So, I recently bought a used $80.00 ltd viper 10.
I swapped out the pickups for SD black winters, swapped the tuners for some locking gotoh’s and sanded and refinished it in matte black. I also filed the frets and performed a full set up.
I have several $1000+ guitars and it is now nearly equal to all of them.
As long as you like the neck and it’s a hard tail, any cheap guitar can become incredible with a couple upgrades and a setup. If you learn to do the wiring and set up yourself (it’s really easy) you’ll be able to effortlessly have a great guitar.
Broken down,
$80 guitar
$220 for pickup set
$55 locking tuners
$6 new strings
$10 spray paint/ sandpaper
=$371
The pickups are incredible and I wanted a set that split well and would clean up. But honestly you could swap for anything you have lying around.
I actually went this way with the guitar because no other guitar on the market appealed much to me. I wanted the viper shape, dot inlays, thicker neck with satin back, etc.
So yeah it’s worth it. I legitimately wouldn’t trade it for a $1500 dollar guitar. Then again I’m really picky.
Also keep in mind you should have basic tools, a soldering iron, and other random tools and supplies for all the little things that come up when you’re messing around with a project like this.
Also, in case you’re interested, Seymour Duncan has a free pickup swap and wiring course that helped me learn how to do it. It IS really easy, and the course walks through everything step by step.
Of course! Also keep in mind what the guy below me said. About how if it’s too cheap it’s not worth it. Make sure the neck is straight and the bridge hardware is either good quality or a foolproof design (i.e. has no trem system, usually cheap ones are way more trouble than they’re worth to fix.) I’ve had good success with tuneomatic bridges and telecaster bridges.
Also, I think a good setup changes a guitar way more than any component swaps. But YMMV.
To take this even further…
You can buy really cheap pickups that are even better than regular cheap ones.
Guitar Fetish (GFS Pickups) has some wildly awesome pickups that are less than $75 for a set. Most are less than $50.
Locking tuners are like $25 for Wilkinson or Musiclily.
The fret job is the most important part. Which is good cuz the guitars are cheap so if you botch it, no big deal.
My $599 msrp Jackson Soloist has a lower action than my friends $2,500 PRS. He has dead frets and too much buzz if he goes as low as my Soloist.
I bought the soloist for $400 used. Which was kind of a ripoff tbh but I liked the color.
I've got a Jackson dinky that I absolutely love, and I haven't done a thing to it. I love the sound and the feel and many times will pick it up before my Gibson. I'm a little surprised to hear that you feel $400 was a rip off. I would like a Soloist next, but I only find them for around $600.
That’s not what I meant by it being a rip-off.
It’s a “used” soloist. Only $200 off of MSRP for a 4 year old guitar, granted it sat on the wall of GC it’s entire life so it was in brand new condition, but similar soloists were even cheaper elsewhere but not the same color. So I paid a premium for the aesthetic.
As a guitar it’s great. Only $400 and it’s the lowest action, best fret work out of the box of any guitar I own. For now, I’m waiting on an Ltd. Mirage ‘87 reissue in seafoam green that’s in the mail.
Oh, gotcha. My bad... I need a Soloist! I like the arched top of my Dinky, but I really dig the neck heel on the Soloist! Is yours Japanese or Indonesian?
For that matter the Xavier Tele I bought from Guitar Fetish was an incredible value. I originally planned on doing some tweaks on it before it arrived but 5 years later it’s still stock. Still haven’t installed the Lollars that I bought for it.
Squires and MIM Fenders make great platforms for upgrades.
Picked up one of the Slick SL-56 hollow body Jazzmasters with the tele/P90 combination. Yes it needed a setup, but that guitar has no right being as good as it is for a sub $300 guitar. Solid brass wrap-around bridge. Brass knobs, graphite nut, etc. Fret edges were smooth and fingerboard isn't rolled the way many new guitars are coming, but the sharp corner was knocked off enough. Plus everyone loves the way it looks. Its the cheapest guitar I own, but holds its own with the rest.
Speaking of those cheap guitars, I bought 3 Sawtooth Guitars and I’m pretty floored as how NOT garbage they are.
They’re actually good guitars. Blown away. An $80 Strat copy that I got on sale is every bit as good as a $600 squier. I also got the Michael Angelo Batio Floyd rose guitar for $250… original Floyd rose equipped super strat for the cost of an OFR. So I basically bought an OFT and it came with a guitar attached to it. And fml the thing is actually quality.
I was afraid to pull the trigger but I said suck it man, I’ll bite the bullet on this if it sucks. And it doesn’t suck.
I haven’t had mine long though but I don’t think I’ll change anything on the classic strat copy except locking tuners and a new nut (roller nut? How are those?) so I can use the tremolo like a madman.
https://imgur.com/a/aZPlxiY/
I’m pretty happy with how it came out. I mean it doesn’t make a difference to the sound but it looks a hell of a lot better than the usual cheap poly finish.
(Ignore all the dust and fingerprints. Sadly, Matte finishes are a magnet for those)
That offset SG style has always been attractive to me. They pop up on my local used racks from time to time and you just can't beat that price/quality ratio. 24 frets to boot? Forget about it.
Similarly to this guy...I bought an LTD Vyper 256 for like $100 on Ebay, stuck my EMG Het set in it, gave it a good setup...and it easily plays and sounds as good as many of my $1000+ guitars. Setup is more important than pickups IMO, but good pickups are like 90% of your tone.
Simplicity.
He can stick a [Les Trem](https://store.duesenberg.de/en/tremolo-systems/34/duesenberg-les-trem-ii) on that thing in less than 10 minutes and it'll perform better than if he spent 10 hours getting an el-cheapo Strat or Floyd tailpiece to behave. Even if you do lock it in, look at the guitar funny and it'll need more adjustments.
On import guitars... the metal is garbage, so the less of it you have (as a modder) the better. You're really only buying the worked wood, which can come out much cheaper than buying a body and neck of Warmoth of whatever.
The quality of the CNC import models wood shaping is insanely good. The value is on point.
Buying that guitar and gutting it was way cheaper than getting an offset SG body made before we even talk about the neck.
It doesn’t but I just think it costs a lot/ takes a lot of work to salvage a cheap trem system. Went through the process on a entry level Jackson with a licensed Floyd rose. Wouldn’t want to do it again.
Even trem equipped guitars! The Gotoh GE1996T is a great replacement for a FR Special or branded FR, and most 6 points just need a proper setup to stay in tune!
Pickups are indeed the most important factor of how a guitar sounds. However within your whole set up your amp and FX will play the most important roll.
I have a controversial opinion which I know will get down voted as usual but, the most important part of your entire set up should be is how easy the guitar is to play. A rubbish guitar with great pickups ain't gonna make you a good player if it doesn't spark joy when you pick it up.
I've done this before with an off-brand guitar that I did a pickup + wiring upgrade on.
Now that I think about it, I could've had a better guitar if I just bought something like a used classic vibe strat or just saved up for a used MIM tele instead.
The pickups on the classic vibes are very decent for the money. I think the early models were loaded with Tonerider sets. From what I have seen, even upgrades on those to SD sets yield very little tone differences - which is quite surprising.
I'd argue #2 behind the amp. The raw tone you're going to get is from your amp/cab combination. If I play through a Mesa Dual Rec with humbuckers it's going to sound like a Mesa with slight variance in the mids, low end and high end because of the pickups.
The amp isn’t even as important as the speakers in the cab.
You either like vox style, Marshall, or fender amps. Choose a replication of one of those from one of the billion manufacturers.
Then just choose your favorite speakers.
Throw on 2 EQ pedals, 2 boost pedals somewhere in your chain.
Or go digital for everything.
As a professional luthier — the electronics as a whole have the vast majority of the impact of the sound. However, this includes things like what potentiometers you're using, what capacitor you're using, etc. Another huge factor is pickup distance to the strings, a few turns of a screwdriver can transform the best set into the worst sounding pile of junk and make a bad set sound aight.
So first and foremost: when you say "better the tone", what does that mean? What is the issue with your current setup? How have you tried to change things before now? It may sound mean saying to spend a few hours playing with all that; but it can save you hundreds. So first try and fix what you have.
And finally: when you say a cheap guitar, is that because what you have? Or do you want to buy and put a few more hundred into parts to hotrod a cheap guitar? Because you should have expectations going in as to what you get with those things. The fret material and quality of work, the nuts, the quality of hardware are often subpar and harder to change out. It makes a good youtube video, but personally in person 9/10 times those "hot rodded cheap guitars" that come across my desk need a few hours of work to get up to snuff. So definitely spend a lot of time trying out a range of guitars before you commit — I found my teacher invaluable for this, as he has a range of guitars including some really nice ones. A good guitar store that maintains their instruments is also a great place to learn just what you're looking for and to identify features and flaws.
I'm curious what you think about this video. I find it very convincing but I've always wondered what a real pro might say about it
https://youtu.be/n02tImce3AE
This guy deconstructs a guitar to find where the tone comes from
If you made a guitar with all the “bassiest” and “darkest” woods.
And an identical one with the “brightest” and “sparkling-est” woods both with the same electronics.
The entirety of their difference in sound is less than 1/8th turn of a tone knob away.
The video is correct. Wood is mostly useless.
It’s important for things like not getting dinged and dented and having a light guitar you can wear for an hour or two without your back hurting.
All that stuff is horoscope marketing. It’s vague enough that you’ll attribute what it says to what you think you need.
Same with pickups to be honest. I have a set of Seymour Duncan’s that sound better than most vintage or low output pickups for jazz and blues. It’s the Pegasus/Sentient set. Which is made for prog metal, Djent and low tuned metal. Think Periphery or Animals As Leaders or Swedish death metal type sound. That’s who they’re marketed towards anyways and they only come in black I think. But they’re pretty damn good for any style.
Go figure.
I also have a set of GFS rail pickups in my soloist that scream. They were $60 for pickups and all the stuff to put it together.
They even have EQ switching Actives similar to fishmans. They’re like $35 a piece. Insane.
I've wondered where the point of quality for pickups are. For example once you get to a certain quality of magnets, poles, and wrapping then beyond that the only difference is just hot/mild and an equalizer setting?
Yeah basically. You want a single coil or a humbucker.
You want a magnet that doesn’t degauss itself. Which most don’t.
You generally want an AlNiCo 5 magnet or a Ceramic.
That is wax potted so it stays silent.
And a winding that gets you close to the sound you already want. Or a really flat response set so you can use an EQ on it and kinda simulate a certain pickup set.
Other than that it’s not much.
I will say, the ToneZone from DiMarzio or any of their pickups that use the ToneZone patent are really versatile, and are in my eyes at least. Worth the money. Especially so if you’re split coiling them.
Their ToneZone uses different winding number and different gauge copper for the north and south sides of the humbucker so you get a wider frequency band. Really neat.
Yeah, that vid is great, and I love that he focuses in on the pickup height eventually — folks forget that, but it's huge. I definitely feel in person there's more subtlety in the strings/bridge alloy/wood/etc that doesn't come across on youtube, but the question is how much that matters. Also a chambered or semihollow definitely sounds different to a solidbody, but how much of that is just it moves more with a cranked amp? And all those DI rigs people use these days would nullify that half of the equation.
I definitely think wood does have some impact on the wider experience too — I for one hate the feeling of a really soft wood body like basswood. The fingerboard wood has a huge change to the feel. A good neck should be stable and not move. Density also matters for ergonomics. And figuring is important to some. But for tone? It's all more debatable. But I do know for a fact the sassafras strat I played was unlike anything before or since of the however many have crossed my bench. Better? Maybe not. But different.
And ofc, the one issue with chasing tone is what you're forgetting in that chase. Like, something simple as the bridge alloy being a bit tougher and less likely to strip out is why I go for the "premium" hardware, not the sound. How accurate are the tuners. Is the nut a hard enough material to not bind or wear down. What type of alloy are the frets, they're not made equal.
Also this all falls apart for acoustics, they're their own entire thing.
As of right now I have a "Stevenson & Brown" electeic guitar. I think it's decent. I had it for about three or four months now. I only played two guitars in my life, mine and a friends guitar (which sounded awful and even felt cheap), so I can't compare it to much.
Now i plan to sell this guitar and buy something a little better and more my style. I was looking for cheap-ish metal guitars that also sounded good and came across "Ibanez GRGR131EX", which other than looking cool apparently plays sick too. And the idea came across my mind that maybe I could upgrade it with better pickups.
To be honest I'm not fully sure myself what I mean by better tone lol. I guess the more expensive the pickups the better the sound is my thought procces, is it not like that?
Ah yeah, that seems like one of the imports from a big factory rebranded to a local subbrand? They're often kinda fun and quirky but definitely have a ceiling on quality. I have a soft spot for vintage catalogue guitars, even if they're a huge headache. (These days ones like yours are much more standard and good to work on.)
