Yup, same here. Back when covid hit, I decided the first thing I needed to upgrade was my guitar fixing skills. Spent more on tools and parts than on a pricey guitar over the years and now enjoy tinkering with cheaper guitars to see if I can "custom shop" as you said, those guitars to suit my playing needs and wants. So far it's been a ton of fun and not too pricey as I can handle all the labor costs myself.
in reality, it's closer to the true definition of custom shop than buying a "custom shop" guitar from some of the typical manufacturers. They say "custom" on there, but ain't a damn thing on it that actually is haha
Best budget guitar I own is an unbranded LP copy from Brandon’s Custom Shop (and it’s not a Chibson) that I got on sale for $160. I had my tech black out the hardware, installed locking tuners, a graph tech nut, and Tonerider Alnico II Classic pickups with push/pull CTS pots and orange drop caps. It is an incredible guitar and I have about $500 in it, but I won’t part with it. It is one of my top 5 favorites of the 30 guitars I own, which includes a number of Gibsons, Eastmans, and a Heritage, among others. Yes, it really is that good.
Upgrading a cheap guitar over time is a great option for those that don't have the budget to buy a better guitar. You'll never get that money back, but dropping $50 or $100 at a time can really benefit a cheap guitar that feels great but has weaknesses.
@ToneJunkieTV used parts and open box or refurb. For example emg has an outlet on reverb and sweet water sells open box and you can easily find near perfect used pickups. I built 2 guitars i spent about 2000 on making that rival an ibanez pia or j custom and all the pickups i used were used or open box and had literally 0 or marks scratches on them. I did a whole fishman fluence hsh set for around 220 which new is like 370
You're kind of right about how it's difficult to stop tinkering. My first guitar was the Yamaha Pacifica 012. The cheapest Pacifica. I learned how to play on it. Then I started tinkering with it. I started with changing the nut, then I added locking tuners. Then I wanted to change how it looks so I installed a new pearloid pickguard and metal knobs similar to those on a tele. Then I wanted to change the bent steel saddles to block saddles. Then I wanted to get into changing the electronics. So I changed the pickups, pots and all the innards. Then I changed the entire trem system to a Vega trem. I also added a kill switch to it. The only thing left to change are the frets. I will do that too, you know. I'll put stainless steel frets one of these days. I have no desire to tinker with other guitars, though. I just want my first guitar to become the ultimate superstrat. I'll never sell it, either. It's my first guitar. I'll never have my own signature model, so I'm just gonna make one that looks and behaves exactly how I want it to.
I commented on the last video about this guitar. I personally live on SSD and VA Benefits. I had a heart transplant. I barely make it every month, so I have bought inexpensive guitars and slowly modify them. I'm all in on an LP style guitar at $169, $30 for a rolling bridge, $30 for pickups, $25 for the locking tuners, $4 speed knobs, $5 for sheilding tape and $6 for DR 10 gauge strings, for a total of approximately $270. I couldn't buy an equal Epihone LP, Firefly or Harley Benton for that. It sounds and plays Amazing with a full setup and lubricated nut. I used 15.5 -16k bridge and 7.5 -8k neck humbucker with adjustable poles. If I could afford more, I'd have bought a better guitar to begin with, but I'm very happy with the budget guitar mod. It just depends on your personal situation. I had fun building it and also paid for the guitar over time, which makes it affordable for a guy like me.
Working on them is half the fun. I have expensive stuff that I won’t sell unless I am ever in a bind but my most favorite daily player is a B stock Squire jazzmaster that I payed 250 bucks for and dumped 300 into. The first upgrade was a mastery bridge. Even the expensive Jazzmasters need a bridge replacement to play right and stay in tune. The rest was pickups, electronics and pearloid pick guard. The neck is my most favorite neck of all of my guitars and the fret work and nut were almost perfect but needed some polishing to bring it to the next level. Rock on my friend 🤘
That is a good plan Sorry to hear about your health issues, that sounds rough. I am also disabled but nothing severe or life-threatening, just enough so I can't work and I feel like garbage most days. Playing guitar helps me a lot Luckily I was able to get some decent guitars while I still had some money. I really want a LP/Humbucker/P90 style guitar, it would complete my small collection of guitars.
@JDStone20 I bought most of my guitars when I was sick pre transplant, when I was living home before my parents passed. The minute my mother was gone last year, my sister said she wanted to sell the house and forced me to move out. I'm paying double the rent now, so I can't afford much. I've been upgrading all my less expensive guitars, and I have a few good ones I'll never part with until they take them from my cold, dead hands.
Hey dude, thanks for watching and commenting. Sorry to hear about the health issues. You’re making a really good point about not only getting a better guitar by upgrading but also the ability to not pay for it all at once s which is a huge benefit. 🍻
@@TimRock1269 That is horrible. If you can't rely on family these days all is lost. My money is tight also, but I am not selling anything, since I cannot replace them.
You want to mod it??? Ok here's a best keep secret. Tonerider pick-ups! They cost half what other pickups cost maybe even less and they have "vintage P90+" The plus is for overwound. Amazon should have them. A set is like 90 bucks. And boy oh boy! They are freaking amazing! Take it from a guitar builder of 22 years of fiddling experience.
As far tuners I recommend Guyker. They have locking Tuners and are on point. For like 25 bucks. Tho I believe your Tuners are good. I would try a proper restring. They might not be optimal strung. If they have not settled after 2 days of playing. Just a tip
I bought a very expensive custom built strat and was going to supply my own pickups. I was thinking lollar blondes at the time but I ran out of money after the build, so I put tone rider surfaris in it for $120 AUD….that was in 2017. It’s still my main guitar to this day and I haven’t taken the tone riders out. I keep saying why not try something new and more Boutique but I guess why change something if it ain’t broke
I've bought a Squier Sonic. I've put around 350usd worth of stuff in it, pickups, changed the hardtail bridge to a Schaller one, changed the nut and tuners, pickguard and tone pot. Did a fret job, done a screening job on it too. It plays good, it sounds like heaven. I've been playing guitar since '03, had plenty of them, cheap, expensive, but this one will stay.
If you did all that and flipped it in a year it would have been painful. But keeping it 20+ is 100% worth it. I bought a Squire Strat to learn guitar repair. I've done everything to it including a refret. It plays and sounds as good as anything. No reason to sell it for peanuts.
It's only worth it if you love the way it plays and plan on keeping it. I've gone down the same rabbit hole. Some of them were worth it but will never recoup the cost when selling. Better off the put the original pickups back in and sell the custom pickups separate but need to be able to do yourself.
I have my workhorse guitar for gigging and recording. I keep it in good shape but don't mod it. Over the years I've discovered how to draw great tones from it. And I have an experiment guitar for trying things. To me, that's fun. But I don't expect to resell it or recoup what I put into it. It's just part of my learning curve. Do what inspires you.
Mods can be removed when selling the guitar. I have done that. Keep the parts for another project. Done this with a cheap Eko les paul with p90. Put minihumbuckers in. Sold the guitar and put those pickups in my Burny. Same goes for the bridge I used. Tinkering is fun. Enjoy listening to yapoing about guitars. TH-cam recommended your channel with the controversial eagle guitar. Cheers from the Netherlands.
I once saw an amateur video where Joe Satriani was handed a cheap Chinese guitar with high action, a bad setup, a blocked tremolo, and a 15W transistor amp. Despite all that, he played a technical song flawlessly, proving it’s about the musician, not the gear. I’d rather invest in improving my skills than upgrading a cheap guitar or buying an expensive one. But if upgrading makes you happy, go for it! BTW, when are you guys releasing a worship performance pack with newer songs? That would sell fast-please motivate Sooze to make it happen! 😊
Only part you’re leaving out is that NONE of are Joe. And we aren’t anywhere near his talent. Fighting a guitar to play correctly is nonsensical. Get what helps you get the job done. Guitars are tools. Work smarter, not harder.
This is a good question. I think doing some simple basic mods, like tuners, nut, wiring harnass/switches can make a huge difference for not a lot of money. I am less likely to do this with a Gibson style guitar than a Fender style, because I think Fenders are easier to work on and you can get some really solid Teles/Strats for under $200. If the neck feels great and you like the look, you can add Bootstrap pickups, Gotoh tuners, Obisidian electronics/pots and a new nut for under $200. So you pay $375 for a guitar that plays like $1000+ guitar. Thing about house brands like HB, they are cutting out a the middleman, so you are getting a guitar worth 2-3 as much as you are paying. That is the magic of them. Minimal advertising, no distributors, large quantities shipped to a single location, etc. Same guitar as the HB 550 II with a major name on the head stock would be 800+ in cost, which is why so many people say they punch way above their weight.
I've been wondering that same thing ! Bought their strat and also the 335 knockoff...needed quite a bit of set up and pickup upgrades. Dont think I'll go that route again. Great video...thanks. One other thing ..their small 000 solid mahogany acoustic is Amazing!!! That one is a very good buy.
There is a limit to modding. If I am going to keep the guitar, then I add to it what I like. Only bad experience I had so far was w a Gretsch electromatic where I couldnt make the guitar work regardless of what I added.
I love taking cheap guitars and upgrading them. My last one was the black Paisley Harley Benton. I put loving tuners on there, a Palm b Bender, Lambertones pickups, a clear Pickguard, angled slot for the pickup selector, and a Killswitch. I play that over my Gibson Les Paul and my Yngwie signature Strat. It's easily my second favorite guitar, and I'm not done modding.
I agree that it's a money pit.Better off buying something nicer up front. Some things make sense like upgrading to a better quality switch or pots, but at a certain point it stops making financial sense.
