will sound good if the intonation is bad and it plays out of tune.

zachoff · March 28, 2011, 04:54:55 PM

Pickups will change your tone more than anything.

VOLVO))) · March 28, 2011, 07:40:16 PM

Quote from: zachoff on March 28, 2011, 04:54:55 PM
Pickups will change your tone more than anything.

Actually, sanding the finish off your guitar will.

Hemisaurus · March 28, 2011, 08:12:08 PM

Quote from: SunnO))) on March 28, 2011, 12:52:38 PM
This is one of my favorite things to do. This is actually how I feel about those Xavier guitars, and some of the shit off Rondo. If you're given a decent platform for mods, you know, a decent hunk of mahogany, solid stick of maple, and some decent fretwork, by all means fucking cut corners to make it as cheap as possible. Cut the hardware quality, who cares, I bought a 109 dollar tele off Rondo, and dumped 150 bucks worth of new hardware/pickups into it, and it rivals my USA tele in qualty/tone. I would even go as far as to say I like the Rondo tele MORE because I don't have to worry about it being stolen, or broken or beaten, because in reality, I paid 259 bucks for it.

Course it's going to sound better, you're going to lavish care and attention on it. Some dude in the Fender shop, be it in CA, Mexico or China doesn't give a rats ass about it. You will do it right, or keep doing it until it's right.

mortlock · March 30, 2011, 09:31:11 AM

i was always under the impression that the wood used for the body was critical for tone..crappy wood = crappy tone.

i could be wrong. i do know from my own experience of owning several basses and playing countless basses in music stores over the years that they are all different. it always amazes me that assembly line fenders can sound so radically different from one another..

LogicalFrank · March 30, 2011, 12:49:14 PM

Wood is important. Most people think pickups/electronics are more important. Most important, in my opinion, is just that the guitar is simply well built. If the build isn't solid, you just aren't going to get a good sound out of it. Once you got a solid guitar shaped piece of wood, it is a matter of experimentation to get most (or close to) any tone you want out of it. I don't really think there is a commonly used tonewood that sounds bad.

VOLVO))) · March 30, 2011, 01:00:46 PM

I disagree with wood being the ~biggest~ factor in tone, but it certainly does play a part. I got over wood snobbery a long time ago. I own guitars made from mahogany, maple, basswood, ash, poplar, and plywood. The plywood guitar will stand up to any single one of those woods, when it comes to a tone match. Guitar plywood is TOTALLY different from hardware store/lumberyard plywood. Guitar plywood is a giant clusterfuck of many different woods, birch/alder/poplar... basically the softer hardwoods. It's laminated and glue infused, thus making it totally voidless. Frankly, paint grade plywood bodies can sound just as good as mahogany paint grade bodies. Depending on your finish (like I said, finish changes tone for better or worse,) you'll get whatever tones you want. A guitar with no finish, wood only, no oil, no nothin', will naturally sound different. Oft times they'll be more bright, less full sounding. Once finished, that guitar will lose some highs and gain midrange/lows. Polyester paint is the scourge of tone. It basically hermetically seals the wood in. Those Rondo guitars, the SX teles and shit have a 16th of an inch worth of paint on them. It's boat paint. It's sanded, primed, cleared, painted, cleared. I have one sandblasted at my shop, I'll shoot some pictures of it later. After I sanded it, and reassembled for amusement, the tone was 100% different.

Build quality is certainly important. Loose anything will effect tone, poorly routed cavities will effect tone, cavities that are too big will effect tone, not stringing through the body will effect tone... everything effects tone. Some more than others, but you can't really pinpoint what will effect tone every time.

inductorguitars · March 30, 2011, 01:10:47 PM

Here here Sunn 0)))

How about another perspective. The _easiest_ thing one can do is upgrade the pickup(s), then maybe pots (if scratchy) and tone cap.
Sanding off the paint ain't easy, I went through almost a pack of disks most of which I went through sanding off the sealer/grain filler. Basicly it's glue.

VOLVO))) · March 30, 2011, 01:19:11 PM

Quote from: inductorguitars on March 30, 2011, 01:10:47 PM
Here here Sunn 0)))

How about another perspective. The _easiest_ thing one can do is upgrade the pickup(s), then maybe pots (if scratchy) and tone cap.
Sanding off the paint ain't easy, I went through almost a pack of disks most of which I went through sanding off the sealer/grain filler. Basicly it's glue.