If you do like metal, ibanez is a great starter point. My second ever guitar was a S670; and looking at the specs? It's got the same pickups and parts as the one you're looking at, to a point. But a hardtail is much better if you have to pick one. And certainly if you got more expensive it'd take a fair bit more to get major changes from that model, mostly the body wood if you believe in that being a major feature. (I do, but not for cheap guitars.)
And it's sort of true? But also not. Really cheap pickups can be atrocious! Magnets, copper, rnd, it all costs money. But winding some amount of wire and using a cheap ceramic magnet that's really strong to compensate is easy. So especially 10, 20, 50 years ago there was a difference. These days? The stock "quantum" pickups aren't great, but they're good enough. A huge amount of pickups is taste — their dynamic range vs compression? Their EQ? Their output levels? All up to the user, even if there's certain trends that are generally not popular. So you really want to have things dialed in and know why you want to change them before dropping that money on new ones.
I do think the model you've found is a good starter – one other trick might be to see if somewhere has more than one in stock. Play them, play every fret on every string unplugged and see if there's weird buzzes or noises. Run your hand up and down each side of the fretboard to feel if it's sharp or unpleasant. Those cheap guitars vary a lot! Most of what you pay for with expensive ones is the time to get them consistently good. (And the name for some!)
After that learn how to setup your guitar and maintain it, play with the pickup height and see what sounds good, etc. I also highly recommend this kit: https://www.musicnomadcare.com/Products/Total-Fretboard-Care-Kit/ Every 3 to 6 months or so, give the frets a polish and condition the board.
And then, after all that? You may be fine with the pickups. Or you may hate a certain upper treble harshness they have. But, you'll know how to spot that and what you want to change! And that's the important part, imo. You want to be sure you know why you're changing things, that way you can do it once or twice and do it right. But you definitely do not need to spend that money right away, it's very much optional, even if it does have a huge effect on the sound. But you may find in a year or two you'd rather buy a nicer guitar.
Thank you a lot! I don't think I have any more questions. I was expecting like a 2 or 3 sentence answer and I'm so glad you took your time to write all this. Really helps. Thx a lot again :D
There's quite a lot you can do, [this guy's videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE71INVjGng) show a lot of things you can do with cheap guitars to 'upgrade' them.
Besides the pickups, you can add electrical shielding to the cavity for the electronics, finish the fret edges off better (they can be sharp/sticking out on cheaper guitars), upgrade with more reliable pots for volume/tone knobs (you can even change the soldering/wiring to do cool things like coil splits and parallel/series humbuckers), upgrade the nut to something like a graphtec nut (helps the strings slide better though the nut and maintain tuning) and locking tuners to make tuning easier.
That's the cool thing about guitars, they can make great projects to work on.
A good video except for the “here’s a boxy high qual parts I had laying around”.
I know that I sure don’t, so it would be a much more expensive exercise.
My teacher has several guitars built like that. Cheap squiers with new pickups and tuners. According to him it's mostly about the ergonomics of the body/neck for him.
I got an Affinity Series (bottom of the barrel) Squire Precision that had a good neck and played well for $80. I spent a half hour removing all the damn stickers from it and spent more that the purchase price upgrading the pup and pots to a Geezer Butler set. Now it sounds great and plays well for $200.
Yeah that's pretty much it. The guy teaching me has a squier thinline tele with a pickup set stolen from a MIM fender + extra weight to stop it neck diving. He's also got another squier frankensteined from various parts. Like you say his point is that if the neck and body is sound you can fix the electronics to your liking and get something nice for little cash. He's also got a US tele and a US strat and he's a conservatory trained guy so I kind of believe his judgement.
I went out looking for a Telecaster to do [this](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yiNeMxgrjdA/TlJkXKl6NGI/AAAAAAAAEnA/-3f2YXDR08U/s1600/squier+telecaster+jaguar+guitarz.jpg) to. I went to a few different shops and ended up getting an Affinity Jazzmaster HH...
I swapped the electronics, routed out and installed an AVRI JM Tremolo, stuck an LSR nut in and it plays better and sounds better than the American Professional models do off the rack.
I have some really nice USA Fenders... this one is just as good, better in some ways.
If I told people the neck was a $500 boutique order and the body a custom job that set me back even more... no one would question it.
EDIT: That said, my tinkering skill is far above average. If it wasn't, I could have ended up with a very expensive piece of shit. There are way more shitty partscasters in the world than great ones.
EDIT 2: Squire with an after market Vega Trem and some GFS parts > MiM Fender, every day... all day long.
It would change the tone pretty drastically if you went with a very different style pickup. Even if you stayed within styles if you went with a high quality pickup you could pick up a lot of tone, lose noise and make it an overall just much better sounding guitar.
It won't, however, change the playability, fix a bad neck, or magically fix the intonation so just make sure you're getting something with "good bones" first. Many folks have found cheap guitars that were well built and played great but sounded lousy and turned them into really good guitars on the cheap.
I’ve got a few Gibsons. And some other more expensive guitars.
My favourite is a mid range Mexican tele with a jazz in the neck and JB in the bridge. One of the cheapest guitars I own. Actually it is my cheapest electric. Its got a little screaming hand sticker on it too. But it’s fucking awesome. Neck is super fast. Plays itself. Good sustain. Holds tune. And it sounds mean with the Duncan’s in it. It is my favourite guitar.
Sometimes you just get a really well made guitar, or one that fits you abnormally well, irrespective of price range. And if it’s got that, put pickups you want in and it’s a forever instrument. But if it doesn’t feel good to play, I wouldn’t be changing the pickups.
So funny, I totally know what you mean by "plays itself". I have one guitar like that. When you love everything about a guitar, you don't feel like you're "fighting" it when you play. The weight is just right, the neck is the right amount of chunky, the string spacing is just right. It's an amazing feeling.
Man I don’t know how you guys feel this, I’ve been playing for 3 years and I just pick up guitars and don’t really get a “this is the one” for me. I have a Mexican strat that I learned on and now im using an Ibanez for metal and it plays fine to me but there wasn’t like a revelation moment or anything.
It may have to do with the fact that I've played 10 or so guitars that I've put at least 20 hours of practice into. With that frame of reference I really know what I like and don't like from a guitar.
It is. And a real eye opener to price. Like don’t get me wrong, I love all my guitars. But I’ll playing the SG or something for a bit, and it feels nice. High quality. But then I’ll plug the “cheap” tele back in, and it’s like I can just let rip all of a sudden. It’s like you said, all of those tiny things must be *just* right on it, from the action to the weight.
I think I bought it new for like 500, I genuinely wouldn’t sell it for five grand. Not even kidding.
Yes, nice pickups will sound nice. Usually what makes a budget guitar “cheap” is inferior equipment - bargain bin components that a manufacturer can purchase in bulk to keep their cost down.
Now a nice set of pickups will definitely change the sonic qualities of an axe, but make sure your instrument is well set up in addition! Nice guitars (at the premium price point) are usually well taken care of and often that maintenance is what makes a $$$ guitar play so well.
Tossing some Seymour Duncan’s in an affinity squier will definitely up the output but that doesn’t do much good if she won’t stay in tune (or play in tune)
It can make a pretty big difference, but I don’t think it’s a good value proposition unless the guitar has sentimental value.
I’ve done it a couple times (Steve Vai Dimarzios in an Epiphone Les Paul, and the old Epiphone pickups in a squire come to mind), and I stand by that decision because I love those guitars, but if it’s purely to upgrade, I’d say your money is better spent on a new axe. It is nice to hear the old girls sing well because I love them, so it wasn’t a practical decision. A speaker upgrade probably has more value in my opinion.
There’s something to debate there. I like to project more than punch, if you get my meaning. But everyone is different.
I can flip that tho.
I bought an 1st Gen Affinity Jazzmaster HH for 200 bucks. The neck is excellent... I'm able to refret by myself. The body came with a swimming pool pickup cavity which I'd demand if I ordered a body and it would cost me, big.
There is nowhere I can get that good of a neck and body for that price. I bought it solely as a modding platform and it's now a showstopper of a guitar... I retired my Strat Plus as my Eb guitar and it lives in it's case now for the most part.
I spent more on the pickups that I spent on the excellently CNC carved wood. I've bought Warmoth bodies and necks for a lot more money in the past that aren't as good as today's cheapest Squire parts. CNC was an absolute game changer.
I set up a friend's Epi Les Paul Special II a week or so ago and I totally had Gibsons growing up that never felt that nice... electronics maybe not but... what can be had for 100 bucks in a Pawn Shop these days is very surprising to me if you can look past the headstock. Adjusted for inflation these things are like 25-30 dollar guitars in "teenage me" currency.
Today's "piece of shit" is soooooo much nicer than the pieces of shit back when I was young. There were stores upon stores filled with import GTX's with day glo snakeskin finishes... the tuning keys on import models just straight up didn't work. Just endless racks of shit no one can get a dime for on Reverb today... I'm sure there's still warehouses filled with that garbage somewhere. They retailed from 300-1200 in 80's dollars... these stores were in shopping malls. EVERYWHERE. 900 dollar Steinberger knockoffs... Poodlehaired snobs working the salesfloors.
EDIT: Classic Vibes, for instance are so much nicer than 80's USA Fenders if you put USA parts on them. I never played a vintage Jaguar growing up that rings as good and plays as silky as my USA'd CV 70's Jag. I played hundreds of those things and it's not even close. I'm sure there's a few diamonds but I personally never found one and I was aggressively hunting for a good one. It's better than any actual 70's Jag I ever played. I've played a LOT of CBS era Fenders and they aren't great.
It does no such thing. There are a myriad of factors he didn't control for, including using only distorted tones.
It just proves that it's negligable in the scenarios he decided to test, which is far from the ideal scenario for testing this.
He should have done clean tests if he wanted to prove anything definitively.
To be fair, I'm of the opinion that if tone wood makes any difference at all, it would be very small, if at all noticable
But scientifically, this video is very, very narrow and proves very little. I see it get posted a lot and it simply isn't a good test objectively speaking.
This guy is a youtuber, not a scientist. He made a video to get clicks.
I bought my first electric guitar from a pawn shop when I was 15 for $85. The headstock says it's a "Tanaka". I've never heard of that brand either.
I learned on that guitar, really built my hands around it. It wasn't great, but I got pretty good on it. It's a metallic red finish that looks amazing under stage lights.
Years passed, it fell into disrepair, starting with a short in the 5-way switch, and eventually it stopped making sound at all. By then I'd moved on to "real" guitars. For 20 years it hung on the wall and was my "unplugged practice guitar for after everyone else is in bed".
I was chatting with my favorite local tech about it one day and we came up with a plan. He put all new electronics in it, replaced the tuners, cleaned up a few frets, added a push-pull splitter to the bridge humbucker, and... it's AMAZING now.
I've gigged it exclusively since then. It's a fierce little rock machine now, and more importantly *it feels like home* in my hands.
As long as you like the neck and playability. My main guitar has been swapped a few times and cost me $400. Actually spent more on parts at this point.
I took an Epiphone Dot \~400 euro and changed out the wiring harness for a decent one \~100 euro and put a Suhr Thornbucker + in the bridge and Thornbucker in the neck \~300 euro (I bought them in the US). so I spent the same amount on the electronics as the guitar cost, but it sounds awesome now, biggest regret was not getting the Epiphone IBG 335 as it has a neck profile I prefer more, but I don't think they were released at the time.
i have a First Act ME-537 (this is a guitar they used to sell at walmart), i dropped a Fishman Fluence Modern in, and it sounds absolute beast.
that said it doesnt make alot of sense to put money into a guitar thats not very playable which is a problem with many cheap guitars. but if yours is relatively playable (can be intonated properly, no issues that you cant setup away yourself), tuners and pickups are usually a good bet. otherwise the same money could buy a better slightly less cheap guitar that doesnt need a 3rd party setup and additional hardware to enjoy.
you can absolutely get a massive difference in tone but if you’re going super cheap the comfort/playability of the instrument might be harder to improve.
Ot will make a big difference - on cheap guitars I find hardware can be lacking too, so new saddles (or bridge), uprated nut, uprated tuners can help improve stability - new pickups are great but if it's out on tune and won't intonate, what's the point.
Electronics wise, some copper shielding tape and upgraded wiring, pots and caps can help once the new pickups are in - things like treble bleeds can be installed, and new pots and caps can give you a more usable sweep on your tone controls.
Provided that the cheap guitar is structurally good (which it probably will be), a good set of pickups can make a noticeable difference, especially clean, or if you go for differently voiced pickups.
Changing the values of the control pots can also noticeably impact output and brightness on the cheap. Pick material and thickness also have an impact on brightness.
BUT most of the sound of an electric guitar is in the amp/effects, and even more in the speaker/cabinet. Different guitars in the same downstream equipment sound similar, the same guitar in different downstream equipment will sound very different.