It all depends on how well built the guitar is. I would not purchase or upgrade a guitar from Amazon or any instrument that is new to the industry. We all know those instruments. So, I bought a Fire Fly FFLPS four years ago. I knew what I was getting into but my God, it was bad. I had to gut it totally and throw all the shit out. I even pulled the nut. I had to dowel the bridge and tail piece posts because they were drilled over sized causing shift. I wanted to practice my luthier skills and this was a good option then. When I have to take the truss rod and turn it counter clockwise way past the zero tension point to get the neck to go straight and out of a back bow, I know it was not built correctly. Thank God for double action truss rods! I got all the parts from GFS so it was less money. When I was done, it played very good and fast. It stayed in tune very well. I felt good, it played good but no matter what I did, the guitar sounded dull and lifeless through every amp that I plugged it into. So, I gave it to the neighborhood kid next door who was learning to play. I recently purchased an Ibanez GRGR131EXBK for $249. After the mods, it is a beast for playing metal. I wanted a super start with a hard tail in my collection but I did not want to spend an arm and leg for one. Inexpensive guitars can be good only if you get them through a manufacture that has been recognized in the industry over the decades. ESP/LTD, Epiphone, Aria Pro II, Jackson, Vintage, Michael Kelly and Ibanez make really good lost cost instruments. I even have a few 70's lawsuit LP's from Ibanez, Aria and Aria Pro II and they are just as good if not better than the low cost guitars today.
It all depends. I play a guitar to see if anything needs a fixin’. I try things to improve it without replacing parts (nut, setup, pickup heights, etc). If the guitar plays well but doesn’t sound quite how I want it, then I “upgrade” kinda commensurate to how expensive the guitar is. My general experience is anything that says it’s “alnico” will usually be better than what comes stock in these guitars. From there it comes down to how hot and whether you want alnico 2 or 5. A cheap guitar has to play extremely well to justify spending more on the upgrades than the guitar’s value.
A 500-600 or even 800$ guitar still needs new pickups generally that adds +400$. So it might be cheaper to get the 200$ guitar and upgrade. Now, a 500$ to 800$ is generally also a better build and more aesthetic pleasant, maybe better woods. You cannot change that in the cheap model. Fret work may also be hard to improve to the one in a more expensive guitar. Brands know all of this and this is why they make different models and prices that will always justify buying whatever guitar in their brand.
For me, the benefits in upgrading affordable guitars has been two fold. Functionality improves as well as my skill set to work on and repair guitars. That's not to say the instrument will become better than the sum of its parts when compared to more expensive guitars, but there's a lot of value gained in the upgrade experience. Sometimes it's just fun to tinker.
Example.. I just bought the westcreek dc.. $169.. gotoh tuners $40.. eBay p90 $25.. oil in paper cap.. $10.. pots I had.. I’m in less than $250.. beats the epi BJA LP Jr.. I’m replacing. don’t overspend on the pickups.. just make sure you get the ones with real magnets
Wilkinson GFS and Vanson (uk) all make great pick ups and parts for very little money there’s also Bootstrap pickups who actually make their products in the USA and get rave reviews on forums. Here in the the UK I could upgrade the pickups,tuners a bone nut and a good quality single cut wiring harness from Monty’s and still come in under £200.
I got away from doing the cheap guitar upgrade many years ago. My problem is getting a deal on a nice guitar that is a mess and then fixing it up. A good set of nut files and a StewMac fretkisser is worth their weight in gold with some patience. And I'd mess with the pole pieces and pickup height before I bought another set of P90's...can't hurt.
I'm not a pro player by any means so making upgrades is really just to satisfy myself. But I got an Epiphone SG G-400 back in '08 and it still has all its original parts. I still love that guitar and the feel of it (I did most of my learning on that guitar) but my musical tastes today are different than they were then so I have been contemplating changing the humbuckers to P90s for the longest time as well as adding a dussenberg tremolo system. My approach is that if the guitar feels good when I play it along the neck and in my hands then modding is worth it if I'm making it sound to more of my liking or stay in tune better. Solid video!
If you enjoy the process, it’s invaluable. Can you get better bang for more buck? Of course! But you don’t care about the money pit because it’s gaining you the experience and personal touches.
I encounter the same dilemma over and over. The scenario where I usually end up going for modding over buying an 'upgraded' model, so to speak, is if (1) the bones are pretty much similar, (2) I want to customize the guitar to certain specs/aesthetic that I like (i.e. either way I'd be inclined to swap out the hardware or electronics) and (3) the 'lower' model has the color I'm after (i.e. sometimes the 'upgraded' model just doesn't come in the color I want)!
EVEN ON GUITARS NEAR A GRAND OR CHEAP BUT MARVOLOUS, THEY COME SUBSTANDARD AND CAN BE MADE TO BE BETTER THAN THOSE COSTING MANY TIMES MORE 1: take all hardware off/out of guitar and throw in trash... 2: roll fretboard edges and 'Properly' polish fret ends/edges... 3: polish fretboard to gloss and frets to shine (without changing fret heights) and satin back of neck... 4: carefully shop for best parts deals... 5: Guyker tremolo (copy of Duesenberg) and 'Roller'/Graphtec saddles/bridge... 6: Graphtec XL Black nut... 7: smooth locking tuners 1:21 ratio... 8: carbon paint inner cavities & wire in select components with push/pulls for split-coil and phase-shifting... 9: apply nut sauce and string with NYXL/Cobalt/Paradigm...
The most worthwhile investment is always going to be replacing the plastic nut. If you go with a GraphTech nut, that's a $15 investment that makes life so much easier. Any time I get a guitar with a plastic nut I change it to a GraphTech if there's a model that fits. Alternatively, if you know how to cut your own nut, you can buy a bone blank and make your own bone nut. It's not as hard as it sounds. I did it for my Harley Benton TE-62cc on my first try, because there is no GraphTech nut that fits this guitar. It took me only a couple of hours and some very cheap tools that anyone can get from a local hardware store, and that I already had. The bone blank cost me $3. So, all in all, the bone nut cost me $3 and a couple of hours of manual labour.
You have an amazing guitar collection. Unless you are passionate about what is possibly could be with upgrades, you could gift it to someone to introduce them to the beauty of music and maybe throw in i nice little solid state amp. Ahhhhh…..the joy of giving! 🎸🙏
Dude everything you just said about upgrading over time is proving me right. I don't care at all about ever selling any guitar. All of mine will go from me to either a friend, child, or a trash heap. ❤
I actually have one of these and love it. I do agree with your critiques on it and plan on upgrading mine. Suggestion: upgrade it severely and compare it to the stock trump guitar. 😂
Your final question: "Are these things money pits?" Hell yeah!... But in the end it's gonna be *your* guitar, absolutely unique. It doesn't make any sens financially, but I really love the idea. I threw like $1000 on the exact same HB you play in this video (frets, nuts, electronic, pickups... everything!). I will never, ever sell it. This is *my* guitar. Thomann/Harley Benton invented a new game for us guitar players to spend even more money at accessories... I love that game :-)
Agree 100%! I've bought HB, CV50s, AIO....discounted if possible...and do my own mods...all Teles, simple to mod....swapped in used boutique pups. All sound/play great...enjoyed doing the mods too. Win-win. Can't sell them without a loss....but they're keepers. Not money pits.....more like money divots.
I picked up a Squier bullet telecaster, surf green, string through body, very resonant, that caught my eye and played surprisingly well. Got it on sale for $119, took it home, and decided it definitely needed better tuners and a new nut. Put on a new nut and tuners, smoothed and polished the frets, and the guitar plays great. Only put in about $40. Would new pickups and upgraded pots improve it? Definitely, but as long as it plays well and stays in tune, I'm good with it. Not worth investing another couple hundred, just buy a better one.
@@jesseleon4501 thanks dude, I’m kind of trying out this new format that is really just me “hangin out and talking guitar”. I appreciate the positive feedback. This made my day.
It really depends on if A. You can do the work yourself B. If you are getting a good enough deal on the genesis. C. Your access to cheap parts alternatives. D. The quality of the husk. My last upgrade Journey is as follows. I bought an early 70's Matsumoku made LP copy husk that was stripped of finish and some hardware was missing. I got it for $150. I am a hobbyist Luthier so I was able to re-finish the guitar in Nitro with a muted colorization similar to an Iced Tea burst. I subtly cracked the finish with some electronics duster to get that vintage crazed varnish look. Complete re-fret, fretboard resurface. New tuners. bridge upgrade. Then I put a Gibson Patent number sticker P-Up in the bridge which I got on Ebay for $60 and an early 70's Maxon in the neck which I have had forever with new CTS "hand picked" for the higher values so like 500-515k with PIO caps. All switchcraft switches and jacks. So now I have an early 70's Japanese Matsumoku LP copy Worth $1,000 which I spent $400 cash on plus gradual work overtime. Now I have a killer guitar which looks and sounds great with vintage bones, sounds amazing, super resonant, stays in tune because I cut a new nut etc. So, was it dumb for me to take a cheap vintage broken guitar and make it great again, actually better than it ever was and there is now a cool story? You decide. I think it is amazing that something I have now has value due to the upgrades I have done. I have a killer gig ready guitar that plays like butter, stays in tune and has a great tone. It literally sounds and plays better than my 73' Gibson SG Deluxe. Tell me I am not smart for tinkering.
Moded a Squire Affinity Tele DeLuxe I got dirt cheap, with Filtertron pickups and better tuners and a proper fret job. Now it is a great guitar for around 300 bucks. But agree that some cheapies doesn't need an upgrade.
Yes it is. You can't "upgrade" the neck and the body and the fitting it together, and overall feeling of the instrument - ofc you cen rebuild the guitar from the scrach as well :P In practise "the upgrade" is just swaping electronics and hardware, sometimes people do a bit of fretwork it it's needed but the core of the instrument remains the same = you will not get your money back, it remains the same guitar = Unless you don't love the guitar straight out of the box, upgrading it is a waste of money.
