paul-e-mann
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Just as the title states, please weigh in on this question. Thanks!
Will New Pots, Caps and Switch Make My MIM Strat Sound Better?
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ampmadscientist
Well-Known Member
No.
The sound is mainly the wood.
So if a guitar doesn't sound that great, no electronics is going to fix that.
Get a different guitar.
paul-e-mann
Well-Known Member
I've considered this as an option...
ampmadscientist
Well-Known Member
Recommend Mahogany...
paul-e-mann
Well-Known Member
Body or neck? or both?
ampmadscientist
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I would recommend both.
The Dose of Harmony
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What you can do its upgrade your pickups , change the nut to bone get thicker strings and you are gonna the best you can from that guitar but if you think its gonna sound like those pro guitars it would very unlikely but i have little story for you.
but every once in while you can get a special guitar I one epiphone the zakk wylde the bulleyes or vertigo i dont remember the fucking name i am not a fan of zakk (he bad ass for sure) i knew it from the moment i touch that guitar , it felt good and it had very cheap Emg’s, i just knew it. that guitar was special. So i put gibson 57band 57’s and change all pots and that guitar its bad ass all my friends always ask why that guitar sounds good so my guess its that the wood its very resonant and gives that balance sound
i have guitar all over the place very high end gibson custom and proud owner of a silvertburst from 1980 and i middle and low end guitar but that epiphones its one of the best guitar .
So its up to you if you want to invest or not
You never know until you try my Friend
but every once in while you can get a special guitar I one epiphone the zakk wylde the bulleyes or vertigo i dont remember the fucking name i am not a fan of zakk (he bad ass for sure) i knew it from the moment i touch that guitar , it felt good and it had very cheap Emg’s, i just knew it. that guitar was special. So i put gibson 57band 57’s and change all pots and that guitar its bad ass all my friends always ask why that guitar sounds good so my guess its that the wood its very resonant and gives that balance sound
i have guitar all over the place very high end gibson custom and proud owner of a silvertburst from 1980 and i middle and low end guitar but that epiphones its one of the best guitar .
So its up to you if you want to invest or not
You never know until you try my Friend
MarshallDog
Well-Known Member
Probably can’t hurt to try it if you have the bucks and time...
ampmadscientist
Well-Known Member
You can put a $10,000 pickup on a bad sounding guitar....and it will still sound like crap.
Pickup makers have led you to believe that the sound quality is coming from the pickups.
Sadly it does not.
The reality is that a guitar that sounds bad...will continue to sound bad no matter what you buy, and no matter how much money you throw at it.
If you want a good sounding guitar: find it and buy it. (it's mainly the wood that was used to build it)
The Dose of Harmony
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You did not understand my post!
And for sure you didnt get the title either
He wants his MIM strat to sound better !
I told him that by upgrading his pickups the guitar would give him the best tone that guitar can give him, everybody knows that wood its the mayor element in the tone but you need pickups too , small part maybe but pickups influence a lot the way you play , your attack and how loose you can be !!!!
If He wants his MIM strat to sound better if he upgrades his pickups that guitar its gonna sound better and guess what he does not has to spent $10000 , i found a Jb for 30 dollars and its sounding bad ass in one of my but epiphones but i guess you think epiphones are not good !
And by the way you can spend $10000 on a guitar and still you can sound like shit!!!!
Do you fucking know who Jerry cantrell and his cheap guitar is?
Lol
Adieu
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Nik Henville
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Not necessarily - depending on the values chosen they may make it worse, or leave it unchanged.
Changing stuff does not, in and of itself, make things sound 'better'. And your 'better' may be my 'worse'.
More bass can be 'balsier' to me, 'muddier' to you, more treble could be your 'sparkle' to my 'ice-pick'.
You need to analyse how you want to change it, and select the values accordingly. Proceed...
anitoli
Well-Known Member
Just a thought maybe it's not the guitar but rather the amp it's plugged into. Some guitars just do not sound right plugged into certain amps.
SkyMonkey
Well-Known Member
Can you explain in what way the guitar sounds bad at the moment. Aspects of guitar tone are dependant on the individual who owns them. What are you hoping to change in the sound of the guitar.
You can change the eq of a guitar with capacitors to skim off some of the low end.
Pickups will certainly make a difference. Are you using the stock pups? What is the configuration? With Strats you have the luxury of changing the scratchplates to change configuration.
I have a HSS Charvel that I am tinkering with to make a balanced pickup set that works for me. I am now happy with a Tone Zone in the bridge, but the singles need sorting out (rails that came wired as parallel and split).