Boo. You guys are no fun! EXPERIMENT! IT'S SCIENCE!

inductorguitars · March 30, 2011, 02:46:14 PM

Wait wait... I was advocating experimenting in round about sort of way. Start with the easy stuff first then progress to the harder things.

eyeprod · March 30, 2011, 08:33:06 PM

I don't think frank was saying that wood is the biggest factor. I do think it was an interesting point, tho. Not like changing the wood is an option, but it's part of the subject when we're talking tone, right?

Anyway, I'd agree to start simple. Pickups can be had for cheap, and are easy to install. If the guitar is squealing and/or just sounds thin, some cool pickups will work wonders. Check the wiring. If it looks funny, it's possible that a previous owner fucked with it. Google some diagrams of the type of wiring it has (2 hb's-2 tone-2 vol, 2 hb's-1 tone-1 vol, 3 single coils, etc), then reference that to what you've got going on inside your guitar. Things can be wired together and work, but sound like shit. It doesn't hurt to go over those kind of details when troubleshooting an issue.

zachoff · March 31, 2011, 09:44:03 AM

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f8/scrap-lumber-bass-vs-alder-bass-can-you-tell-difference-743932/

Just 'cause it's kinda relevant. Tons of things go into "tone" - IME, my biggest change in tone came with buying a decent amp. Played a long time with a Yorkville 400B. Not a bad amp at all but as soon as I got my Bassman I knew I didn't know what I didn't know. Speakers are also a huge factor. Plug the same head into an 810 and then go plug it into a Genz 212 Neo... They'll sound nothing alike.

Instant Dan · March 31, 2011, 09:45:48 AM

Well for me it was understood you had a decent amp. It's the one gear misconception I had to learn the hard way. My SG is gonna sound like a shit through a Randall RG100 2x12 combo but is going to sound great through a Marshall 2204 and Avatar Vintage G4x12. Hell even my friend's Korean and Mexican guitars will sound great.

Sam Hain · March 31, 2011, 11:02:48 AM

Quote from: Instant Dan on March 28, 2011, 12:25:56 PM
Upgrade the electronics, p'ups, nut, and any other part that may become trouble (bridge comes to mind on bass). True?

Upgrade the strings.

EddieMullet · April 02, 2011, 06:45:48 PM

Experiment with pedals too, if need be I can plug my pedal board into pretty much anything and get a decent passable sound, it's nothing fancy or expensive either just a linear boost, a little Big Muff, a phaser, chorus and a wah.

This is really useful when you're at the bottom of the bill all bands using the same amps.

dogfood · April 03, 2011, 12:08:29 AM

I used to only play SG's, 100% mahogany, and when I got a maple topped MIK lester I knew, just fucking knew, that was what I was wanting to hear. To me it was night and day. Then it occurred to me that some (over wound if you will) pup's that smeared the line between the and two wouldn't do. And, now I am curious about removing the poly finish off the back and sides of the body. I guess over polishing it would do the job? Get some relic-er to do it? Who the fuck knows. Gimme some feedback if yall got some. And, on the cheap guitar subject I have this to say: CNC machining. If a MIK or MIJ or or MIC or a Gibson are all manufactured with CNC machining, the tolerances on the neck joint (and the rest of the fiddle) are pretty fucking much the same. Plus, the flame top on my MIK lester is the equivalent of a 3k Gibson and not a 2k Gibson mind you. When I got into the fiddle game ('84) the argument over quality (tolerances) was beginning to erode thus the market for Orville's, Greco's, Yamaha's, etc these days. Before the levelling of the playing field American guitars most definately had the quality advantage but, poof, it fucking disappeared. Now the Rondo's have the wood that anyone and everyone has. Gibson is pure marketing. Behold the modern state of guitar building...

inductorguitars · April 04, 2011, 08:04:04 PM

Quote from: dogfood on April 03, 2011, 12:08:29 AM
Behold the modern state of guitar building...

It's only the modern state of guitar building if you let it. I've been writing a rant that I'll publish shortly.
But suffice to say the big manufacturers are in a race... to the bottom. There are tons of people out there building guitars that are WAY better than Fender and Gibson.

dogfood · April 04, 2011, 11:00:47 PM

Let'r rip! Give up the low down on the hand crafted mojo.

And, for the record I don't find cnc machining bad (or good) but the state of guitar building. "Artists shouldn't try to improve and convert. They must only bear witness" Otto Dix.

On that note I'm going to listen to the Birthday Party.