I feel its worth it just for the fun involved fitting the parts and setting up yourself... I learn a lot every time I do this... yes there is a cost to it but you cant put a cost on experience
I noticed the same thing as well.. the other benton that was cheaper had a smaller neck so im now a little skiddish on buying another without playing it first
I agree unless you're going DIY they'res little benefit these days cuz there are many teers of guitar quality and prices these days. I mentioned in my previous text on your previous video The AIO guitars that seem to have a great in-house setup process after getting manufactured in Korea. I'm a bit fascinated by that right now. That is at the $500 price point or just a pinch below I still want another SSS style strat and the PRS SE silver sky that has been on sale in stores for $721 recently is the number one contender to lighten my wallet a bit. At least a dozen times now, I've sat down with whatever one of these was at my local guitar center and played them. Every time I leave wanting one. So it seems as if my new ceiling on a guitar is about that, $720 to $750, but when I get one it's likely going to be a used one for closer to $550. The only upgrade I would do to one of these is to the athletics. So I will still come in well below the $721, let alone the $850 retail of an SE silver sky.
When it comes to Harley Bentons, I have yet to catch one that is problematic with just polishing frets oiling (you don't need expensive nut souce and special lemon oil when WD40 exists), in my case often "rolling" the fretboard a bit and thus have to round the fret ends again and doing the setup myself. All of that is really cheap, makes them really comfortable and stabilizes the tuning (if I even had problems before). I modified some further, but more for what I wanted and not because the were bad as is, and half of them I wouldn't touch in that way.
@@ToneJunkieTV This guy and his son advertise cheap guitars they upgraded to fine guitars but still sell them quite cheap and got me a bit interested. There's no trial and error, you can play them and buy the one you like.
I've bought several guitars from thrift stores, fixed, modified them and upgraded them. Course I like electronics and dabble in luthiering. I can't drop 1000+ on a great guitar so it was worth it to me.
From personal experience, I’ve had plenty of nut issues, with $1k+ guitars in the past. I deeply connected with my CV Tele, and did all new electrical components, and you couldn’t convince me to trade it for a used stock $1k guitar. It’s everything I want in a guitar and have no interest in trying to connect with something else, like I have with this one
It all boils down to a guitar that has a decent build in the first place. There's a lot I can do to a guitar, other than the apparent upgrades, that will determine if I'm going to keep it. The fretwork and overall finish on the neck is something that I'm going to look for first thing off. And I've never found an HB that even gets close to what I would take home. The are comparable to Squier in that regard.
Some major brands model have locking tuners and brand pickups in the range of $1k+. But realistically most of them in the range of $1,5k+. So spending in the ballpark of $300 for a budget model could make sens.
Modding cheap guitars is a great (low risk) way to learn about guitars if you do the work yourself. It can be very enjoyable, but will never be a money maker. Best not to do anything irreversible and keep the old parts. That way you can return it to stock condition if you want to sell it.
I agree with most here in the comments. I own a few guitars/basses worth several thousand dollars...but I also own about 20 cheap ass guitars that I've modded and worked on for the last 20 years. Most recently I bought a squier bullet mustang and put a SD Phat Cat p90 in the neck and a SD Invader in the bridge, new hardware, bridge, tuners, nut, pots, fret level/polish, etc, and that geet is a friggin killer. Super light weight, too. And for the last 20 years I've worked on these cheap guitars and now I feel I have the experience and skill necessary to work on my expensive guitars...like my PRS, american strat, american p bass, american jazz bass, sandberg bass, musicman stingray, american tele, etc...Upgrading by doing all the work yourself is a MUST have skill so you're not paying guitar center 50 bucks to change your strings....yeah, that's what they charge over here in the PNW. And they don't even polish the frets. I don't know about you, but bass strings are already upwards of 30-50 bucks depending on the brand. I'm not gonna pay some dude at the store 100 dollars to change my strings. I'll leave you all with this...do what makes you happy. I absolutely LOVE working on guitars. So I do it.
On the other side of the coin I recently bought a used Fender 52 RI Telecaster mim it's a really good instrument ( i've owned many Telecasters thru the years ) . It has a curly maple neck , great quality parts and plays like butter . I did not have to do a thing $500.
Just use a boost and OD pedal like you did with the Harley Benton the other day, makes more sense than rebuilding a sub-$200 guitar. Just enjoy it as it is.
I'm a big fan of "cheap" mods for "cheap" guitars. The good news is, there's some great stuff out there for not a lot of money. Guyker tuners for $25 are in all liklihood much nicer than the Harley Benton tuners. That said, I'd see how those tuners feel with no strings before I jumped on the tuner bandwagon. Most tuners are perfectly adequate even if they're gritty, and 90% of the time the gritty feeling is from the poorly cut nut and not the tuners. As for the pots, you don't need $100 worth of pots. Dime sized pots won't change your sound, and in most cases, they're perfectly reliable unless you ride your volume all night. If not, you can get full sized CTS pots for about $40 for all 4. No need whatsoever for expensive caps. I use the super cheap green chicklets. As for pickups, sure, you can justify spending the big bucks, but my experience is that especially with P90s, you can find some absolutely fantastic sounding cheap ones. Guitar Fetish, Guitar Madness, or even some of the no-name ebay/amazon brands. Most of them are made by Artec. P90s are a very basic design, so as long as you find one that's wound to about the same DCR with the same gauge wire (most are 42AWG unless they're a really hot wind) and the same magnet type, the sound is going to be pretty similar. My gut says you could upgrade that whole guitar for less than you paid for the guitar and have a fantastic instrument.
If you are at the stage where you are figuring out what you like, what guitars you find comfy, what kind of sounds you want I wouldn’t upgrade cheaper guitars. The resale value won’t go up as it is still an import guitar but with better hardware. At this stage you will most likely move guitars often before you know what you like. When you’ve tried more expensive guitars and can evaluate if import guitar is good enough, you could then upgrade pickups etc
I went at it a little different. Previously, I had bought a Squier Strat, because all my guitar gods played strats, but ended up hating a strat setup/playability. Would've cost me a ton my if I just went out and bought a Fender US first (even though I could've recouped money upon sale, I likely would've lost $). I always wanted a Les Paul, but I didn't know if I'd like it long term, and based on the Strat experience, I said, let me buy an Epiphone first, play it for a little bit and see. I ended up really liking the mid-tier Epi Les Paul, so I starting upgrading, hardware, pickups, fret work, which I installed and did myself. Also, ended up buying new guitar tools. I enjoy working on guitars as much as playing them, so it was fun for me. I probably put as much into it as I paid for it, but I didn't mind. It was sort of fun to have a new project of the week to install at each upgrade. And it also told me that I really liked a Les Paul, and that drove me to buy a Gibson Les Paul. The Gibson Les Paul is vastly superior to me, but the upgraded Epiphone is awesome too. I actually play the Epiphone more times during the week, but when I pull the Gibson out of the case, it's like Christmas. I have zero interest in selling the Epiphone, even if I want to get another Gibson LP. It definitely works to your advantage when you can do the work yourself and you actually build up a parts draw, where you can buy a cheap guitar and already have extra pickups/wiring/hardware sitting in your excess draw.
It’s the quandary . You highlighted the hb 550 2 great guitar for 300. But also tried out the Yamaha revstar and PRs satin both can be had around 400 and pretty phenomenal at the price. I was thinking about modifying a epi Les Paul but have a good collection which includes 3 Gibson Les Paul. Could maybe spend 4 or 500 on mods.but am I going to play it that much . Think I’m probably just going to get the revstar instead will scratch that post Christmas itch .. some guys love tinkering and that’s great but not really my thing.
I just bought a decent Telle on amazon for less than $175 with new compensated saddles. It's going to need around $100 more for pick ups and a new string tree and needs new pots and switch ect ect ect.. I will basically have $300 into a guitar that might not be worth $300 but it is a telecaster and a decent player. Not sure but it has a bone nut and stainless steel frets and it did need an absurd amount of fret board cleaning. It will need a fret level also. It came with top loading vintage tuners. I wanted a tellecaster with a contour comfort cut and that strat like arm rest cut and that's what I have. I think I did fine. Oh.. it weighs 6 pound's 15 oz. I am not crying.
Yeah, it makes a huge difference if you already have nice guitars that you like to play in your possession. If you don't have anything and money is tight, probably getting a less expensive guitar an slowly building it up might be the best way to go, depends on how much money you have availible.
I like modding and upgrading cheaper guitars because its an enjoyable activity for me. And I feel like I can't mod expensive guitars because it might lower their value.
Yep they are money pits - fact. You will never recover the money you put in to them - fact. The more important question is do you enjoy modifying guitars and get a buzz from the result?
Stop buying slave-labor guitars... The reality is that a $500 in the late 1990's is like $1100 now. We saved up to get a decent guitar back then, but now we want to get the cheapest piece of crap we can. I don't think modding a guitar is bad... but I think buying a guitar that you have to mod to make decent is dumb. Buy a guitar you can play and enjoy... modify it as you will, but do it slowly and with purpose. You'll be much better off, and have much less disappointment.
it depends on where you spend your money. For instance I put together an Ibanez rg from parts that I got from eBay and the entire guitar completed and assembled and set up and wired was around $200 and it has Seymour Duncan electronics premium pots, switches and jack and a set of hipshot locking tuning machines. but I didn't go out willy-nilly and purchase brand new stuff in most cases it took me a while to hunt some parts down but I got the thing together for a decent price and it's way nicer than any guitar in that price range off the shelf. You can purchase used electronics that work fine that are premium you can even purchase used tuning machines from namebrand manufacturers and aftermarket bridges used. Just depends on how you go about it. Yes you can definitely dump $500 into a $150 guitar and in my opinion that sort of stupid but if you take your time and look around you can obtain most of those parts at a discount. honestly you can find those tuning machines that I got brand new $65 and that's probably the most expensive part that I put on that guitar because those were the only thing that were brand new. I got the electronics used less than $75 and the body was around $25 and I think the neck was about $50. Also I have modified many guitars in my life and sometimes parts are swapped out because of color and so I saved them and put them away for another project which saves money when upgrading other Guitars and I also have several sets of pups kicking around that are decent and so I was able to get out of that pretty cheap.