That said, I have an entry level Ibanez RG with upgraded pickups and bridge, and a stock Prestige Ibanez RG. There is small a difference in body resonance, and the pickups are voiced differently, the neck girth is a bit different. Of the two, I prefer how my entry level RG sounds and feels.
Yes it will make a difference. If it is worth it depends on the playability of the instrument to start with. There isn’t much point sinking a bunch of cash into a heap of shit that doesn’t play well.
Pickups, pots, caps, nut/saddle material all make a difference to the the tone of the guitar. If it otherwise plays well, it may be worth it but swapping out or upgrading this stuff won't increase the value if/when you go to sell it down the road.
Hell yeah, I threw an EMG-81/85 set into an Epi G400 (~$360 '63 SG reissue clone) and the difference was night and day. I especially think it works better with cheap guitars; pricier guitars tend to come with better pickups that aren't quite as replaceable. For instance, I'd definitely think about an upgrade for my LTD EC-200, but my Dean Zelinsky Private Label LaVoce Custom? No way, they're a beautiful PAF 'bucker but turn into a noiseless Fender Gold Lace when split.
There are some good sounding cheap guitars. However new pickups, bridge and shielding can all massively improve a cheap guitar. As long as the guitar is structurally sound most of the tone is in the pickups, and the bridge. If a guitar has a very flexible neck or a neck made from soft wood etc, this can affect the tone. The sound of the body wood is usually not very audible in a guitars tone, but the neck can be, the stiffer the neck, the brighter, and the more flexible, the more high frequencies will be lost.
I love cheap guitars. I don't have to worry about scratching or chipping it. It's about the sound and construction not price. There a really of guitars that are cheap and mid range priced that are excellently constructed and sound great. It is pretty hard most of the time to find good cheap guitars. It's worth it, especially if you have ever purchased an expensive guitar that just sounded horrible. If you know what kind of pickups you like, it will probably get you a good sound out of a quality cheap guitar. It might just take awhile to find the guitar.
My favorite instruments I own are a cheap Chinese P-Bass that exceeded my expectations 100 times over and a Greco EG that I got really cheap because it was really beat up and someone stripped all the parts off of it, except the bridge and tail piece. I was pretty much broke after getting it so instead of the Dimarzio Super Distortion and PAF pickups I wanted to get and and good tuners, I got some cheap parts and used stuff I already had. It is the best guitar I have ever owned and the only thing I will change is the cheap tuners. I guess this is kind of the opposite since the guitar would have been about $1000 if it was in better condition and not stripped. So it's more of an expensive guitar with cheap parts, but it is proof that money doesn't always equal better sound.
I did it with my sons el cheapo and 100%, go for it. I got some great pickups cheap from a guy who bought a really good midrange and upgraded his pickups.
The neck is the key point. If the neck feels good and you can get the action to where you like it, then it's worth fixing other stuff. And you don't have to spend a lot. Use a place like guitarfetish.com and you can get reasonable quality replacement parts for cheap.
Nothing will change the tone more than changing the pickups.
The tone will completely change, pickups basicly are the sound on a guitar.
THe problem with cheap guitar can be: cheap eletronics(noise), bad frets , unstable bridge.
If you like the looks and the feel of it you'll be very happy with the pickup change.
Rembember: the amp will do the magic, if you dont have a good one the pickup is not the problem.
So really the only thing that changes tone on a electric guitar is the electronic parts (pots, switches, wiring, capictors pickups), the strings, and pickup height.
So puttin better sounding pickups on a cheap guitar will make it sound better
Works great! I got a $250 Harley Benton fanned-fret 7 string and put in a pair of Bareknuckle Pickups War Pig, and the guitar sounds a million times better than with the stock pickups!
I put a loaded pickguard ($300 -Texas specials) into a Peavy U.S.A. Stratocaster clone ($100) and I’ve been searching for a Fender custom shop that plays better than it. The custom shop strats sound better or as good but have setup issues that Guitar center won’t address unless I buy it first. Really strange that guitar center has so many guitars with issues.
🤘😀I have lightly modded my cheapo Jackson dinky js11. I changed the plastic nut for a graphtech nut and swapped out the pickups to EMG Jim Root daemonum pickups (totally solderless by the way) sounds and plays so much better to my ear, I plan on changing the bridge and tuners eventually as well.
I can totally recommend doing it just for the learning experience, I call mine a "beater guitar" even though I take good care of it and its my only guitar. learning what I am doing on a cheap guitar is better than destroying an expensive guitar.
But maybe don't be me and do it with your only guitar especially if you cant afford to replace it.🙃
Well I've done a video on a similar thing a while back. https://youtu.be/V9vSwy9Sf3Y
Best bet for maximizing your cheap guitar's playability and sound are the three primary points of contact on the instrument: nut, bridge, tuners. Those upgrades certainly help a whole fuck ton. It may not impact your tone as much as pickups but it's a good starting point for making the guitar playable and stable. As far as pickups go you don't need to spend crazy amounts of money, there are $20 fleor alnicov pickups that easily compete with Seymour Duncans. If you're going to take the time to do this work I suggest you redo your wiring and get quality components because if you're going to be putting in the effort, make sure the guitar is going to be worthwhile to play for decades to come.
did this to a 200 dollar Jackson guitar, took out the default and put in some of Lamb of Gods signature pickups, changing the pickups and string guage will greatly change the tone on your guitar
Check Jim Lill on youtube, especially [this video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n02tImce3AE)
Shows you where the tone comes from in a guitar.
Now, If I were to believe this video, if changing the pickups makes the most drastic tone difference.
That being said, is a 200$ guitar as pleasing to play as a much pricier ? Well, that's up to you.
(Honestly, I'd personnaly fo for it)
Oh yeah. Bought a thrift store Squire Strat, dropped in a stratosphere loaded pick guard with hot Texas blues SSS alnico 5 pickups. Did a setup and now it is sweet. $120 total.
Firefly 338, Epiphone probuckers with full harness with coil splitting. $250 total. Outstanding.
As long as the guitar is properly built (bridge in the correct position, frets cut at the right spacing, neck pocket is well constructed, and neck is straight with no warping), then you can pretty much rebuild the guitar with all high end gear and it can sound great.
Pickups are the biggest factor on tone on the guitar itself. But once you throw any effects, amp, and speakers into the mix you're pretty much able to make whatever kind of sound you want.
I have had a (‘91 or ‘92) Peavey Predator I bought used in ‘93 for 250 bucks (my first guitar). It’s never been great but the neck has always played really well and it’s American made. Last year I upgraded it with a new loaded EMG HSS pickguard, a gotoh/wilinkson trem, fender locking tuners and a roller string tree. It’s one of my fav guitars now, different but just as much fun to play as my Am std strat and my Gibson explorer. Took it from barely played to one of my daily use guitars. It stays In tune incredibly, plays like a dream and looks a million bucks compared to the cheap electronics/hardware it had….
It will either sound better, or the amazing pickups will bring out the sonic imperfections in the cheap guitar. 50/50 - but I'd bet it'll sound better.
I play an Epiphone 'Dot' 335 guitar, an Martin and Taylor handmade acoustic guitar, a cheap classical guitar, and different very cheap Fender Strat copies. I have a 50 watt Katana Modelling Amplifier with effects, overdrive, may options. I have been playing since I was 13yers old, I'm over 67 years old now. I don't think more expensive pickups are worth putting on a cheap Electric guitar. The neck, body, bridge are it limitations, although almost any cheap Strat copy will sound great through the Katana 50 amplifier. The guitar I want to buy is a PRS (Paul Reed Smith). Their cheapest electric. It's beautifully finished, mahogany body, very good vibrato arm. And the youtube videos of it show how superb for almost any kind music it can sound. For rock, jazz, blues. Probably extremely easy to play, low action great finish, superb single coil or humbucker, or any combination of sounds. Great tuners too. Cheers, Neville
I did this with a Cort. I really liked the way it felt in the store. I put in a set of Duncan Hotrodders with coil tap did a complete set up and love it.
My thing is taking Squier Affinity guitars where the build quality is decent and then putting expensive electronics in and they play and sound good and are exactly what I want for a cheap price.
It can make a huge difference!
I bought a Mexican Tele for around $300. I switched out the pickups for some Custom Shop Nocaster pickups (about $100).
It's one of my favorite guitars I've ever owned!
Just make sure it plays well and stays in tune and everything and you can spruce up a cheap guitar!
The pickups are the only modification you can do to a super cheap guitar to "improve" the tone. Anything else will just possibly *change* the tone, but may not necessarily be improvements since tone is subjective...but cheap shitty pickups are likely noisy, etc. so switching to a "proper" pickup will almost always be an improvement.
Just saw this the other day https://youtu.be/n02tImce3AE
If it is to be believed basically all tone comes from the pickups and distance between pickup and strings. (Is that called the setup? )
I have a 1985 Aria pro ii inazuma I bought for about 200$. I put SD nazgul/sentient pickups in the guitar. It's very easy to play. I enjoy it more than my more expensive strat.
A cheap guitar with nice pickups sounds great. Also, there are tons of great pics on eBay for $15 that are just as good as the most expensive pickups out there, you just have to know what to look for. You can’t hear money.
If the guitar it’s too cheap, is not worth replacing the pickups… and sometimes cheap guitars sound way better than they should, and take in mind that in many cases, even if it’s a cheap guitar, the factory pickups are the INTENDED pickups…
I'd go one or two steps beyond changing pickups. Most of the electronics in cheap guitars are pretty naff. I'd definitely look at replacing at least the tone and volume pots as well. The other thing to look at is the bridge. A bone or Tusq nut will also make a pretty noticeable difference and depending on the guitar can be a simple change. Only 2 of my guitars sit unchanged and thats because I need to find the time to actually do the upgrades to one
[The pickups are the tone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n02tImce3AE), with some distinctive design features like a tele bridge contributing to it to the point they can be potentially audible.
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In my experience pickups do have an effect on your tone, but far less than you’d expect. If you’re unhappy with your current tone I’d first look at getting a better amp (unless all you can afford is new pickups, in which case go for it).
I put a Seymour Duncan pearly gates, a lil 59 and a jb Jr in my first cheap strat copy.
I have subsequently bought much more expensive guitars and can appreciate they have a nicer neck etc (although that first cheap strat is actually quite comfortable) but sound wise the strat copy is absolutely up there and I doubt there'd be any noticeable difference if I swapped those pickups into one of my other guitars now
It will definitely sound better. I've upgraded four or five cheaper guitars over the years. I put a Nazgul/sentient set in a squier telecaster, and it was night and day obviously. The same set is in my Schecter Reaper now, and they rip. I put some dimarzios in a cheaper Ibanez 7 string. It was meh. I see a few people saying they made ultra cheap guitars as good as 1000 dollar guitars. I'm not so sure about that. If you're upgrading, I definitely recommend getting a new bridge, or at least saddles, a tusq nut, and new tuners. You will definitely notice a difference. That being said, I'm probably never going to buy or upgrade a guitar under 800 bucks again.
The pickups matter more than everything else in an electric guitar combined. Other aspects of the guitar (body wood, fingerboard material, bridge construction, etc.) will have subtle impacts on sustain and attack, but ultimately the pickup is that which makes sound out of the string above it that vibrates between the nut and bridge.
It's important to know what you're going for when making a pickup upgrade. Alnico pickups are frequently seen as "better" than ceramics (which most cheap guitars have), but ceramics are louder and are frequently favored for metal and other distortion-heavy genres. If you play metal and buy a cheap guitar with ceramic pickups, switching to very high end alnico pickups will likely make the guitar "worse" for what you want due to the drop in gain.
Finally: there's no such thing as "better tone". You can make a tone that's "not crap", but the truth is that the definition of "better tone" varies from context to context, and perhaps even song-to-song on the same album.
https://youtu.be/n02tImce3AE
Watch this, it'll blow your mind. Short story: people will argue about the wood and materials making it sound better. It's the pickups. If you like the feel of the guitar enough, do it.
I took a $100, 14 year old bullet Strat and put 3 EMG active pick ups in it. This made it sound like a $6-700 guitar, then I replace the tuners with locking tuners and now it sounds and plays like a $1200 guitar.
Been doing it for years on Squier Classic Vibe guitars. I recommend also changing your potentiometers and the switch. You can play with potentiometer/capacitor values to brighten or darken the sound and change the sweep of the tone control. I recently got a CV tele and threw all new electronics in. It did wonders for the guitar
This guy actually tested all the places that tone can come from on an electric guitar. I'd highly recommend you watch the video, and start with those places.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n02tImce3AE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n02tImce3AE)
But, the absolute most important part of improving a cheap guitar is making sure you like the guitar beforehand. If you don't like how it plays, new pickups won't fix that. You have to like the guitar before you update it, or else you won't like it after. I've spent hundreds of dollars trying to make guitars I didn't like sound better, and I ended up selling almost all of them. And I've spent hundreds of dollars improving guitars I already liked, and now I love them.
I do this A LOT.