Are the switches faulty, crackles, drop-outs, etc.
As for wood. That is a minefield. I have followed many discussions on this subject and watched YT vids that claim to support or debunk the wood tone theories. I am of the opinion that there is certainly crap wood out there and guitars with crap wood are irredeemable. But as to the tones created by different good wood varieties, I cannot hear any difference, even with headphones, though admittedly YT vids suffer from audio compression. Some claim to be able to hear differences, and they may be superhuman. They may also be deluded and have too much money to spend (thinking Hi-Fi audiophiles here).
Rob Chapman is one who claims to be able to hear differences and has a theory that different wood varieties subtract from the sonic spectrum of string vibration, not add. So a bright wood (maple?) is actually absorbing some lower frequencies, and mahogany dampens high frequencies?
For me a guitar has to feel right to my finger first. I can dismiss a guitar in about 2 minutes of playing if it is not my type of guitar (though a bad setup is easy to spot too).
Next comes acoustic sustain and dead spots. These two elements are fixed and no amount of modification can help turn these around for me.
Pickups and amplification are the main tone changers for me. The differences they can produce are massive compared to anything else.
You can change the eq of a guitar with capacitors to skim off some of the low end.
Pickups will certainly make a difference. Are you using the stock pups? What is the configuration? With Strats you have the luxury of changing the scratchplates to change configuration.
I have a HSS Charvel that I am tinkering with to make a balanced pickup set that works for me. I am now happy with a Tone Zone in the bridge, but the singles need sorting out (rails that came wired as parallel and split).
Are the switches faulty, crackles, drop-outs, etc.
As for wood. That is a minefield. I have followed many discussions on this subject and watched YT vids that claim to support or debunk the wood tone theories. I am of the opinion that there is certainly crap wood out there and guitars with crap wood are irredeemable. But as to the tones created by different good wood varieties, I cannot hear any difference, even with headphones, though admittedly YT vids suffer from audio compression. Some claim to be able to hear differences, and they may be superhuman. They may also be deluded and have too much money to spend (thinking Hi-Fi audiophiles here).
Rob Chapman is one who claims to be able to hear differences and has a theory that different wood varieties subtract from the sonic spectrum of string vibration, not add. So a bright wood (maple?) is actually absorbing some lower frequencies, and mahogany dampens high frequencies?
For me a guitar has to feel right to my finger first. I can dismiss a guitar in about 2 minutes of playing if it is not my type of guitar (though a bad setup is easy to spot too).
Next comes acoustic sustain and dead spots. These two elements are fixed and no amount of modification can help turn these around for me.
Pickups and amplification are the main tone changers for me. The differences they can produce are massive compared to anything else.
The Dose of Harmony
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I love the tone zone pickup one of best out there , I believe that too a guitar must feel good in you hands and you can compensate the weak spots of a guitar by choosing the right pickups i like Ibanez guitar because they feel right but i am Les paul guy so upgraded my S-series Ibanez with the tone zone and the breed pickup and i just couldn't be happier .
paul-e-mann
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The history of this guitar, I got it used off ebay for a couple hundred in 2011 to keep in the back seat of my car, it was a Hendrix conversion (badly done) so I converted it back to a lefty guitar with a Tusq nut, the guitar really feels and plays nice, its alder and maple. So over the next handful of years (even as recent as this past week) I've put alot of pickups in it as an attempt to improve the tone without success. So I've finally accepted defeat on this guitar that its the best its gonna get, its not the worst but there's something about the tone that seems to follow the guitar regardless of the pickups that are in it, the culprit I imagine has got to be the wood or maybe the electronics. So any way I have a SD Little 59 in the bridge and a Fender 54 in the neck and stock middle, I'm just gonna leave it this way, as a last ditch effort I was looking for an opinion if replacing the rest of the electronics would make a difference or not that's the only thing I haven't done, there doesn't seem to be a definitive yes amongst the group so I'll assume it wont help. Its not easy to find lefty guitars to try before you buy so for the most part you have to take what you can get.
paul-e-mann
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This my friend may be a good idea! Thanks for suggesting.
Lance Chambers
Well-Known Member
Well, I'm not going to address the tone wood debate..........
I simply swapped on a set of stainless strings, tuned to Eb and it transformed my MIM Strat into a metal machine. I get great Slayer tones while playing through the JCM2000.
I simply swapped on a set of stainless strings, tuned to Eb and it transformed my MIM Strat into a metal machine. I get great Slayer tones while playing through the JCM2000.
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