I buy guitars to suit the upgrades I already have in mind. If I could buy just painted husks I would. In fact I just bought a neck and body and I'm getting all the hardware and electronics seperately.
Upgrading budget guitars, will not benefit you in the resale of that guitar. However, it will benefit you, if you swap back in the stock components prior to selling, then hold onto or sell the upgrade parts, and enjoy a customized guitar to your liking in the meantime. My Squier CV Tele somehow screams acoustically. It’s hands down the most resonant guitar I’ve owned, and I’ve had a Gibson LP standard, and a couple American Fenders. I decided to keep it, and upgrade to Custom Shop ‘51 Nocaster pups, CRL switch, and Fender 250k pots . It’s a killer guitar, that plays and sounds way above its weight class.
Same thing with a Squier paranormal tele esquire I got a couple months ago. It is crazy resonant. I stripped the finish off the neck and am going to replace the pickup sometime this year just because its bones are so good to me. I know it’ll never be worth anything more, but I don’t plan on selling it ever, and if I get a good guitar in the end, that’s fine with me.
@ We’re in the exact same boat 🙌 I genuinely think sometimes you just lucky with a great budget guitar. The same way some boat anchor Strats and SG’s are incredible, and some ultra lightweight Teles and LP Jr’s are crap. The same way some people get unlucky with their 8k master built custom shop, that’s got all the bells and whistles and is just meh. I’ve played a couple 3-5k custom shop strats at my local GC, that were so disappointing. One of them in particular felt and sounded so dead when I strummed it acoustically, It wasn’t even remotely inspiring to play. Every inch of my Tele vibrates for ages and it’s shockingly loud acoustically. I invested a ton of my own time, dialing in the setup, rolled the fingerboard edges, dressed the frets, sanded down the back of the neck, sealing and protecting it with boiled linseed oil, so it’s broken in and faster than I’m capable of playing. With the upgraded electronics, I’d bet money it would shock players in a blind test. I could care less that’s it a Squier. I actually love that about it, with how unassuming it is. It’s like I know a secret lol. It’s a part of me at this point, and if we connect with our instruments, you can’t put a price tag on that. At least not one that means anything 🤷♂️ Congrats on getting that “ I’ll never sell it “ feeling. A lot of people chase that feeling their whole life and don’t find it.
Why do people always associate guitars and money? You got yourself a nice HB P90 guitar . It plays well after you've invested a little time and effort, it sounds good to me. Try playing it through an equaliser to get nearer to the tones you're aspiring to achieve. It will never be a Gibson even if you got it to sound identical but it doesn't need to be. An equivalent Gibson would cost almost 20x as much new and probably not much less for a very good used example. Appreciate what you have.
When I first moved to Nashville I was working for a company and my job was to move here and open an office for that company and hire some people etc. I found a great office in downtown Franklin overlooking beautiful historic main street in a space that wasn’t really an office but it was a cool space. It was missing most of the doors and was painted a weird color but was otherwise empty except for that Repent sign that was left over the door of the bathroom by whoever had been there before. I eventually painted the place got some doors, couch and fridge in the break room a bunch of desks and we just left that sign up for the next 6-7 years. When people would ask I would tell them it was the only thing here when we moved in… The company was eventually sold and I was shutting down the office… at the time I was also starting Tone Junkie so I took it and brought it home and put it in my “new office”. It reminds me of those years.
Everyone has a price point. For me it about $ 230 MSRP, those go on sale into my true budget. That said, I end up with several sub $ 100 guitars that the tuners, pickups, pots and most importantly the core neck & body are fine. Chasing upgrades never occurred to me until the parts fail to need to be replaced. That said, I then am faced with a dilemma, do I still have a solid player of a guitar that needs a switch, volume or tone pot, that replacing those with $ 15-20 worth of parts for the electronics is better than just buying another $ 100 guitar & playing it. I just have a problem with anyone raising the bar for a HB LP, expecting it to be the Trini Lopez that does it's "one trick" thing, except the HB has to do everything. Why is the $ 129 HB expected to do it all as a bar raised, the Trini Lopez gets a pass for being 30X the price point of the HB ? How many ES335 HB's can you get for the Trini Lopez is my point, where the Gibson Trini Lopez is just an overrated guitar ? My money pit became having 9, new or preowned $ 100-150 guitars that end up for less invested than a Fender Player MiM single guitar at MSRP. The 8 I have, 3 LP's (Epiphone, Monoprice & Mitchell), 2 Telecasters (Monoprice), 2 Stratocasters (Squier), 1 bass guitar (Jackson) & 1 acoustic electric (Ovation Applause). I still don't have a hollow/semi hollow ES style or Gretsch. But to me, while the ES is a great guitar, it's no Ovation for doing what a hollow/semi-hollow does. End o the day, I don't have a $ 100 Chinese guitar that needs upgraded parts yet,. The set up is what makes these guitars play & sound great with the parts they came with. Every guitar needs that, even the Custom Shop guitars. I know I did it right for not spending the money, doing the work to correct the flaws if it needed that beyond the set up & play in period. and when the parts need replacing, I probably spend on the parts & give the guitar a new lease on it's useful life. As long as the frets have life, the rest of the work is pretty easy. I stuck with bolt-on necks, a neck reset is easy to perform for shimming the neck/neck pocket.
If it is a cheaper (less expensive) guitar, then I would make sure it is mahogany and rosewood.....The pickups and pots /tone capacitord always need to be upgraded, but you can buy second hand pickups etc..
I dont think you should put more than 20-30% of value into modding the guitar. Especially in this time and age, just buy what is closest to what you want/need and do slight adjustements. Coincidentally I had also same model and I agree that pickups were nothing to write home about, but overall it was still solid guitar, in my mind on par with Epi LP Standards. I ended up giving her as a gift to a friend for his birthday, because I have plenty other guitars, but if my house would burn down and I would lost all my guitars, even with guitar like this I could live and play and enjoy.
It's not that expensive to mod a cheap guitar unless you are really obsessive about the sound or fitment. Probably one of the best things you can do is Plek a guitar to dial in the bones and get parts to modify it further. It's about 200.00 to have Sweetwater Plek it for you. It's a pleasurable hobby and modifying a guitar is satisfying if you don't have deep pockets to buy a 1959 Les Paul. Besides what are you really modifying??? The bridge, output jack, pickups, the nut, new strings??? That doesn't seem like a 200.00 or 300.00 proposition if you are buying from GFS or Amazon or eBay or Reverb.
Sometimes you can go down the rabbit hole of modding a guitar that doesn't inspire you, hoping it will change the way you feel about the guitar. Yeah, it might technically be a better guitar after the mod, but it still might not be the guitar you want it to be.
I change pickups all the time, If I sell the guitar I just put the old ones back before selling. So there should no problem putting really good pickups in a cheap guitar.
I have 1 guitar that I endlessly tinker on. It's the only one that never goes to the luthier 😂 It's perfectly fine to keep a guitar for tinkering, because it teaches you about how guitars work. I keep the rest factory standard, because I simply don't buy guitars that need work. I keep my tinkering guitar where I sit, because I wont cry if it gets nicked. That's how it's my most played guitar too 😂 I honestly like my tinkering guitar alot and would never get rid of it, eventhough it's really nothing special.
Modding a cheap guitar is the same as putting all your money into a car with rims and such. For me, it's a fun project that I'm doing for myself. I'm having my first ever project guitar now. It is an expensive thing to do, and I kind of like that fact that it has the cheap brand's name on the headstock. I don't care, as I don't play out. I always wanted to try certain pickups and try out some other products just to see what can be done. I'm having fun with it.
I've got a few husks that just needed to be stuffed that I really enjoy. Got an Epi EB5 for two fiddy all in I still haven't put electronics in it; it's just fun to sit and play. If I'm gonna spend 500 bucks then 300 more or even more than that, then I'd rather find something interesting that needs a little love and parts and invest a few bills in it
also a great way to get a deal is to go in pawn shops and try literally every electric guitar, some will have simple issues you can fix with a setup or screw, you can talk them down on it (especially if the guitar they swear is working is somehow not lighting up at all). G&L (not affiliated) sells all their parts including necks, bodies, pickups, and preamps, switches, if it's on there you can buy it - their side lock bridges are pretty cool.
The difference between cheap and expensive guitars is so small these days. There’s times where the only difference is hardware/electronics-which are so easy to upgrade.
😂 Never been taken seriously in life but I found myself surrounded by the old amps I love and I get to make a living with a guitar in my hands so… It’s working for me so far. Cheers 🍻 HW
i bought a $500 se ce 24. it still needs work to be where i think it needs to be to play well. couple high frets etc. neck pickup sounded too flubby. some people buy 10k guitar and still change pickups haha. in the end just do whatever you want lol.
The problem is a lot of guitars need some work including more expensive ones. I keep all the original parts and if I want to get rid of a cheaper guitar I just put it back to stock and sell or trade. Buy good parts and keep them. Avoid permanently modifying a guitar if at all possible.