Pickups make all the difference in the world in a guitar's sound, as do good tuners for its feel and tuning stability.
My latest cheap guitar is a $250 [Ibanez Gio](https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/GRGR131EXBKF--ibanez-gio-grgr131ex-electric-guitar-black-flat) that I have a set of locking Gotoh tuners and a pair of Duncan Black Winter pickups for. They'll get installed this weekend.
The tuners were $100 and the pickups were $200, so in the end I'll have $550 into it. You'd have to get into the $800-1000 price range to buy a guitar with those parts on it. This way I can spread the cost out, there's always a chance I'll like the stock pickups (these Infinity pickups are not bad at all, really), and I enjoy improving them.
This is the 4th affordable guitar I've purchased & upgraded in the last couple/three years; the others are a Jackson JS22-7 (locking Gotoh tuners, Duncan Nazgul & Sentient), an Ibanez RGA (DiMarzio Fortitude & 36th PAF), and an LTD EC-256 (locking Gotohs only, the stock pickups sound amazing).
Some people think it's a waste to put money into a cheap guitar; I think as long as you like the way it plays and don't intend to sell it, why wouldn't you improve it? It's now a $500 guitar rivaling others twice its price.
My best guitar is a squier CV jaguar. I paid 350 for the guitar, 300 for pickups and 300 for a new bridge and trem. The build quality of cheap guitars has gotten really good recently, and in my opinion if you put good pickups in, replace any cheap hardware if it doesn’t function properly, and get it set up properly it can be an incredible way to get a custom, high quality guitar for much less money. I would say most cheap guitars benefit from having the bridge replaced.
On the flip side though I’ve tried to do this with a cheap strat clone and have never been happy with it. There’s no escaping the fact that the body just sounds dead and lifeless. I would say that you do need to start with a guitar that sounds pretty good acoustically from the beginning to get the best results.
On cheap guitars swap out all the electronics. The pots are usually of such low quality they look like toy parts compared to standard ones. Sometimes you’ll have to open the cavity because they didn’t make enough room for standard parts to fit.
That's what I did with my Harley Benton TE-20. It was a 50$ guitar (now it's more like 80), had the bridge pickup replaced with a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails, et voila - it's been my main workhorse for almost 3 years now. A very solid instrument, especially given the price.
I put some used Fender Yosemite pickups in my Squier CV tele and the difference is night and day. The upgraded pickups make the guitar sound amazing.
If you are doing a budget build, don't forget to look for used pickups or no-catchy-marketing-name pickups ripped out of a more expensive guitar.
Guy I know put around $900-$1100 into a squier strat and I played his american strat vs his squier with a blindfold and couldn’t tell much of a difference
Can be totally worth it. If the neck plays well and the frets are good there's no reason not to, and nice pickups can really change the tone of a guitar for the better. One thing to consider too is how the guitar sounds unplugged. If you like how it sounds acoustically, then new pickups won't be a waste
https://youtu.be/bIQiWfeWLA4
Watch this video to learn more. But the TLDR version is, yes, it can be done to achieve of what you might be looking for in sound. But at what price?
A lot of difference! Most, not all, $1000 or less guitar tend to have not the best pick ups. I usually just drop some Seymour Duncan’s in and rock. Other things that will change the sound is hardware like the bridge and nut and wiring
One of my guitars is an ESP LTD that had Duncan Desinged pickups on it.
It sounded like a chainsaw.
I changed DiMarzio Evolution & Evo2 pickups to it and the difference is like night and day.
Definitely recommend!
While at it, I also put in a push/pull tone pot that splits the humbuckers.
Great addition!
Also, good quality locking tuners are also a must.
It will improve the sound in most cases. May not improve the feel of playing or the playability of the guitar, but it’ll have a better sound coming out. You can also swap out the nut for a nicer one and get some locking tuners instead of the cheap ones it comes with. Those two things will improve sustain and tuning stability. Maybe swap the bridge out as well, if it’s something that doesn’t require a ton of work
Most of the tone from an electric guitar comes from the pickups.
Changing the pickups is absolutely the best thing you can do to improve the tone on a cheap guitar
Hey I would check out ‘CS Guitars’ YouTube channel, he’s done a lot of upgrades to inexpensive guitars and it opened my eyes a lot of the difference pickups and hardware have.
I bought a $99 guitar after seeing Darrel Braun review it on his YouTube channel. He absolutely loved it, saying that he had absolutely no issues with the body or neck, but the electronics could use an upgrade.
In his next video, he took that exact guitar, and swapped out the pickups, bridge, and tuners. There was a big increase in quality, and he said it was now the equivalent of a $700 guitar, with less than $200 in upgrades.
I still have the guitar in the original $99 condition, and I've played it everyday since I got it over 2 years ago. It's the best 100 bucks I've ever spent. I am finally thinking about upgrading the pickups, so I'm researching what I want.
Bottom line: If the body and neck are good, then upgrading the pickups can only help.
I got a Mitchell ms450 from guitar center on sale for $200, they have the same sale all the time. To give credit where it’s due, it’s a very good guitar for that price and feels great, the pickups were pretty nice but too mellow for me.
I swapped them out for some Suhr Doug Aldrich pickups, didn’t change anything else, and now it’s virtually indistinguishable from a very expensive guitar. It sounds amazing and plays great. It was DEFINITELY worth it
i have an epiphone LP special i got used for 350. the neck feels great, the build quality is solid. i put fishman fluence greg koch p90s in it. the thing screams. those pickups are 275 so i didnt want to spend any more, but eventually i will put locking tuners on it and maybe an adjustable bridge.
Yes, it would change dramatically.
Keep in mind, price doesn't always have that much to do with how the wood reacts, as there is so much variability with a living organism like trees.
In fact, there is a good argument to be made that your electronics, pickup height, and strings are what really matter for an electric guitar: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n02tImce3AE
Simply put, don't worry about the price of your guitar's wood.
Worry about the quality of the electronics, the hardware, the fret and nutwork, and if it is comfortable to play and set it up correctly.
I got one of those squire bullet mustangs and put a cheap Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge and it sounds wonderful. Changed the tuners on it too, but other than that nothing. Still feels like a cheapo guitar but it plays nice and sounds nice- and it's really light so it's a fun guitar to be rough with during live shows and not have to worry about what happens if you fuck it up a little. I don't use it for recording but I do play it all the time.
I think you have the right idea but when you spend more than $200 part of you get in theory is superior fretwork. You can have somebody work on your frets on your guitar or get it plek'd but at that point the investment may get closer to what a nicer guitar would cost you. Can you put $300 into your $200 guitar and get a $500 guitar. I'm not sure but it's your project, do what feels right. At the $500 mark there are gems out there some players say play like a $1000 guitar except for the pickups.
Definitely worth it if you're going to keep it for a while.
Wife plays bass, and wanted a jam guitar, so I made one after seeing someone else do it for his lead guitar. Gets some road rash but your performance guitar stays safe. It's worth it and learned a lot from the experience. My Epiphone s335 is next for an electrical operation next.
i have an LTD JH200, which is a cheap version of the jeff hanneman signature model, and put two emg 81's on it
and i also have a squier classic vibe stratocaster that i loaded with a set of lace sensor blue silver reds
i got the lace sensors because i hate single coil noise and i only liked how they sound clean, the lace sensors turned out to be the perfect middle ground, largely noiseless (as noiseless as passive electronics can be) and they sound nice and glassy clean, and then get really good distorted tones
as for the emgs, i really wanted to try active pickups and see if they deserve their negative reputation, soon found out that nah, they actually sound really nice, plus the original electronics had some terrible ground issues that were nigh impossible to fix and the emgs have been completely quiet
and both play very nicely, so yeah, theres nothing wrong with dropping brand name pickups on an inexpensive guitar, difference in pickup sound only comes into play when switiching the type of pickup really, and if its higher output it'll sound brighter
I put lace sensors on a 250 Ibanez gio I bought for 250 bucks back in the late 90s. I also added a kill switch and a newer and nicer maple neck and new locking tuners. I love that guitar it was my daily driver for years even after I had nicer and more expensive guitars. It has since been replaced by my schecter c1classic as my go to guitar mostly because it has sentimental value to me and I don't want anything to happen to it as it was my first electric.
Look here for something similar:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Luthier/comments/z4fr3m/parts_kit_upgraded/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
I have a cheap SX strat guitar that I got as a teen about 15ish years ago. I really didn't want to get rid of it for sentimental reasons but it was such a muddy sounding guitar.
I replaced the pickups with alnico 5 clones, changed the tuners and replaced the plastic nut with a bone. I now enjoy playing the guitar more than my nicer telecaster. The body is heavy, the neck is thick and smooth and has really nice fret markers etc. So yeah I'm very glad I upgraded this guitar, and all in all cost me about USD90 for a guitar I love playing, that's less than a new effects pedal. I would recommend getting it setup professionally the first time even if you know what you are doing.
Bought an Epi Les Paul Specially GT and threw a set of P-Rails from Seymour Duncan and a pickup blending knob and I could not be happier. Always wanted a marauder and owned an LP Studio for many years and this new guitar can get both their tones plus a ridiculous amount more. Cannot recommend this enough.
Ive done this to multiple guitars successfully as I’m a huge fan of seymour duncans and EMG’s and not only do the tones get better but you enjoy playing so much more
Cheap doesn't mean bad, so if you find one that you like the finish and feel go for it. It'll be a very significant change. I've swapped out pups in a PRS SE Custom 24 Floyd to Mick Thompson's blackouts and it feels and sounds phenomenal.
Get some Matt Pike dirty heshers or lace dragonaut pickups. Those make any guitar turn into a riff machine.
If that isnt what you're looking for, then I'd say put some stock les paul pickups in it or any pickup from a guitar that you like the sound of.
Before swapping the pickups try changing the height raise them and see if that gets the tone you want if it’s to bassy try only raising the treble side and vice versa you may not need to put a lot of money in to make it a great guitar. A proper setup may be all it needs.
Before you spend anything on new pickups take your guitar to your favorite music store and play through a number if different amplifiers. You might discover that you should be saving that pickup money to put toward a new amp. I know of countless instances where people have done pickup changes only to find out that the sound is different, but not quite what they were looking for. Many later discover that what was lacking from their sound was the tone provided by a different amp, not their pickups.
I bought a 99 dollar Chinese Fender strat back in like 2006. I wanted a guitar that didn't have a Floyd rose system. Playing it at the pawn shop and at home showed me that the Taiwan pickups were crap and muffled . So over the next couple of months I got 3 pick ups off of e bay. A JbJr for the neck position, a cool rail for the middle and a double stack at the neck. The pots and the switch were in great condition so when I dropped them in and put everything together it sounded awesome. The JbJr sounds very clean and hot with distortion from my Ibanez sonic distortion SD-9 (no pedal I have found sounds as good for older heavy metal) combined with the cool rail is just the volume clear you need for a little lick or lead break. Throw the switch all the way to the neck only and this guitar has a SRV sound all day long. I always thought I would use this guitar at home for practice but I have used it at shows. Total about 350 bucks.
So, I recently bought a used $80.00 ltd viper 10. I swapped out the pickups for SD black winters, swapped the tuners for some locking gotoh’s and sanded and refinished it in matte black. I also filed the frets and performed a full set up. I have several $1000+ guitars and it is now nearly equal to all of them. As long as you like the neck and it’s a hard tail, any cheap guitar can become incredible with a couple upgrades and a setup. If you learn to do the wiring and set up yourself (it’s really easy) you’ll be able to effortlessly have a great guitar.
wait, so how much did it all cost in total?
Broken down, $80 guitar $220 for pickup set $55 locking tuners $6 new strings $10 spray paint/ sandpaper =$371 The pickups are incredible and I wanted a set that split well and would clean up. But honestly you could swap for anything you have lying around. I actually went this way with the guitar because no other guitar on the market appealed much to me. I wanted the viper shape, dot inlays, thicker neck with satin back, etc. So yeah it’s worth it. I legitimately wouldn’t trade it for a $1500 dollar guitar. Then again I’m really picky. Also keep in mind you should have basic tools, a soldering iron, and other random tools and supplies for all the little things that come up when you’re messing around with a project like this.
Wow, that is actually incredible. Thanks a lot for the info, dude! :D
Also, in case you’re interested, Seymour Duncan has a free pickup swap and wiring course that helped me learn how to do it. It IS really easy, and the course walks through everything step by step.
Ooh, thx, I'll check it out!
Of course! Also keep in mind what the guy below me said. About how if it’s too cheap it’s not worth it. Make sure the neck is straight and the bridge hardware is either good quality or a foolproof design (i.e. has no trem system, usually cheap ones are way more trouble than they’re worth to fix.) I’ve had good success with tuneomatic bridges and telecaster bridges. Also, I think a good setup changes a guitar way more than any component swaps. But YMMV.
I love my LTD necks...