I am all about buying cheap and upgrading to fit my desires. It is a poor man’s custom shop guitar
Yup, same here. Back when covid hit, I decided the first thing I needed to upgrade was my guitar fixing skills. Spent more on tools and parts than on a pricey guitar over the years and now enjoy tinkering with cheaper guitars to see if I can "custom shop" as you said, those guitars to suit my playing needs and wants. So far it's been a ton of fun and not too pricey as I can handle all the labor costs myself.
in reality, it's closer to the true definition of custom shop than buying a "custom shop" guitar from some of the typical manufacturers. They say "custom" on there, but ain't a damn thing on it that actually is haha
I bought a sire t7. After new pickups and electronics fret level nut tweaked now the guitar is a very nice instrument. It's fun and rewarding.
If you see the guitar as an investment, it's not worth the upgrade. But if you want a guitar that sounds good and stays in tune, it is worth it.
I kinda knew that, but I couldn’t describe it best
Best budget guitar I own is an unbranded LP copy from Brandon’s Custom Shop (and it’s not a Chibson) that I got on sale for $160. I had my tech black out the hardware, installed locking tuners, a graph tech nut, and Tonerider Alnico II Classic pickups with push/pull CTS pots and orange drop caps. It is an incredible guitar and I have about $500 in it, but I won’t part with it. It is one of my top 5 favorites of the 30 guitars I own, which includes a number of Gibsons, Eastmans, and a Heritage, among others. Yes, it really is that good.
Upgrading a cheap guitar over time is a great option for those that don't have the budget to buy a better guitar. You'll never get that money back, but dropping $50 or $100 at a time can really benefit a cheap guitar that feels great but has weaknesses.
Buy used parts for some of it and it will be a wash
That is a very good point.
@ToneJunkieTV used parts and open box or refurb. For example emg has an outlet on reverb and sweet water sells open box and you can easily find near perfect used pickups. I built 2 guitars i spent about 2000 on making that rival an ibanez pia or j custom and all the pickups i used were used or open box and had literally 0 or marks scratches on them. I did a whole fishman fluence hsh set for around 220 which new is like 370
Nice Trini Lopez in the background. I used to have a green one. It got stolen.
I stuck a spare Duncan JB with a split coil push pull pot, in the bridge of my 550 Paradise Flame. It now sounds as good as my Les Paul. Job done!
You're kind of right about how it's difficult to stop tinkering. My first guitar was the Yamaha Pacifica 012. The cheapest Pacifica. I learned how to play on it. Then I started tinkering with it.
I started with changing the nut, then I added locking tuners. Then I wanted to change how it looks so I installed a new pearloid pickguard and metal knobs similar to those on a tele. Then I wanted to change the bent steel saddles to block saddles. Then I wanted to get into changing the electronics. So I changed the pickups, pots and all the innards. Then I changed the entire trem system to a Vega trem. I also added a kill switch to it. The only thing left to change are the frets. I will do that too, you know. I'll put stainless steel frets one of these days. I have no desire to tinker with other guitars, though. I just want my first guitar to become the ultimate superstrat. I'll never sell it, either. It's my first guitar. I'll never have my own signature model, so I'm just gonna make one that looks and behaves exactly how I want it to.
I commented on the last video about this guitar. I personally live on SSD and VA Benefits. I had a heart transplant. I barely make it every month, so I have bought inexpensive guitars and slowly modify them. I'm all in on an LP style guitar at $169, $30 for a rolling bridge, $30 for pickups, $25 for the locking tuners, $4 speed knobs, $5 for sheilding tape and $6 for DR 10 gauge strings, for a total of approximately $270. I couldn't buy an equal Epihone LP, Firefly or Harley Benton for that. It sounds and plays Amazing with a full setup and lubricated nut. I used 15.5 -16k bridge and 7.5 -8k neck humbucker with adjustable poles. If I could afford more, I'd have bought a better guitar to begin with, but I'm very happy with the budget guitar mod. It just depends on your personal situation. I had fun building it and also paid for the guitar over time, which makes it affordable for a guy like me.
Working on them is half the fun. I have expensive stuff that I won’t sell unless I am ever in a bind but my most favorite daily player is a B stock Squire jazzmaster that I payed 250 bucks for and dumped 300 into. The first upgrade was a mastery bridge. Even the expensive Jazzmasters need a bridge replacement to play right and stay in tune. The rest was pickups, electronics and pearloid pick guard. The neck is my most favorite neck of all of my guitars and the fret work and nut were almost perfect but needed some polishing to bring it to the next level. Rock on my friend 🤘
That is a good plan Sorry to hear about your health issues, that sounds rough. I am also disabled but nothing severe or life-threatening, just enough so I can't work and I feel like garbage most days. Playing guitar helps me a lot Luckily I was able to get some decent guitars while I still had some money. I really want a LP/Humbucker/P90 style guitar, it would complete my small collection of guitars.
@JDStone20 I bought most of my guitars when I was sick pre transplant, when I was living home before my parents passed. The minute my mother was gone last year, my sister said she wanted to sell the house and forced me to move out. I'm paying double the rent now, so I can't afford much. I've been upgrading all my less expensive guitars, and I have a few good ones I'll never part with until they take them from my cold, dead hands.
Hey dude, thanks for watching and commenting. Sorry to hear about the health issues. You’re making a really good point about not only getting a better guitar by upgrading but also the ability to not pay for it all at once s which is a huge benefit.
🍻
@@TimRock1269 That is horrible. If you can't rely on family these days all is lost. My money is tight also, but I am not selling anything, since I cannot replace them.
Just a heads up, Wilkinson makes great budget stuff.
Just ordered their Floyd. Cant go wrong w Wilkinson.
It's all about what inspires you to play. Mod it or buy it vintage you have to play it and continue to want to play it.
You want to mod it???
Ok here's a best keep secret.
Tonerider pick-ups!
They cost half what other pickups cost maybe even less and they have "vintage P90+"
The plus is for overwound.
Amazon should have them.
A set is like 90 bucks.
And boy oh boy! They are freaking amazing!
Take it from a guitar builder of 22 years of fiddling experience.
As far tuners I recommend Guyker.
They have locking Tuners and are on point.
For like 25 bucks.
Tho I believe your Tuners are good. I would try a proper restring. They might not be optimal strung.
If they have not settled after 2 days of playing.
Just a tip
I agree. I've fitted Tonerider pickups to a couple of guitars and have been pleased with them.
I bought a very expensive custom built strat and was going to supply my own pickups. I was thinking lollar blondes at the time but I ran out of money after the build, so I put tone rider surfaris in it for $120 AUD….that was in 2017. It’s still my main guitar to this day and I haven’t taken the tone riders out. I keep saying why not try something new and more
Boutique but I guess why change something if it ain’t broke
@@mr8ty8 Totally agree, they are great pickups.
I've bought a Squier Sonic. I've put around 350usd worth of stuff in it, pickups, changed the hardtail bridge to a Schaller one, changed the nut and tuners, pickguard and tone pot. Did a fret job, done a screening job on it too. It plays good, it sounds like heaven.
I've been playing guitar since '03, had plenty of them, cheap, expensive, but this one will stay.
If you did all that and flipped it in a year it would have been painful. But keeping it 20+ is 100% worth it. I bought a Squire Strat to learn guitar repair. I've done everything to it including a refret. It plays and sounds as good as anything. No reason to sell it for peanuts.
It's only worth it if you love the way it plays and plan on keeping it. I've gone down the same rabbit hole. Some of them were worth it but will never recoup the cost when selling. Better off the put the original pickups back in and sell the custom pickups separate but need to be able to do yourself.
HW! This guitar sounds fantastic. Save your money and get another amp.
Dylan p90s are really good 👍. Texas Toast uses his Pickups.
I have my workhorse guitar for gigging and recording. I keep it in good shape but don't mod it. Over the years I've discovered how to draw great tones from it. And I have an experiment guitar for trying things. To me, that's fun. But I don't expect to resell it or recoup what I put into it. It's just part of my learning curve. Do what inspires you.
Mods can be removed when selling the guitar. I have done that. Keep the parts for another project. Done this with a cheap Eko les paul with p90. Put minihumbuckers in. Sold the guitar and put those pickups in my Burny. Same goes for the bridge I used.
Tinkering is fun.
Enjoy listening to yapoing about guitars. TH-cam recommended your channel with the controversial eagle guitar.
Cheers from the Netherlands.
I once saw an amateur video where Joe Satriani was handed a cheap Chinese guitar with high action, a bad setup, a blocked tremolo, and a 15W transistor amp. Despite all that, he played a technical song flawlessly, proving it’s about the musician, not the gear. I’d rather invest in improving my skills than upgrading a cheap guitar or buying an expensive one. But if upgrading makes you happy, go for it!
BTW, when are you guys releasing a worship performance pack with newer songs? That would sell fast-please motivate Sooze to make it happen! 😊
Only part you’re leaving out is that NONE of are Joe. And we aren’t anywhere near his talent. Fighting a guitar to play correctly is nonsensical. Get what helps you get the job done. Guitars are tools. Work smarter, not harder.
This is a good question. I think doing some simple basic mods, like tuners, nut, wiring harnass/switches can make a huge difference for not a lot of money. I am less likely to do this with a Gibson style guitar than a Fender style, because I think Fenders are easier to work on and you can get some really solid Teles/Strats for under $200. If the neck feels great and you like the look, you can add Bootstrap pickups, Gotoh tuners, Obisidian electronics/pots and a new nut for under $200. So you pay $375 for a guitar that plays like $1000+ guitar. Thing about house brands like HB, they are cutting out a the middleman, so you are getting a guitar worth 2-3 as much as you are paying. That is the magic of them. Minimal advertising, no distributors, large quantities shipped to a single location, etc. Same guitar as the HB 550 II with a major name on the head stock would be 800+ in cost, which is why so many people say they punch way above their weight.
I've been wondering that same thing ! Bought their strat and also the 335 knockoff...needed quite a bit of set up and pickup upgrades. Dont think I'll go that route again. Great video...thanks. One other thing ..their small 000 solid mahogany acoustic is Amazing!!! That one is a very good buy.
There is a limit to modding. If I am going to keep the guitar, then I add to it what I like. Only bad experience I had so far was w a Gretsch electromatic where I couldnt make the guitar work regardless of what I added.
I love taking cheap guitars and upgrading them. My last one was the black Paisley Harley Benton. I put loving tuners on there, a Palm b Bender, Lambertones pickups, a clear Pickguard, angled slot for the pickup selector, and a Killswitch. I play that over my Gibson Les Paul and my Yngwie signature Strat. It's easily my second favorite guitar, and I'm not done modding.
I agree that it's a money pit.Better off buying something nicer up front. Some things make sense like upgrading to a better quality switch or pots, but at a certain point it stops making financial sense.
It all depends on how well built the guitar is. I would not purchase or upgrade a guitar from Amazon or any instrument that is new to the industry. We all know those instruments. So, I bought a Fire Fly FFLPS four years ago. I knew what I was getting into but my God, it was bad. I had to gut it totally and throw all the shit out. I even pulled the nut. I had to dowel the bridge and tail piece posts because they were drilled over sized causing shift. I wanted to practice my luthier skills and this was a good option then. When I have to take the truss rod and turn it counter clockwise way past the zero tension point to get the neck to go straight and out of a back bow, I know it was not built correctly. Thank God for double action truss rods! I got all the parts from GFS so it was less money. When I was done, it played very good and fast. It stayed in tune very well. I felt good, it played good but no matter what I did, the guitar sounded dull and lifeless through every amp that I plugged it into. So, I gave it to the neighborhood kid next door who was learning to play.
I recently purchased an Ibanez GRGR131EXBK for $249. After the mods, it is a beast for playing metal. I wanted a super start with a hard tail in my collection but I did not want to spend an arm and leg for one. Inexpensive guitars can be good only if you get them through a manufacture that has been recognized in the industry over the decades. ESP/LTD, Epiphone, Aria Pro II, Jackson, Vintage, Michael Kelly and Ibanez make really good lost cost instruments. I even have a few 70's lawsuit LP's from Ibanez, Aria and Aria Pro II and they are just as good if not better than the low cost guitars today.
What would you update ?
It all depends. I play a guitar to see if anything needs a fixin’. I try things to improve it without replacing parts (nut, setup, pickup heights, etc). If the guitar plays well but doesn’t sound quite how I want it, then I “upgrade” kinda commensurate to how expensive the guitar is. My general experience is anything that says it’s “alnico” will usually be better than what comes stock in these guitars. From there it comes down to how hot and whether you want alnico 2 or 5. A cheap guitar has to play extremely well to justify spending more on the upgrades than the guitar’s value.
A 500-600 or even 800$ guitar still needs new pickups generally that adds +400$. So it might be cheaper to get the 200$ guitar and upgrade. Now, a 500$ to 800$ is generally also a better build and more aesthetic pleasant, maybe better woods. You cannot change that in the cheap model. Fret work may also be hard to improve to the one in a more expensive guitar. Brands know all of this and this is why they make different models and prices that will always justify buying whatever guitar in their brand.
For me, the benefits in upgrading affordable guitars has been two fold. Functionality improves as well as my skill set to work on and repair guitars. That's not to say the instrument will become better than the sum of its parts when compared to more expensive guitars, but there's a lot of value gained in the upgrade experience. Sometimes it's just fun to tinker.
Example.. I just bought the westcreek dc.. $169.. gotoh tuners $40.. eBay p90 $25.. oil in paper cap.. $10.. pots I had.. I’m in less than $250.. beats the epi BJA LP Jr.. I’m replacing. don’t overspend on the pickups.. just make sure you get the ones with real magnets
Wilkinson GFS and Vanson (uk) all make great pick ups and parts for very little money there’s also Bootstrap pickups who actually make their products in the USA and get rave reviews on forums. Here in the the UK I could upgrade the pickups,tuners a bone nut and a good quality single cut wiring harness from Monty’s and still come in under £200.
I think we would do the same for an average guitar not just HB's and fireflies.
I got away from doing the cheap guitar upgrade many years ago. My problem is getting a deal on a nice guitar that is a mess and then fixing it up. A good set of nut files and a StewMac fretkisser is worth their weight in gold with some patience. And I'd mess with the pole pieces and pickup height before I bought another set of P90's...can't hurt.
@12:40 no need to mod that Gibson.
I'm not a pro player by any means so making upgrades is really just to satisfy myself. But I got an Epiphone SG G-400 back in '08 and it still has all its original parts. I still love that guitar and the feel of it (I did most of my learning on that guitar) but my musical tastes today are different than they were then so I have been contemplating changing the humbuckers to P90s for the longest time as well as adding a dussenberg tremolo system. My approach is that if the guitar feels good when I play it along the neck and in my hands then modding is worth it if I'm making it sound to more of my liking or stay in tune better. Solid video!
I've got an old Epiphone SG that seems to have. become my favorite guitar. I've already done a number of upgrades. Definitely worth it to me.
If you enjoy the process, it’s invaluable. Can you get better bang for more buck? Of course! But you don’t care about the money pit because it’s gaining you the experience and personal touches.
I encounter the same dilemma over and over. The scenario where I usually end up going for modding over buying an 'upgraded' model, so to speak, is if (1) the bones are pretty much similar, (2) I want to customize the guitar to certain specs/aesthetic that I like (i.e. either way I'd be inclined to swap out the hardware or electronics) and (3) the 'lower' model has the color I'm after (i.e. sometimes the 'upgraded' model just doesn't come in the color I want)!
16:21 At this point, I would rather buy the $500.00 guitar. Why? To save time. ⌛️
I’m leaning that way as well
EVEN ON GUITARS NEAR A GRAND OR CHEAP BUT MARVOLOUS, THEY COME SUBSTANDARD AND CAN BE MADE TO BE BETTER THAN THOSE COSTING MANY TIMES MORE 1: take all hardware off/out of guitar and throw in trash... 2: roll fretboard edges and 'Properly' polish fret ends/edges... 3: polish fretboard to gloss and frets to shine (without changing fret heights) and satin back of neck... 4: carefully shop for best parts deals... 5: Guyker tremolo (copy of Duesenberg) and 'Roller'/Graphtec saddles/bridge... 6: Graphtec XL Black nut... 7: smooth locking tuners 1:21 ratio... 8: carbon paint inner cavities & wire in select components with push/pulls for split-coil and phase-shifting... 9: apply nut sauce and string with NYXL/Cobalt/Paradigm...
The most worthwhile investment is always going to be replacing the plastic nut. If you go with a GraphTech nut, that's a $15 investment that makes life so much easier. Any time I get a guitar with a plastic nut I change it to a GraphTech if there's a model that fits.
Alternatively, if you know how to cut your own nut, you can buy a bone blank and make your own bone nut. It's not as hard as it sounds. I did it for my Harley Benton TE-62cc on my first try, because there is no GraphTech nut that fits this guitar. It took me only a couple of hours and some very cheap tools that anyone can get from a local hardware store, and that I already had. The bone blank cost me $3. So, all in all, the bone nut cost me $3 and a couple of hours of manual labour.
You have an amazing guitar collection. Unless you are passionate about what is possibly could be with upgrades, you could gift it to someone to introduce them to the beauty of music and maybe throw in i nice little solid state amp. Ahhhhh…..the joy of giving! 🎸🙏
That's a great idea!
Dude everything you just said about upgrading over time is proving me right. I don't care at all about ever selling any guitar. All of mine will go from me to either a friend, child, or a trash heap. ❤
I actually have one of these and love it. I do agree with your critiques on it and plan on upgrading mine. Suggestion: upgrade it severely and compare it to the stock trump guitar. 😂
I'm the guy who said to upgrade the pots and caps and the other guy told me it's a waste of money on your last video. Did we spark this?
Probably! 😂 I read all the comments and start thinking!
Your final question: "Are these things money pits?" Hell yeah!... But in the end it's gonna be *your* guitar, absolutely unique. It doesn't make any sens financially, but I really love the idea. I threw like $1000 on the exact same HB you play in this video (frets, nuts, electronic, pickups... everything!). I will never, ever sell it. This is *my* guitar. Thomann/Harley Benton invented a new game for us guitar players to spend even more money at accessories... I love that game :-)
Agree 100%! I've bought HB, CV50s, AIO....discounted if possible...and do my own mods...all Teles, simple to mod....swapped in used boutique pups. All sound/play great...enjoyed doing the mods too. Win-win. Can't sell them without a loss....but they're keepers. Not money pits.....more like money divots.
I picked up a Squier bullet telecaster, surf green, string through body, very resonant, that caught my eye and played surprisingly well. Got it on sale for $119, took it home, and decided it definitely needed better tuners and a new nut. Put on a new nut and tuners, smoothed and polished the frets, and the guitar plays great. Only put in about $40. Would new pickups and upgraded pots improve it? Definitely, but as long as it plays well and stays in tune, I'm good with it. Not worth investing another couple hundred, just buy a better one.
I’ve literally modded a Harley Benton Strat and put king tone blue bird 400 dollars pick ups and I love you it
I really like the free flowing feel of your videos.
@@jesseleon4501 thanks dude, I’m kind of trying out this new format that is really just me “hangin out and talking guitar”.
I appreciate the positive feedback. This made my day.
was actually weighing these options myself. this helped to clarify that stuff. thanks.
@16:10 It's ok to mod your guitar especially to fix a problem.
It really depends on if A. You can do the work yourself B. If you are getting a good enough deal on the genesis. C. Your access to cheap parts alternatives. D. The quality of the husk.