To take this even further… You can buy really cheap pickups that are even better than regular cheap ones. Guitar Fetish (GFS Pickups) has some wildly awesome pickups that are less than $75 for a set. Most are less than $50. Locking tuners are like $25 for Wilkinson or Musiclily. The fret job is the most important part. Which is good cuz the guitars are cheap so if you botch it, no big deal. My $599 msrp Jackson Soloist has a lower action than my friends $2,500 PRS. He has dead frets and too much buzz if he goes as low as my Soloist. I bought the soloist for $400 used. Which was kind of a ripoff tbh but I liked the color.
I've got a Jackson dinky that I absolutely love, and I haven't done a thing to it. I love the sound and the feel and many times will pick it up before my Gibson. I'm a little surprised to hear that you feel $400 was a rip off. I would like a Soloist next, but I only find them for around $600.
That’s not what I meant by it being a rip-off. It’s a “used” soloist. Only $200 off of MSRP for a 4 year old guitar, granted it sat on the wall of GC it’s entire life so it was in brand new condition, but similar soloists were even cheaper elsewhere but not the same color. So I paid a premium for the aesthetic. As a guitar it’s great. Only $400 and it’s the lowest action, best fret work out of the box of any guitar I own. For now, I’m waiting on an Ltd. Mirage ‘87 reissue in seafoam green that’s in the mail.
Oh, gotcha. My bad... I need a Soloist! I like the arched top of my Dinky, but I really dig the neck heel on the Soloist! Is yours Japanese or Indonesian?
For that matter the Xavier Tele I bought from Guitar Fetish was an incredible value. I originally planned on doing some tweaks on it before it arrived but 5 years later it’s still stock. Still haven’t installed the Lollars that I bought for it. Squires and MIM Fenders make great platforms for upgrades.
Picked up one of the Slick SL-56 hollow body Jazzmasters with the tele/P90 combination. Yes it needed a setup, but that guitar has no right being as good as it is for a sub $300 guitar. Solid brass wrap-around bridge. Brass knobs, graphite nut, etc. Fret edges were smooth and fingerboard isn't rolled the way many new guitars are coming, but the sharp corner was knocked off enough. Plus everyone loves the way it looks. Its the cheapest guitar I own, but holds its own with the rest.
Speaking of those cheap guitars, I bought 3 Sawtooth Guitars and I’m pretty floored as how NOT garbage they are. They’re actually good guitars. Blown away. An $80 Strat copy that I got on sale is every bit as good as a $600 squier. I also got the Michael Angelo Batio Floyd rose guitar for $250… original Floyd rose equipped super strat for the cost of an OFR. So I basically bought an OFT and it came with a guitar attached to it. And fml the thing is actually quality. I was afraid to pull the trigger but I said suck it man, I’ll bite the bullet on this if it sucks. And it doesn’t suck. I haven’t had mine long though but I don’t think I’ll change anything on the classic strat copy except locking tuners and a new nut (roller nut? How are those?) so I can use the tremolo like a madman.
Imma have to see what yours looks like, for research purposes. I’ve bought a can of spray paint from Lowe’s haven’t used it yet on my refin 👀
https://imgur.com/a/aZPlxiY/ I’m pretty happy with how it came out. I mean it doesn’t make a difference to the sound but it looks a hell of a lot better than the usual cheap poly finish. (Ignore all the dust and fingerprints. Sadly, Matte finishes are a magnet for those)
That offset SG style has always been attractive to me. They pop up on my local used racks from time to time and you just can't beat that price/quality ratio. 24 frets to boot? Forget about it.
Wow! That's astonishingly good looking! Great job! You have a great name as well! Cheers.
Appreciate it!
Similarly to this guy...I bought an LTD Vyper 256 for like $100 on Ebay, stuck my EMG Het set in it, gave it a good setup...and it easily plays and sounds as good as many of my $1000+ guitars. Setup is more important than pickups IMO, but good pickups are like 90% of your tone.
I also put black winters and gotohs on my LTD. And a tone pro bridge. Sounds amazing.
Why does it matter for it to be a hardtail?
Probably just because it’s easier and more stable than dealing with a simple tremolo. The spring can make tuning unstable on a cheaper model.
Simplicity. He can stick a [Les Trem](https://store.duesenberg.de/en/tremolo-systems/34/duesenberg-les-trem-ii) on that thing in less than 10 minutes and it'll perform better than if he spent 10 hours getting an el-cheapo Strat or Floyd tailpiece to behave. Even if you do lock it in, look at the guitar funny and it'll need more adjustments. On import guitars... the metal is garbage, so the less of it you have (as a modder) the better. You're really only buying the worked wood, which can come out much cheaper than buying a body and neck of Warmoth of whatever. The quality of the CNC import models wood shaping is insanely good. The value is on point. Buying that guitar and gutting it was way cheaper than getting an offset SG body made before we even talk about the neck.
It doesn’t. But replacing a trem can be costly if you’re not buying a gotoh. Which defeats the purpose of a cheap guitar that is upgraded.
It doesn’t but I just think it costs a lot/ takes a lot of work to salvage a cheap trem system. Went through the process on a entry level Jackson with a licensed Floyd rose. Wouldn’t want to do it again.
How do black winters compare to a duncan distortion?
Even trem equipped guitars! The Gotoh GE1996T is a great replacement for a FR Special or branded FR, and most 6 points just need a proper setup to stay in tune!
I have EMGs, Hipshot tuners, graphtech nut on an Ec-10 and I love it now
Pickups are indeed the most important factor of how a guitar sounds. However within your whole set up your amp and FX will play the most important roll. I have a controversial opinion which I know will get down voted as usual but, the most important part of your entire set up should be is how easy the guitar is to play. A rubbish guitar with great pickups ain't gonna make you a good player if it doesn't spark joy when you pick it up.
I’ll up vote. To me the guitar is the one part of the whole deal you actually physically interact with. It’s the most important part.
👍Up votes all round🙃
Spot on. I put nice bareknuckles in my starter Washburn, now it sounds amazing but still plays like shit compared to my LP
Pickups are the biggest factor in tone that a guitar has imo. Good pickups will make a shitty guitar sound good.
Not saying that all cheap guitars are shitty
I've done this before with an off-brand guitar that I did a pickup + wiring upgrade on. Now that I think about it, I could've had a better guitar if I just bought something like a used classic vibe strat or just saved up for a used MIM tele instead. The pickups on the classic vibes are very decent for the money. I think the early models were loaded with Tonerider sets. From what I have seen, even upgrades on those to SD sets yield very little tone differences - which is quite surprising.
I'd argue #2 behind the amp. The raw tone you're going to get is from your amp/cab combination. If I play through a Mesa Dual Rec with humbuckers it's going to sound like a Mesa with slight variance in the mids, low end and high end because of the pickups.
The amp isn’t even as important as the speakers in the cab. You either like vox style, Marshall, or fender amps. Choose a replication of one of those from one of the billion manufacturers. Then just choose your favorite speakers. Throw on 2 EQ pedals, 2 boost pedals somewhere in your chain. Or go digital for everything.
Agreed, although other work and upgrades may make the guitar more playable, Pups and Pots are almost entirely responsible for tone.
As a professional luthier — the electronics as a whole have the vast majority of the impact of the sound. However, this includes things like what potentiometers you're using, what capacitor you're using, etc. Another huge factor is pickup distance to the strings, a few turns of a screwdriver can transform the best set into the worst sounding pile of junk and make a bad set sound aight. So first and foremost: when you say "better the tone", what does that mean? What is the issue with your current setup? How have you tried to change things before now? It may sound mean saying to spend a few hours playing with all that; but it can save you hundreds. So first try and fix what you have. And finally: when you say a cheap guitar, is that because what you have? Or do you want to buy and put a few more hundred into parts to hotrod a cheap guitar? Because you should have expectations going in as to what you get with those things. The fret material and quality of work, the nuts, the quality of hardware are often subpar and harder to change out. It makes a good youtube video, but personally in person 9/10 times those "hot rodded cheap guitars" that come across my desk need a few hours of work to get up to snuff. So definitely spend a lot of time trying out a range of guitars before you commit — I found my teacher invaluable for this, as he has a range of guitars including some really nice ones. A good guitar store that maintains their instruments is also a great place to learn just what you're looking for and to identify features and flaws.
the quest for 'better tone' is a dragon you can chase forever. heroin for guitarists.... on top of the regular heroin, if applicable
I'm curious what you think about this video. I find it very convincing but I've always wondered what a real pro might say about it https://youtu.be/n02tImce3AE This guy deconstructs a guitar to find where the tone comes from
If you made a guitar with all the “bassiest” and “darkest” woods. And an identical one with the “brightest” and “sparkling-est” woods both with the same electronics. The entirety of their difference in sound is less than 1/8th turn of a tone knob away. The video is correct. Wood is mostly useless. It’s important for things like not getting dinged and dented and having a light guitar you can wear for an hour or two without your back hurting. All that stuff is horoscope marketing. It’s vague enough that you’ll attribute what it says to what you think you need. Same with pickups to be honest. I have a set of Seymour Duncan’s that sound better than most vintage or low output pickups for jazz and blues. It’s the Pegasus/Sentient set. Which is made for prog metal, Djent and low tuned metal. Think Periphery or Animals As Leaders or Swedish death metal type sound. That’s who they’re marketed towards anyways and they only come in black I think. But they’re pretty damn good for any style. Go figure. I also have a set of GFS rail pickups in my soloist that scream. They were $60 for pickups and all the stuff to put it together. They even have EQ switching Actives similar to fishmans. They’re like $35 a piece. Insane.
I've wondered where the point of quality for pickups are. For example once you get to a certain quality of magnets, poles, and wrapping then beyond that the only difference is just hot/mild and an equalizer setting?
Yeah basically. You want a single coil or a humbucker. You want a magnet that doesn’t degauss itself. Which most don’t. You generally want an AlNiCo 5 magnet or a Ceramic. That is wax potted so it stays silent. And a winding that gets you close to the sound you already want. Or a really flat response set so you can use an EQ on it and kinda simulate a certain pickup set. Other than that it’s not much. I will say, the ToneZone from DiMarzio or any of their pickups that use the ToneZone patent are really versatile, and are in my eyes at least. Worth the money. Especially so if you’re split coiling them. Their ToneZone uses different winding number and different gauge copper for the north and south sides of the humbucker so you get a wider frequency band. Really neat.
Yeah, that vid is great, and I love that he focuses in on the pickup height eventually — folks forget that, but it's huge. I definitely feel in person there's more subtlety in the strings/bridge alloy/wood/etc that doesn't come across on youtube, but the question is how much that matters. Also a chambered or semihollow definitely sounds different to a solidbody, but how much of that is just it moves more with a cranked amp? And all those DI rigs people use these days would nullify that half of the equation. I definitely think wood does have some impact on the wider experience too — I for one hate the feeling of a really soft wood body like basswood. The fingerboard wood has a huge change to the feel. A good neck should be stable and not move. Density also matters for ergonomics. And figuring is important to some. But for tone? It's all more debatable. But I do know for a fact the sassafras strat I played was unlike anything before or since of the however many have crossed my bench. Better? Maybe not. But different. And ofc, the one issue with chasing tone is what you're forgetting in that chase. Like, something simple as the bridge alloy being a bit tougher and less likely to strip out is why I go for the "premium" hardware, not the sound. How accurate are the tuners. Is the nut a hard enough material to not bind or wear down. What type of alloy are the frets, they're not made equal. Also this all falls apart for acoustics, they're their own entire thing.
As of right now I have a "Stevenson & Brown" electeic guitar. I think it's decent. I had it for about three or four months now. I only played two guitars in my life, mine and a friends guitar (which sounded awful and even felt cheap), so I can't compare it to much. Now i plan to sell this guitar and buy something a little better and more my style. I was looking for cheap-ish metal guitars that also sounded good and came across "Ibanez GRGR131EX", which other than looking cool apparently plays sick too. And the idea came across my mind that maybe I could upgrade it with better pickups. To be honest I'm not fully sure myself what I mean by better tone lol. I guess the more expensive the pickups the better the sound is my thought procces, is it not like that?