My last upgrade Journey is as follows. I bought an early 70's Matsumoku made LP copy husk that was stripped of finish and some hardware was missing. I got it for $150. I am a hobbyist Luthier so I was able to re-finish the guitar in Nitro with a muted colorization similar to an Iced Tea burst. I subtly cracked the finish with some electronics duster to get that vintage crazed varnish look. Complete re-fret, fretboard resurface. New tuners. bridge upgrade. Then I put a Gibson Patent number sticker P-Up in the bridge which I got on Ebay for $60 and an early 70's Maxon in the neck which I have had forever with new CTS "hand picked" for the higher values so like 500-515k with PIO caps. All switchcraft switches and jacks. So now I have an early 70's Japanese Matsumoku LP copy Worth $1,000 which I spent $400 cash on plus gradual work overtime. Now I have a killer guitar which looks and sounds great with vintage bones, sounds amazing, super resonant, stays in tune because I cut a new nut etc. So, was it dumb for me to take a cheap vintage broken guitar and make it great again, actually better than it ever was and there is now a cool story? You decide. I think it is amazing that something I have now has value due to the upgrades I have done. I have a killer gig ready guitar that plays like butter, stays in tune and has a great tone. It literally sounds and plays better than my 73' Gibson SG Deluxe. Tell me I am not smart for tinkering.
Moded a Squire Affinity Tele DeLuxe I got dirt cheap, with Filtertron pickups and better tuners and a proper fret job. Now it is a great guitar for around 300 bucks. But agree that some cheapies doesn't need an upgrade.
Yes it is. You can't "upgrade" the neck and the body and the fitting it together, and overall feeling of the instrument - ofc you cen rebuild the guitar from the scrach as well :P In practise "the upgrade" is just swaping electronics and hardware, sometimes people do a bit of fretwork it it's needed but the core of the instrument remains the same = you will not get your money back, it remains the same guitar = Unless you don't love the guitar straight out of the box, upgrading it is a waste of money.
I feel its worth it just for the fun involved fitting the parts and setting up yourself... I learn a lot every time I do this... yes there is a cost to it but you cant put a cost on experience
I had a fusion 3 didnt like the fat neck...also the trem spring were real stiff.. sold it..
I noticed the same thing as well.. the other benton that was cheaper had a smaller neck so im now a little skiddish on buying another without playing it first
I agree unless you're going DIY they'res little benefit these days cuz there are many teers of guitar quality and prices these days. I mentioned in my previous text on your previous video The AIO guitars that seem to have a great in-house setup process after getting manufactured in Korea. I'm a bit fascinated by that right now. That is at the $500 price point or just a pinch below
I still want another SSS style strat and the PRS SE silver sky that has been on sale in stores for $721 recently is the number one contender to lighten my wallet a bit. At least a dozen times now, I've sat down with whatever one of these was at my local guitar center and played them. Every time I leave wanting one.
So it seems as if my new ceiling on a guitar is about that, $720 to $750, but when I get one it's likely going to be a used one for closer to $550. The only upgrade I would do to one of these is to the athletics. So I will still come in well below the $721, let alone the $850 retail of an SE silver sky.
When it comes to Harley Bentons, I have yet to catch one that is problematic with just polishing frets oiling (you don't need expensive nut souce and special lemon oil when WD40 exists), in my case often "rolling" the fretboard a bit and thus have to round the fret ends again and doing the setup myself. All of that is really cheap, makes them really comfortable and stabilizes the tuning (if I even had problems before). I modified some further, but more for what I wanted and not because the were bad as is, and half of them I wouldn't touch in that way.
11:34 AI background! 🎸😝🥃
So why not buy upgraded guitars that don't have market value and avoid the dilemma "should I upgrade this way or that or maybe not"?
Big Brain!!
@@ToneJunkieTV This guy and his son advertise cheap guitars they upgraded to fine guitars but still sell them quite cheap and got me a bit interested. There's no trial and error, you can play them and buy the one you like.
I've bought several guitars from thrift stores, fixed, modified them and upgraded them. Course I like electronics and dabble in luthiering. I can't drop 1000+ on a great guitar so it was worth it to me.
From personal experience, I’ve had plenty of nut issues, with $1k+ guitars in the past. I deeply connected with my CV Tele, and did all new electrical components, and you couldn’t convince me to trade it for a used stock $1k guitar. It’s everything I want in a guitar and have no interest in trying to connect with something else, like I have with this one
It all boils down to a guitar that has a decent build in the first place. There's a lot I can do to a guitar, other than the apparent upgrades, that will determine if I'm going to keep it. The fretwork and overall finish on the neck is something that I'm going to look for first thing off. And I've never found an HB that even gets close to what I would take home. The are comparable to Squier in that regard.
Some major brands model have locking tuners and brand pickups in the range of $1k+. But realistically most of them in the range of $1,5k+.
So spending in the ballpark of $300 for a budget model could make sens.
Modding cheap guitars is a great (low risk) way to learn about guitars if you do the work yourself. It can be very enjoyable, but will never be a money maker. Best not to do anything irreversible and keep the old parts. That way you can return it to stock condition if you want to sell it.
Totally agree, I have done this with varying degrees of success but never regretted the time I spent on this stuff.
I agree with most here in the comments. I own a few guitars/basses worth several thousand dollars...but I also own about 20 cheap ass guitars that I've modded and worked on for the last 20 years. Most recently I bought a squier bullet mustang and put a SD Phat Cat p90 in the neck and a SD Invader in the bridge, new hardware, bridge, tuners, nut, pots, fret level/polish, etc, and that geet is a friggin killer. Super light weight, too. And for the last 20 years I've worked on these cheap guitars and now I feel I have the experience and skill necessary to work on my expensive guitars...like my PRS, american strat, american p bass, american jazz bass, sandberg bass, musicman stingray, american tele, etc...Upgrading by doing all the work yourself is a MUST have skill so you're not paying guitar center 50 bucks to change your strings....yeah, that's what they charge over here in the PNW. And they don't even polish the frets. I don't know about you, but bass strings are already upwards of 30-50 bucks depending on the brand. I'm not gonna pay some dude at the store 100 dollars to change my strings. I'll leave you all with this...do what makes you happy. I absolutely LOVE working on guitars. So I do it.
On the other side of the coin I recently bought a used Fender 52 RI Telecaster mim it's a really good instrument ( i've owned many Telecasters thru the years ) . It has a curly maple neck , great quality parts and plays like butter . I did not have to do a thing $500.
Just use a boost and OD pedal like you did with the Harley Benton the other day, makes more sense than rebuilding a sub-$200 guitar. Just enjoy it as it is.
I'm a big fan of "cheap" mods for "cheap" guitars. The good news is, there's some great stuff out there for not a lot of money. Guyker tuners for $25 are in all liklihood much nicer than the Harley Benton tuners. That said, I'd see how those tuners feel with no strings before I jumped on the tuner bandwagon. Most tuners are perfectly adequate even if they're gritty, and 90% of the time the gritty feeling is from the poorly cut nut and not the tuners. As for the pots, you don't need $100 worth of pots. Dime sized pots won't change your sound, and in most cases, they're perfectly reliable unless you ride your volume all night. If not, you can get full sized CTS pots for about $40 for all 4. No need whatsoever for expensive caps. I use the super cheap green chicklets. As for pickups, sure, you can justify spending the big bucks, but my experience is that especially with P90s, you can find some absolutely fantastic sounding cheap ones. Guitar Fetish, Guitar Madness, or even some of the no-name ebay/amazon brands. Most of them are made by Artec. P90s are a very basic design, so as long as you find one that's wound to about the same DCR with the same gauge wire (most are 42AWG unless they're a really hot wind) and the same magnet type, the sound is going to be pretty similar. My gut says you could upgrade that whole guitar for less than you paid for the guitar and have a fantastic instrument.
If you are at the stage where you are figuring out what you like, what guitars you find comfy, what kind of sounds you want I wouldn’t upgrade cheaper guitars. The resale value won’t go up as it is still an import guitar but with better hardware. At this stage you will most likely move guitars often before you know what you like. When you’ve tried more expensive guitars and can evaluate if import guitar is good enough, you could then upgrade pickups etc
I went at it a little different. Previously, I had bought a Squier Strat, because all my guitar gods played strats, but ended up hating a strat setup/playability. Would've cost me a ton my if I just went out and bought a Fender US first (even though I could've recouped money upon sale, I likely would've lost $). I always wanted a Les Paul, but I didn't know if I'd like it long term, and based on the Strat experience, I said, let me buy an Epiphone first, play it for a little bit and see. I ended up really liking the mid-tier Epi Les Paul, so I starting upgrading, hardware, pickups, fret work, which I installed and did myself. Also, ended up buying new guitar tools. I enjoy working on guitars as much as playing them, so it was fun for me.
I probably put as much into it as I paid for it, but I didn't mind. It was sort of fun to have a new project of the week to install at each upgrade. And it also told me that I really liked a Les Paul, and that drove me to buy a Gibson Les Paul. The Gibson Les Paul is vastly superior to me, but the upgraded Epiphone is awesome too. I actually play the Epiphone more times during the week, but when I pull the Gibson out of the case, it's like Christmas. I have zero interest in selling the Epiphone, even if I want to get another Gibson LP. It definitely works to your advantage when you can do the work yourself and you actually build up a parts draw, where you can buy a cheap guitar and already have extra pickups/wiring/hardware sitting in your excess draw.
Youre good company, my fellow tone junkie 😊👍
It’s the quandary . You highlighted the hb 550 2 great guitar for 300. But also tried out the Yamaha revstar and PRs satin both can be had around 400 and pretty phenomenal at the price. I was thinking about modifying a epi Les Paul but have a good collection which includes 3 Gibson Les Paul. Could maybe spend 4 or 500 on mods.but am I going to play it that much . Think I’m probably just going to get the revstar instead will scratch that post Christmas itch .. some guys love tinkering and that’s great but not really my thing.