Ah yeah, that seems like one of the imports from a big factory rebranded to a local subbrand? They're often kinda fun and quirky but definitely have a ceiling on quality. I have a soft spot for vintage catalogue guitars, even if they're a huge headache. (These days ones like yours are much more standard and good to work on.) If you do like metal, ibanez is a great starter point. My second ever guitar was a S670; and looking at the specs? It's got the same pickups and parts as the one you're looking at, to a point. But a hardtail is much better if you have to pick one. And certainly if you got more expensive it'd take a fair bit more to get major changes from that model, mostly the body wood if you believe in that being a major feature. (I do, but not for cheap guitars.) And it's sort of true? But also not. Really cheap pickups can be atrocious! Magnets, copper, rnd, it all costs money. But winding some amount of wire and using a cheap ceramic magnet that's really strong to compensate is easy. So especially 10, 20, 50 years ago there was a difference. These days? The stock "quantum" pickups aren't great, but they're good enough. A huge amount of pickups is taste — their dynamic range vs compression? Their EQ? Their output levels? All up to the user, even if there's certain trends that are generally not popular. So you really want to have things dialed in and know why you want to change them before dropping that money on new ones. I do think the model you've found is a good starter – one other trick might be to see if somewhere has more than one in stock. Play them, play every fret on every string unplugged and see if there's weird buzzes or noises. Run your hand up and down each side of the fretboard to feel if it's sharp or unpleasant. Those cheap guitars vary a lot! Most of what you pay for with expensive ones is the time to get them consistently good. (And the name for some!) After that learn how to setup your guitar and maintain it, play with the pickup height and see what sounds good, etc. I also highly recommend this kit: https://www.musicnomadcare.com/Products/Total-Fretboard-Care-Kit/ Every 3 to 6 months or so, give the frets a polish and condition the board. And then, after all that? You may be fine with the pickups. Or you may hate a certain upper treble harshness they have. But, you'll know how to spot that and what you want to change! And that's the important part, imo. You want to be sure you know why you're changing things, that way you can do it once or twice and do it right. But you definitely do not need to spend that money right away, it's very much optional, even if it does have a huge effect on the sound. But you may find in a year or two you'd rather buy a nicer guitar.
Thank you a lot! I don't think I have any more questions. I was expecting like a 2 or 3 sentence answer and I'm so glad you took your time to write all this. Really helps. Thx a lot again :D
There's quite a lot you can do, [this guy's videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE71INVjGng) show a lot of things you can do with cheap guitars to 'upgrade' them. Besides the pickups, you can add electrical shielding to the cavity for the electronics, finish the fret edges off better (they can be sharp/sticking out on cheaper guitars), upgrade with more reliable pots for volume/tone knobs (you can even change the soldering/wiring to do cool things like coil splits and parallel/series humbuckers), upgrade the nut to something like a graphtec nut (helps the strings slide better though the nut and maintain tuning) and locking tuners to make tuning easier. That's the cool thing about guitars, they can make great projects to work on.
I instantly knew who "this guy" was going to be!
A good video except for the “here’s a boxy high qual parts I had laying around”. I know that I sure don’t, so it would be a much more expensive exercise.
Pickups make the single biggest difference. Using a different pick will change string attack a lot. Changing strings could also have an effect.
Agree pickups alone will make such a huge difference.
My teacher has several guitars built like that. Cheap squiers with new pickups and tuners. According to him it's mostly about the ergonomics of the body/neck for him.
I got an Affinity Series (bottom of the barrel) Squire Precision that had a good neck and played well for $80. I spent a half hour removing all the damn stickers from it and spent more that the purchase price upgrading the pup and pots to a Geezer Butler set. Now it sounds great and plays well for $200.
Yeah that's pretty much it. The guy teaching me has a squier thinline tele with a pickup set stolen from a MIM fender + extra weight to stop it neck diving. He's also got another squier frankensteined from various parts. Like you say his point is that if the neck and body is sound you can fix the electronics to your liking and get something nice for little cash. He's also got a US tele and a US strat and he's a conservatory trained guy so I kind of believe his judgement.
I went out looking for a Telecaster to do [this](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yiNeMxgrjdA/TlJkXKl6NGI/AAAAAAAAEnA/-3f2YXDR08U/s1600/squier+telecaster+jaguar+guitarz.jpg) to. I went to a few different shops and ended up getting an Affinity Jazzmaster HH... I swapped the electronics, routed out and installed an AVRI JM Tremolo, stuck an LSR nut in and it plays better and sounds better than the American Professional models do off the rack. I have some really nice USA Fenders... this one is just as good, better in some ways. If I told people the neck was a $500 boutique order and the body a custom job that set me back even more... no one would question it. EDIT: That said, my tinkering skill is far above average. If it wasn't, I could have ended up with a very expensive piece of shit. There are way more shitty partscasters in the world than great ones. EDIT 2: Squire with an after market Vega Trem and some GFS parts > MiM Fender, every day... all day long.
It would change the tone pretty drastically if you went with a very different style pickup. Even if you stayed within styles if you went with a high quality pickup you could pick up a lot of tone, lose noise and make it an overall just much better sounding guitar. It won't, however, change the playability, fix a bad neck, or magically fix the intonation so just make sure you're getting something with "good bones" first. Many folks have found cheap guitars that were well built and played great but sounded lousy and turned them into really good guitars on the cheap.
I’ve got a few Gibsons. And some other more expensive guitars. My favourite is a mid range Mexican tele with a jazz in the neck and JB in the bridge. One of the cheapest guitars I own. Actually it is my cheapest electric. Its got a little screaming hand sticker on it too. But it’s fucking awesome. Neck is super fast. Plays itself. Good sustain. Holds tune. And it sounds mean with the Duncan’s in it. It is my favourite guitar. Sometimes you just get a really well made guitar, or one that fits you abnormally well, irrespective of price range. And if it’s got that, put pickups you want in and it’s a forever instrument. But if it doesn’t feel good to play, I wouldn’t be changing the pickups.
So funny, I totally know what you mean by "plays itself". I have one guitar like that. When you love everything about a guitar, you don't feel like you're "fighting" it when you play. The weight is just right, the neck is the right amount of chunky, the string spacing is just right. It's an amazing feeling.
Man I don’t know how you guys feel this, I’ve been playing for 3 years and I just pick up guitars and don’t really get a “this is the one” for me. I have a Mexican strat that I learned on and now im using an Ibanez for metal and it plays fine to me but there wasn’t like a revelation moment or anything.
Ive been playing for 28 years. If you play long enough and touch enough guitars you will eventually feel this. It is amazing too!
It may have to do with the fact that I've played 10 or so guitars that I've put at least 20 hours of practice into. With that frame of reference I really know what I like and don't like from a guitar.
It is. And a real eye opener to price. Like don’t get me wrong, I love all my guitars. But I’ll playing the SG or something for a bit, and it feels nice. High quality. But then I’ll plug the “cheap” tele back in, and it’s like I can just let rip all of a sudden. It’s like you said, all of those tiny things must be *just* right on it, from the action to the weight. I think I bought it new for like 500, I genuinely wouldn’t sell it for five grand. Not even kidding.
Yes, nice pickups will sound nice. Usually what makes a budget guitar “cheap” is inferior equipment - bargain bin components that a manufacturer can purchase in bulk to keep their cost down. Now a nice set of pickups will definitely change the sonic qualities of an axe, but make sure your instrument is well set up in addition! Nice guitars (at the premium price point) are usually well taken care of and often that maintenance is what makes a $$$ guitar play so well. Tossing some Seymour Duncan’s in an affinity squier will definitely up the output but that doesn’t do much good if she won’t stay in tune (or play in tune)
It can make a pretty big difference, but I don’t think it’s a good value proposition unless the guitar has sentimental value. I’ve done it a couple times (Steve Vai Dimarzios in an Epiphone Les Paul, and the old Epiphone pickups in a squire come to mind), and I stand by that decision because I love those guitars, but if it’s purely to upgrade, I’d say your money is better spent on a new axe. It is nice to hear the old girls sing well because I love them, so it wasn’t a practical decision. A speaker upgrade probably has more value in my opinion. There’s something to debate there. I like to project more than punch, if you get my meaning. But everyone is different.
I can flip that tho. I bought an 1st Gen Affinity Jazzmaster HH for 200 bucks. The neck is excellent... I'm able to refret by myself. The body came with a swimming pool pickup cavity which I'd demand if I ordered a body and it would cost me, big. There is nowhere I can get that good of a neck and body for that price. I bought it solely as a modding platform and it's now a showstopper of a guitar... I retired my Strat Plus as my Eb guitar and it lives in it's case now for the most part. I spent more on the pickups that I spent on the excellently CNC carved wood. I've bought Warmoth bodies and necks for a lot more money in the past that aren't as good as today's cheapest Squire parts. CNC was an absolute game changer. I set up a friend's Epi Les Paul Special II a week or so ago and I totally had Gibsons growing up that never felt that nice... electronics maybe not but... what can be had for 100 bucks in a Pawn Shop these days is very surprising to me if you can look past the headstock. Adjusted for inflation these things are like 25-30 dollar guitars in "teenage me" currency. Today's "piece of shit" is soooooo much nicer than the pieces of shit back when I was young. There were stores upon stores filled with import GTX's with day glo snakeskin finishes... the tuning keys on import models just straight up didn't work. Just endless racks of shit no one can get a dime for on Reverb today... I'm sure there's still warehouses filled with that garbage somewhere. They retailed from 300-1200 in 80's dollars... these stores were in shopping malls. EVERYWHERE. 900 dollar Steinberger knockoffs... Poodlehaired snobs working the salesfloors. EDIT: Classic Vibes, for instance are so much nicer than 80's USA Fenders if you put USA parts on them. I never played a vintage Jaguar growing up that rings as good and plays as silky as my USA'd CV 70's Jag. I played hundreds of those things and it's not even close. I'm sure there's a few diamonds but I personally never found one and I was aggressively hunting for a good one. It's better than any actual 70's Jag I ever played. I've played a LOT of CBS era Fenders and they aren't great.
I suggest you check out Jim Lill’s vid on guitar tone: https://youtu.be/n02tImce3AE
I did. Proves "tonewood" is bullshit.
It does no such thing. There are a myriad of factors he didn't control for, including using only distorted tones. It just proves that it's negligable in the scenarios he decided to test, which is far from the ideal scenario for testing this. He should have done clean tests if he wanted to prove anything definitively. To be fair, I'm of the opinion that if tone wood makes any difference at all, it would be very small, if at all noticable But scientifically, this video is very, very narrow and proves very little. I see it get posted a lot and it simply isn't a good test objectively speaking. This guy is a youtuber, not a scientist. He made a video to get clicks.
Even cheap pickups will sound great through a good amp. Amps are way more important than pickups.
I bought my first electric guitar from a pawn shop when I was 15 for $85. The headstock says it's a "Tanaka". I've never heard of that brand either. I learned on that guitar, really built my hands around it. It wasn't great, but I got pretty good on it. It's a metallic red finish that looks amazing under stage lights. Years passed, it fell into disrepair, starting with a short in the 5-way switch, and eventually it stopped making sound at all. By then I'd moved on to "real" guitars. For 20 years it hung on the wall and was my "unplugged practice guitar for after everyone else is in bed". I was chatting with my favorite local tech about it one day and we came up with a plan. He put all new electronics in it, replaced the tuners, cleaned up a few frets, added a push-pull splitter to the bridge humbucker, and... it's AMAZING now. I've gigged it exclusively since then. It's a fierce little rock machine now, and more importantly *it feels like home* in my hands.
As long as you like the neck and playability. My main guitar has been swapped a few times and cost me $400. Actually spent more on parts at this point.
I think that’s the most bang for your buck.
I took an Epiphone Dot \~400 euro and changed out the wiring harness for a decent one \~100 euro and put a Suhr Thornbucker + in the bridge and Thornbucker in the neck \~300 euro (I bought them in the US). so I spent the same amount on the electronics as the guitar cost, but it sounds awesome now, biggest regret was not getting the Epiphone IBG 335 as it has a neck profile I prefer more, but I don't think they were released at the time.
i have a First Act ME-537 (this is a guitar they used to sell at walmart), i dropped a Fishman Fluence Modern in, and it sounds absolute beast. that said it doesnt make alot of sense to put money into a guitar thats not very playable which is a problem with many cheap guitars. but if yours is relatively playable (can be intonated properly, no issues that you cant setup away yourself), tuners and pickups are usually a good bet. otherwise the same money could buy a better slightly less cheap guitar that doesnt need a 3rd party setup and additional hardware to enjoy.
you can absolutely get a massive difference in tone but if you’re going super cheap the comfort/playability of the instrument might be harder to improve.
Ot will make a big difference - on cheap guitars I find hardware can be lacking too, so new saddles (or bridge), uprated nut, uprated tuners can help improve stability - new pickups are great but if it's out on tune and won't intonate, what's the point. Electronics wise, some copper shielding tape and upgraded wiring, pots and caps can help once the new pickups are in - things like treble bleeds can be installed, and new pots and caps can give you a more usable sweep on your tone controls.
Provided that the cheap guitar is structurally good (which it probably will be), a good set of pickups can make a noticeable difference, especially clean, or if you go for differently voiced pickups. Changing the values of the control pots can also noticeably impact output and brightness on the cheap. Pick material and thickness also have an impact on brightness. BUT most of the sound of an electric guitar is in the amp/effects, and even more in the speaker/cabinet. Different guitars in the same downstream equipment sound similar, the same guitar in different downstream equipment will sound very different. That said, I have an entry level Ibanez RG with upgraded pickups and bridge, and a stock Prestige Ibanez RG. There is small a difference in body resonance, and the pickups are voiced differently, the neck girth is a bit different. Of the two, I prefer how my entry level RG sounds and feels.
Yes it will make a difference. If it is worth it depends on the playability of the instrument to start with. There isn’t much point sinking a bunch of cash into a heap of shit that doesn’t play well.
Pickups, pots, caps, nut/saddle material all make a difference to the the tone of the guitar. If it otherwise plays well, it may be worth it but swapping out or upgrading this stuff won't increase the value if/when you go to sell it down the road.
It'll improve significantly.
Hell yeah, I threw an EMG-81/85 set into an Epi G400 (~$360 '63 SG reissue clone) and the difference was night and day. I especially think it works better with cheap guitars; pricier guitars tend to come with better pickups that aren't quite as replaceable. For instance, I'd definitely think about an upgrade for my LTD EC-200, but my Dean Zelinsky Private Label LaVoce Custom? No way, they're a beautiful PAF 'bucker but turn into a noiseless Fender Gold Lace when split.
There are some good sounding cheap guitars. However new pickups, bridge and shielding can all massively improve a cheap guitar. As long as the guitar is structurally sound most of the tone is in the pickups, and the bridge. If a guitar has a very flexible neck or a neck made from soft wood etc, this can affect the tone. The sound of the body wood is usually not very audible in a guitars tone, but the neck can be, the stiffer the neck, the brighter, and the more flexible, the more high frequencies will be lost.
I love cheap guitars. I don't have to worry about scratching or chipping it. It's about the sound and construction not price. There a really of guitars that are cheap and mid range priced that are excellently constructed and sound great. It is pretty hard most of the time to find good cheap guitars. It's worth it, especially if you have ever purchased an expensive guitar that just sounded horrible. If you know what kind of pickups you like, it will probably get you a good sound out of a quality cheap guitar. It might just take awhile to find the guitar. My favorite instruments I own are a cheap Chinese P-Bass that exceeded my expectations 100 times over and a Greco EG that I got really cheap because it was really beat up and someone stripped all the parts off of it, except the bridge and tail piece. I was pretty much broke after getting it so instead of the Dimarzio Super Distortion and PAF pickups I wanted to get and and good tuners, I got some cheap parts and used stuff I already had. It is the best guitar I have ever owned and the only thing I will change is the cheap tuners. I guess this is kind of the opposite since the guitar would have been about $1000 if it was in better condition and not stripped. So it's more of an expensive guitar with cheap parts, but it is proof that money doesn't always equal better sound.
Significantly
I did it with my sons el cheapo and 100%, go for it. I got some great pickups cheap from a guy who bought a really good midrange and upgraded his pickups.
Great question! I am in the same boat and am encouraged by the responses you have gotten! Thanks for asking and thanks to those who responded.
We're lucky, there are some really helpful answers here!
The neck is the key point. If the neck feels good and you can get the action to where you like it, then it's worth fixing other stuff. And you don't have to spend a lot. Use a place like guitarfetish.com and you can get reasonable quality replacement parts for cheap. Nothing will change the tone more than changing the pickups.
The tone will completely change, pickups basicly are the sound on a guitar. THe problem with cheap guitar can be: cheap eletronics(noise), bad frets , unstable bridge. If you like the looks and the feel of it you'll be very happy with the pickup change. Rembember: the amp will do the magic, if you dont have a good one the pickup is not the problem.
So really the only thing that changes tone on a electric guitar is the electronic parts (pots, switches, wiring, capictors pickups), the strings, and pickup height. So puttin better sounding pickups on a cheap guitar will make it sound better
Works great! I got a $250 Harley Benton fanned-fret 7 string and put in a pair of Bareknuckle Pickups War Pig, and the guitar sounds a million times better than with the stock pickups!
The tone will change A LOT. The pickups and amp are the two most important factors by far. Good pickups. Good amp.
I put a loaded pickguard ($300 -Texas specials) into a Peavy U.S.A. Stratocaster clone ($100) and I’ve been searching for a Fender custom shop that plays better than it. The custom shop strats sound better or as good but have setup issues that Guitar center won’t address unless I buy it first. Really strange that guitar center has so many guitars with issues.
I put a Duncan JB in my $180 Jackson and it was my most played guitar for a couple of years. Sounds great, plays great. $250 all total.
🤘😀I have lightly modded my cheapo Jackson dinky js11. I changed the plastic nut for a graphtech nut and swapped out the pickups to EMG Jim Root daemonum pickups (totally solderless by the way) sounds and plays so much better to my ear, I plan on changing the bridge and tuners eventually as well. I can totally recommend doing it just for the learning experience, I call mine a "beater guitar" even though I take good care of it and its my only guitar. learning what I am doing on a cheap guitar is better than destroying an expensive guitar. But maybe don't be me and do it with your only guitar especially if you cant afford to replace it.🙃
Well I've done a video on a similar thing a while back. https://youtu.be/V9vSwy9Sf3Y Best bet for maximizing your cheap guitar's playability and sound are the three primary points of contact on the instrument: nut, bridge, tuners. Those upgrades certainly help a whole fuck ton. It may not impact your tone as much as pickups but it's a good starting point for making the guitar playable and stable. As far as pickups go you don't need to spend crazy amounts of money, there are $20 fleor alnicov pickups that easily compete with Seymour Duncans. If you're going to take the time to do this work I suggest you redo your wiring and get quality components because if you're going to be putting in the effort, make sure the guitar is going to be worthwhile to play for decades to come.
did this to a 200 dollar Jackson guitar, took out the default and put in some of Lamb of Gods signature pickups, changing the pickups and string guage will greatly change the tone on your guitar
Check Jim Lill on youtube, especially [this video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n02tImce3AE) Shows you where the tone comes from in a guitar. Now, If I were to believe this video, if changing the pickups makes the most drastic tone difference. That being said, is a 200$ guitar as pleasing to play as a much pricier ? Well, that's up to you. (Honestly, I'd personnaly fo for it)
Oh yeah. Bought a thrift store Squire Strat, dropped in a stratosphere loaded pick guard with hot Texas blues SSS alnico 5 pickups. Did a setup and now it is sweet. $120 total. Firefly 338, Epiphone probuckers with full harness with coil splitting. $250 total. Outstanding.
As long as the guitar is properly built (bridge in the correct position, frets cut at the right spacing, neck pocket is well constructed, and neck is straight with no warping), then you can pretty much rebuild the guitar with all high end gear and it can sound great. Pickups are the biggest factor on tone on the guitar itself. But once you throw any effects, amp, and speakers into the mix you're pretty much able to make whatever kind of sound you want.
I have had a (‘91 or ‘92) Peavey Predator I bought used in ‘93 for 250 bucks (my first guitar). It’s never been great but the neck has always played really well and it’s American made. Last year I upgraded it with a new loaded EMG HSS pickguard, a gotoh/wilinkson trem, fender locking tuners and a roller string tree. It’s one of my fav guitars now, different but just as much fun to play as my Am std strat and my Gibson explorer. Took it from barely played to one of my daily use guitars. It stays In tune incredibly, plays like a dream and looks a million bucks compared to the cheap electronics/hardware it had….
you can upgrade guitar hardware but fit, finish, and quality is a different game
It will either sound better, or the amazing pickups will bring out the sonic imperfections in the cheap guitar. 50/50 - but I'd bet it'll sound better.
The biggest thing that affects tone is the pickups and how they are wired up. Pretty much everything else is comfort and preference.
I play an Epiphone 'Dot' 335 guitar, an Martin and Taylor handmade acoustic guitar, a cheap classical guitar, and different very cheap Fender Strat copies. I have a 50 watt Katana Modelling Amplifier with effects, overdrive, may options. I have been playing since I was 13yers old, I'm over 67 years old now. I don't think more expensive pickups are worth putting on a cheap Electric guitar. The neck, body, bridge are it limitations, although almost any cheap Strat copy will sound great through the Katana 50 amplifier. The guitar I want to buy is a PRS (Paul Reed Smith). Their cheapest electric. It's beautifully finished, mahogany body, very good vibrato arm. And the youtube videos of it show how superb for almost any kind music it can sound. For rock, jazz, blues. Probably extremely easy to play, low action great finish, superb single coil or humbucker, or any combination of sounds. Great tuners too. Cheers, Neville
Adding to everything that's been said, if you suck doo doo poop, ain't no guitar upgrade gonna make you sound good
I did this with a Cort. I really liked the way it felt in the store. I put in a set of Duncan Hotrodders with coil tap did a complete set up and love it.
My thing is taking Squier Affinity guitars where the build quality is decent and then putting expensive electronics in and they play and sound good and are exactly what I want for a cheap price.
It can make a huge difference! I bought a Mexican Tele for around $300. I switched out the pickups for some Custom Shop Nocaster pickups (about $100). It's one of my favorite guitars I've ever owned! Just make sure it plays well and stays in tune and everything and you can spruce up a cheap guitar!
The pickups are the only modification you can do to a super cheap guitar to "improve" the tone. Anything else will just possibly *change* the tone, but may not necessarily be improvements since tone is subjective...but cheap shitty pickups are likely noisy, etc. so switching to a "proper" pickup will almost always be an improvement.
Just saw this the other day https://youtu.be/n02tImce3AE If it is to be believed basically all tone comes from the pickups and distance between pickup and strings. (Is that called the setup? )
I have a 1985 Aria pro ii inazuma I bought for about 200$. I put SD nazgul/sentient pickups in the guitar. It's very easy to play. I enjoy it more than my more expensive strat.
A cheap guitar with nice pickups sounds great. Also, there are tons of great pics on eBay for $15 that are just as good as the most expensive pickups out there, you just have to know what to look for. You can’t hear money.
If the guitar it’s too cheap, is not worth replacing the pickups… and sometimes cheap guitars sound way better than they should, and take in mind that in many cases, even if it’s a cheap guitar, the factory pickups are the INTENDED pickups…
I'd go one or two steps beyond changing pickups. Most of the electronics in cheap guitars are pretty naff. I'd definitely look at replacing at least the tone and volume pots as well. The other thing to look at is the bridge. A bone or Tusq nut will also make a pretty noticeable difference and depending on the guitar can be a simple change. Only 2 of my guitars sit unchanged and thats because I need to find the time to actually do the upgrades to one
[The pickups are the tone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n02tImce3AE), with some distinctive design features like a tele bridge contributing to it to the point they can be potentially audible.
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If you put good pickups in a shitty guitar, the shittyness will sound more detalied.
In my experience pickups do have an effect on your tone, but far less than you’d expect. If you’re unhappy with your current tone I’d first look at getting a better amp (unless all you can afford is new pickups, in which case go for it).
I put a Seymour Duncan pearly gates, a lil 59 and a jb Jr in my first cheap strat copy. I have subsequently bought much more expensive guitars and can appreciate they have a nicer neck etc (although that first cheap strat is actually quite comfortable) but sound wise the strat copy is absolutely up there and I doubt there'd be any noticeable difference if I swapped those pickups into one of my other guitars now
Plekking the fretboard would make the biggest improvement to how your guitar plays and feels.
what is Plekking?
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It will definitely sound better. I've upgraded four or five cheaper guitars over the years. I put a Nazgul/sentient set in a squier telecaster, and it was night and day obviously. The same set is in my Schecter Reaper now, and they rip. I put some dimarzios in a cheaper Ibanez 7 string. It was meh. I see a few people saying they made ultra cheap guitars as good as 1000 dollar guitars. I'm not so sure about that. If you're upgrading, I definitely recommend getting a new bridge, or at least saddles, a tusq nut, and new tuners. You will definitely notice a difference. That being said, I'm probably never going to buy or upgrade a guitar under 800 bucks again.
The pickups matter more than everything else in an electric guitar combined. Other aspects of the guitar (body wood, fingerboard material, bridge construction, etc.) will have subtle impacts on sustain and attack, but ultimately the pickup is that which makes sound out of the string above it that vibrates between the nut and bridge. It's important to know what you're going for when making a pickup upgrade. Alnico pickups are frequently seen as "better" than ceramics (which most cheap guitars have), but ceramics are louder and are frequently favored for metal and other distortion-heavy genres. If you play metal and buy a cheap guitar with ceramic pickups, switching to very high end alnico pickups will likely make the guitar "worse" for what you want due to the drop in gain. Finally: there's no such thing as "better tone". You can make a tone that's "not crap", but the truth is that the definition of "better tone" varies from context to context, and perhaps even song-to-song on the same album.
Tuners are always a good upgrade. Then possibly the nut.
I’ve got a $200 squire affinity with lollers and it sounds divine. Also did a neck job on it so it feels good too
https://youtu.be/n02tImce3AE Watch this, it'll blow your mind. Short story: people will argue about the wood and materials making it sound better. It's the pickups. If you like the feel of the guitar enough, do it.
I took a $100, 14 year old bullet Strat and put 3 EMG active pick ups in it. This made it sound like a $6-700 guitar, then I replace the tuners with locking tuners and now it sounds and plays like a $1200 guitar.
Been doing it for years on Squier Classic Vibe guitars. I recommend also changing your potentiometers and the switch. You can play with potentiometer/capacitor values to brighten or darken the sound and change the sweep of the tone control. I recently got a CV tele and threw all new electronics in. It did wonders for the guitar
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Nothing on the guitar .. Better speakers
You could do it but you're probably better off buying a guitar used for like $300 instead of a $150 guitar with $150 pickups
This guy actually tested all the places that tone can come from on an electric guitar. I'd highly recommend you watch the video, and start with those places. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n02tImce3AE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n02tImce3AE) But, the absolute most important part of improving a cheap guitar is making sure you like the guitar beforehand. If you don't like how it plays, new pickups won't fix that. You have to like the guitar before you update it, or else you won't like it after. I've spent hundreds of dollars trying to make guitars I didn't like sound better, and I ended up selling almost all of them. And I've spent hundreds of dollars improving guitars I already liked, and now I love them.
I do this A LOT. Pickups make all the difference in the world in a guitar's sound, as do good tuners for its feel and tuning stability. My latest cheap guitar is a $250 [Ibanez Gio](https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/GRGR131EXBKF--ibanez-gio-grgr131ex-electric-guitar-black-flat) that I have a set of locking Gotoh tuners and a pair of Duncan Black Winter pickups for. They'll get installed this weekend. The tuners were $100 and the pickups were $200, so in the end I'll have $550 into it. You'd have to get into the $800-1000 price range to buy a guitar with those parts on it. This way I can spread the cost out, there's always a chance I'll like the stock pickups (these Infinity pickups are not bad at all, really), and I enjoy improving them. This is the 4th affordable guitar I've purchased & upgraded in the last couple/three years; the others are a Jackson JS22-7 (locking Gotoh tuners, Duncan Nazgul & Sentient), an Ibanez RGA (DiMarzio Fortitude & 36th PAF), and an LTD EC-256 (locking Gotohs only, the stock pickups sound amazing). Some people think it's a waste to put money into a cheap guitar; I think as long as you like the way it plays and don't intend to sell it, why wouldn't you improve it? It's now a $500 guitar rivaling others twice its price.
My best guitar is a squier CV jaguar. I paid 350 for the guitar, 300 for pickups and 300 for a new bridge and trem. The build quality of cheap guitars has gotten really good recently, and in my opinion if you put good pickups in, replace any cheap hardware if it doesn’t function properly, and get it set up properly it can be an incredible way to get a custom, high quality guitar for much less money. I would say most cheap guitars benefit from having the bridge replaced. On the flip side though I’ve tried to do this with a cheap strat clone and have never been happy with it. There’s no escaping the fact that the body just sounds dead and lifeless. I would say that you do need to start with a guitar that sounds pretty good acoustically from the beginning to get the best results.
On cheap guitars swap out all the electronics. The pots are usually of such low quality they look like toy parts compared to standard ones. Sometimes you’ll have to open the cavity because they didn’t make enough room for standard parts to fit.
That's what I did with my Harley Benton TE-20. It was a 50$ guitar (now it's more like 80), had the bridge pickup replaced with a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails, et voila - it's been my main workhorse for almost 3 years now. A very solid instrument, especially given the price.
First what type of guitar? Also bone nut and rest of electronics always help. Locking tuners? Also bridge.
I put some used Fender Yosemite pickups in my Squier CV tele and the difference is night and day. The upgraded pickups make the guitar sound amazing. If you are doing a budget build, don't forget to look for used pickups or no-catchy-marketing-name pickups ripped out of a more expensive guitar.
Yes
100% I do this on my Squires and they bang now.
Guy I know put around $900-$1100 into a squier strat and I played his american strat vs his squier with a blindfold and couldn’t tell much of a difference
Can be totally worth it. If the neck plays well and the frets are good there's no reason not to, and nice pickups can really change the tone of a guitar for the better. One thing to consider too is how the guitar sounds unplugged. If you like how it sounds acoustically, then new pickups won't be a waste
A whole lot. I threw some Seymour Duncans in a 300$ Eart headless, and its seriously a different instrument now. It's day and night.
https://youtu.be/bIQiWfeWLA4 Watch this video to learn more. But the TLDR version is, yes, it can be done to achieve of what you might be looking for in sound. But at what price?
A lot of difference! Most, not all, $1000 or less guitar tend to have not the best pick ups. I usually just drop some Seymour Duncan’s in and rock. Other things that will change the sound is hardware like the bridge and nut and wiring
One of my guitars is an ESP LTD that had Duncan Desinged pickups on it. It sounded like a chainsaw. I changed DiMarzio Evolution & Evo2 pickups to it and the difference is like night and day. Definitely recommend! While at it, I also put in a push/pull tone pot that splits the humbuckers. Great addition! Also, good quality locking tuners are also a must.
It will improve the sound in most cases. May not improve the feel of playing or the playability of the guitar, but it’ll have a better sound coming out. You can also swap out the nut for a nicer one and get some locking tuners instead of the cheap ones it comes with. Those two things will improve sustain and tuning stability. Maybe swap the bridge out as well, if it’s something that doesn’t require a ton of work
Most of the tone from an electric guitar comes from the pickups. Changing the pickups is absolutely the best thing you can do to improve the tone on a cheap guitar
Hey I would check out ‘CS Guitars’ YouTube channel, he’s done a lot of upgrades to inexpensive guitars and it opened my eyes a lot of the difference pickups and hardware have.
I bought a $99 guitar after seeing Darrel Braun review it on his YouTube channel. He absolutely loved it, saying that he had absolutely no issues with the body or neck, but the electronics could use an upgrade. In his next video, he took that exact guitar, and swapped out the pickups, bridge, and tuners. There was a big increase in quality, and he said it was now the equivalent of a $700 guitar, with less than $200 in upgrades. I still have the guitar in the original $99 condition, and I've played it everyday since I got it over 2 years ago. It's the best 100 bucks I've ever spent. I am finally thinking about upgrading the pickups, so I'm researching what I want. Bottom line: If the body and neck are good, then upgrading the pickups can only help.
It would change dramatically. I have done that with most of my guitars.
I got a Mitchell ms450 from guitar center on sale for $200, they have the same sale all the time. To give credit where it’s due, it’s a very good guitar for that price and feels great, the pickups were pretty nice but too mellow for me. I swapped them out for some Suhr Doug Aldrich pickups, didn’t change anything else, and now it’s virtually indistinguishable from a very expensive guitar. It sounds amazing and plays great. It was DEFINITELY worth it
I have not had good experience with this trick. Think maybe the guitars I’ve tried it on just had cheap or bad wood.
i have an epiphone LP special i got used for 350. the neck feels great, the build quality is solid. i put fishman fluence greg koch p90s in it. the thing screams. those pickups are 275 so i didnt want to spend any more, but eventually i will put locking tuners on it and maybe an adjustable bridge.
Yes, it would change dramatically. Keep in mind, price doesn't always have that much to do with how the wood reacts, as there is so much variability with a living organism like trees. In fact, there is a good argument to be made that your electronics, pickup height, and strings are what really matter for an electric guitar: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n02tImce3AE Simply put, don't worry about the price of your guitar's wood. Worry about the quality of the electronics, the hardware, the fret and nutwork, and if it is comfortable to play and set it up correctly.
I got one of those squire bullet mustangs and put a cheap Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge and it sounds wonderful. Changed the tuners on it too, but other than that nothing. Still feels like a cheapo guitar but it plays nice and sounds nice- and it's really light so it's a fun guitar to be rough with during live shows and not have to worry about what happens if you fuck it up a little. I don't use it for recording but I do play it all the time.
I think you have the right idea but when you spend more than $200 part of you get in theory is superior fretwork. You can have somebody work on your frets on your guitar or get it plek'd but at that point the investment may get closer to what a nicer guitar would cost you. Can you put $300 into your $200 guitar and get a $500 guitar. I'm not sure but it's your project, do what feels right. At the $500 mark there are gems out there some players say play like a $1000 guitar except for the pickups.
I bought a $99 Tele and swapped pickups and it sounds amazing. Of course it does. 90% of a guitar’s tone comes from the pickups.
Definitely worth it if you're going to keep it for a while. Wife plays bass, and wanted a jam guitar, so I made one after seeing someone else do it for his lead guitar. Gets some road rash but your performance guitar stays safe. It's worth it and learned a lot from the experience. My Epiphone s335 is next for an electrical operation next.
i have an LTD JH200, which is a cheap version of the jeff hanneman signature model, and put two emg 81's on it and i also have a squier classic vibe stratocaster that i loaded with a set of lace sensor blue silver reds i got the lace sensors because i hate single coil noise and i only liked how they sound clean, the lace sensors turned out to be the perfect middle ground, largely noiseless (as noiseless as passive electronics can be) and they sound nice and glassy clean, and then get really good distorted tones as for the emgs, i really wanted to try active pickups and see if they deserve their negative reputation, soon found out that nah, they actually sound really nice, plus the original electronics had some terrible ground issues that were nigh impossible to fix and the emgs have been completely quiet and both play very nicely, so yeah, theres nothing wrong with dropping brand name pickups on an inexpensive guitar, difference in pickup sound only comes into play when switiching the type of pickup really, and if its higher output it'll sound brighter
I put lace sensors on a 250 Ibanez gio I bought for 250 bucks back in the late 90s. I also added a kill switch and a newer and nicer maple neck and new locking tuners. I love that guitar it was my daily driver for years even after I had nicer and more expensive guitars. It has since been replaced by my schecter c1classic as my go to guitar mostly because it has sentimental value to me and I don't want anything to happen to it as it was my first electric.
Look here for something similar: https://www.reddit.com/r/Luthier/comments/z4fr3m/parts_kit_upgraded/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
I have a cheap SX strat guitar that I got as a teen about 15ish years ago. I really didn't want to get rid of it for sentimental reasons but it was such a muddy sounding guitar. I replaced the pickups with alnico 5 clones, changed the tuners and replaced the plastic nut with a bone. I now enjoy playing the guitar more than my nicer telecaster. The body is heavy, the neck is thick and smooth and has really nice fret markers etc. So yeah I'm very glad I upgraded this guitar, and all in all cost me about USD90 for a guitar I love playing, that's less than a new effects pedal. I would recommend getting it setup professionally the first time even if you know what you are doing.
Good pickups and a good luthier will do wonders on a cheap guitar. Of course you have to choose a neck you're comfortable playing on
Bought an Epi Les Paul Specially GT and threw a set of P-Rails from Seymour Duncan and a pickup blending knob and I could not be happier. Always wanted a marauder and owned an LP Studio for many years and this new guitar can get both their tones plus a ridiculous amount more. Cannot recommend this enough.
Best part about upgrading pickups is you can keep the old ones and use the new ones in another project down the line if you wish!
Yes, but also swap out the pots and input jack as well. That will make a huge difference.
Ive done this to multiple guitars successfully as I’m a huge fan of seymour duncans and EMG’s and not only do the tones get better but you enjoy playing so much more
Cheap doesn't mean bad, so if you find one that you like the finish and feel go for it. It'll be a very significant change. I've swapped out pups in a PRS SE Custom 24 Floyd to Mick Thompson's blackouts and it feels and sounds phenomenal.
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Get some Matt Pike dirty heshers or lace dragonaut pickups. Those make any guitar turn into a riff machine. If that isnt what you're looking for, then I'd say put some stock les paul pickups in it or any pickup from a guitar that you like the sound of.
Before swapping the pickups try changing the height raise them and see if that gets the tone you want if it’s to bassy try only raising the treble side and vice versa you may not need to put a lot of money in to make it a great guitar. A proper setup may be all it needs.
Before you spend anything on new pickups take your guitar to your favorite music store and play through a number if different amplifiers. You might discover that you should be saving that pickup money to put toward a new amp. I know of countless instances where people have done pickup changes only to find out that the sound is different, but not quite what they were looking for. Many later discover that what was lacking from their sound was the tone provided by a different amp, not their pickups.
I bought a 99 dollar Chinese Fender strat back in like 2006. I wanted a guitar that didn't have a Floyd rose system. Playing it at the pawn shop and at home showed me that the Taiwan pickups were crap and muffled . So over the next couple of months I got 3 pick ups off of e bay. A JbJr for the neck position, a cool rail for the middle and a double stack at the neck. The pots and the switch were in great condition so when I dropped them in and put everything together it sounded awesome. The JbJr sounds very clean and hot with distortion from my Ibanez sonic distortion SD-9 (no pedal I have found sounds as good for older heavy metal) combined with the cool rail is just the volume clear you need for a little lick or lead break. Throw the switch all the way to the neck only and this guitar has a SRV sound all day long. I always thought I would use this guitar at home for practice but I have used it at shows. Total about 350 bucks.