I just bought a decent Telle on amazon for less than $175 with new compensated saddles. It's going to need around $100 more for pick ups and a new string tree and needs new pots and switch ect ect ect.. I will basically have $300 into a guitar that might not be worth $300 but it is a telecaster and a decent player. Not sure but it has a bone nut and stainless steel frets and it did need an absurd amount of fret board cleaning. It will need a fret level also. It came with top loading vintage tuners. I wanted a tellecaster with a contour comfort cut and that strat like arm rest cut and that's what I have. I think I did fine. Oh.. it weighs 6 pound's 15 oz. I am not crying.
Yeah, it makes a huge difference if you already have nice guitars that you like to play in your possession. If you don't have anything and money is tight, probably getting a less expensive guitar an slowly building it up might be the best way to go, depends on how much money you have availible.
That makes a lot of sense!
I like modding and upgrading cheaper guitars because its an enjoyable activity for me. And I feel like I can't mod expensive guitars because it might lower their value.
Yep they are money pits - fact. You will never recover the money you put in to them - fact. The more important question is do you enjoy modifying guitars and get a buzz from the result?
Stop buying slave-labor guitars... The reality is that a $500 in the late 1990's is like $1100 now. We saved up to get a decent guitar back then, but now we want to get the cheapest piece of crap we can. I don't think modding a guitar is bad... but I think buying a guitar that you have to mod to make decent is dumb. Buy a guitar you can play and enjoy... modify it as you will, but do it slowly and with purpose. You'll be much better off, and have much less disappointment.
it depends on where you spend your money. For instance I put together an Ibanez rg from parts that I got from eBay and the entire guitar completed and assembled and set up and wired was around $200 and it has Seymour Duncan electronics premium pots, switches and jack and a set of hipshot locking tuning machines. but I didn't go out willy-nilly and purchase brand new stuff in most cases it took me a while to hunt some parts down but I got the thing together for a decent price and it's way nicer than any guitar in that price range off the shelf. You can purchase used electronics that work fine that are premium you can even purchase used tuning machines from namebrand manufacturers and aftermarket bridges used. Just depends on how you go about it. Yes you can definitely dump $500 into a $150 guitar and in my opinion that sort of stupid but if you take your time and look around you can obtain most of those parts at a discount. honestly you can find those tuning machines that I got brand new $65 and that's probably the most expensive part that I put on that guitar because those were the only thing that were brand new. I got the electronics used less than $75 and the body was around $25 and I think the neck was about $50. Also I have modified many guitars in my life and sometimes parts are swapped out because of color and so I saved them and put them away for another project which saves money when upgrading other Guitars and I also have several sets of pups kicking around that are decent and so I was able to get out of that pretty cheap.
I buy guitars to suit the upgrades I already have in mind. If I could buy just painted husks I would. In fact I just bought a neck and body and I'm getting all the hardware and electronics seperately.
Upgrading budget guitars, will not benefit you in the resale of that guitar. However, it will benefit you, if you swap back in the stock components prior to selling, then hold onto or sell the upgrade parts, and enjoy a customized guitar to your liking in the meantime.
My Squier CV Tele somehow screams acoustically. It’s hands down the most resonant guitar I’ve owned, and I’ve had a Gibson LP standard, and a couple American Fenders. I decided to keep it, and upgrade to Custom Shop ‘51 Nocaster pups, CRL switch, and Fender 250k pots . It’s a killer guitar, that plays and sounds way above its weight class.
Same thing with a Squier paranormal tele esquire I got a couple months ago. It is crazy resonant. I stripped the finish off the neck and am going to replace the pickup sometime this year just because its bones are so good to me. I know it’ll never be worth anything more, but I don’t plan on selling it ever, and if I get a good guitar in the end, that’s fine with me.
@ We’re in the exact same boat 🙌 I genuinely think sometimes you just lucky with a great budget guitar. The same way some boat anchor Strats and SG’s are incredible, and some ultra lightweight Teles and LP Jr’s are crap. The same way some people get unlucky with their 8k master built custom shop, that’s got all the bells and whistles and is just meh. I’ve played a couple 3-5k custom shop strats at my local GC, that were so disappointing. One of them in particular felt and sounded so dead when I strummed it acoustically, It wasn’t even remotely inspiring to play. Every inch of my Tele vibrates for ages and it’s shockingly loud acoustically. I invested a ton of my own time, dialing in the setup, rolled the fingerboard edges, dressed the frets, sanded down the back of the neck, sealing and protecting it with boiled linseed oil, so it’s broken in and faster than I’m capable of playing. With the upgraded electronics, I’d bet money it would shock players in a blind test. I could care less that’s it a Squier. I actually love that about it, with how unassuming it is. It’s like I know a secret lol. It’s a part of me at this point, and if we connect with our instruments, you can’t put a price tag on that. At least not one that means anything 🤷♂️ Congrats on getting that “ I’ll never sell it “ feeling. A lot of people chase that feeling their whole life and don’t find it.
Why do people always associate guitars and money? You got yourself a nice HB P90 guitar . It plays well after you've invested a little time and effort, it sounds good to me. Try playing it through an equaliser to get nearer to the tones you're aspiring to achieve. It will never be a Gibson even if you got it to sound identical but it doesn't need to be. An equivalent Gibson would cost almost 20x as much new and probably not much less for a very good used example. Appreciate what you have.
Just curious. What’s with the Repent sign over the door?
When I first moved to Nashville I was working for a company and my job was to move here and open an office for that company and hire some people etc. I found a great office in downtown Franklin overlooking beautiful historic main street in a space that wasn’t really an office but it was a cool space. It was missing most of the doors and was painted a weird color but was otherwise empty except for that Repent sign that was left over the door of the bathroom by whoever had been there before. I eventually painted the place got some doors, couch and fridge in the break room a bunch of desks and we just left that sign up for the next 6-7 years. When people would ask I would tell them it was the only thing here when we moved in…
The company was eventually sold and I was shutting down the office… at the time I was also starting Tone Junkie so I took it and brought it home and put it in my “new office”. It reminds me of those years.
@ Thank You. That is a good story :). Best Regards and Best Wishes!
Yes…great story
You do good work man, keep it up and thank you❤
If you modify the guitar it's no longer the brand on the headstock. You can put your own brand on the headstock if need be.
Everyone has a price point. For me it about $ 230 MSRP, those go on sale into my true budget. That said, I end up with several sub $ 100 guitars that the tuners, pickups, pots and most importantly the core neck & body are fine. Chasing upgrades never occurred to me until the parts fail to need to be replaced. That said, I then am faced with a dilemma, do I still have a solid player of a guitar that needs a switch, volume or tone pot, that replacing those with $ 15-20 worth of parts for the electronics is better than just buying another $ 100 guitar & playing it.
I just have a problem with anyone raising the bar for a HB LP, expecting it to be the Trini Lopez that does it's "one trick" thing, except the HB has to do everything. Why is the $ 129 HB expected to do it all as a bar raised, the Trini Lopez gets a pass for being 30X the price point of the HB ? How many ES335 HB's can you get for the Trini Lopez is my point, where the Gibson Trini Lopez is just an overrated guitar ?
My money pit became having 9, new or preowned $ 100-150 guitars that end up for less invested than a Fender Player MiM single guitar at MSRP. The 8 I have, 3 LP's (Epiphone, Monoprice & Mitchell), 2 Telecasters (Monoprice), 2 Stratocasters (Squier), 1 bass guitar (Jackson) & 1 acoustic electric (Ovation Applause). I still don't have a hollow/semi hollow ES style or Gretsch. But to me, while the ES is a great guitar, it's no Ovation for doing what a hollow/semi-hollow does.
End o the day, I don't have a $ 100 Chinese guitar that needs upgraded parts yet,. The set up is what makes these guitars play & sound great with the parts they came with. Every guitar needs that, even the Custom Shop guitars. I know I did it right for not spending the money, doing the work to correct the flaws if it needed that beyond the set up & play in period. and when the parts need replacing, I probably spend on the parts & give the guitar a new lease on it's useful life. As long as the frets have life, the rest of the work is pretty easy. I stuck with bolt-on necks, a neck reset is easy to perform for shimming the neck/neck pocket.
I only mod if I need to change something that I need to like better tuners or a better bridge.
If it is a cheaper (less expensive) guitar, then I would make sure it is mahogany and rosewood.....The pickups and pots /tone capacitord always need to be upgraded, but you can buy second hand pickups etc..
I dont think you should put more than 20-30% of value into modding the guitar. Especially in this time and age, just buy what is closest to what you want/need and do slight adjustements.
Coincidentally I had also same model and I agree that pickups were nothing to write home about, but overall it was still solid guitar, in my mind on par with Epi LP Standards. I ended up giving her as a gift to a friend for his birthday, because I have plenty other guitars, but if my house would burn down and I would lost all my guitars, even with guitar like this I could live and play and enjoy.
It's not that expensive to mod a cheap guitar unless you are really obsessive about the sound or fitment. Probably one of the best things you can do is Plek a guitar to dial in the bones and get parts to modify it further. It's about 200.00 to have Sweetwater Plek it for you. It's a pleasurable hobby and modifying a guitar is satisfying if you don't have deep pockets to buy a 1959 Les Paul. Besides what are you really modifying??? The bridge, output jack, pickups, the nut, new strings??? That doesn't seem like a 200.00 or 300.00 proposition if you are buying from GFS or Amazon or eBay or Reverb.
A guitar like that is ideal for learning to work on yourself. This can save you a fortune down the line. Lots of advice freely available.
That does sound like a fun journey!!
Sometimes you can go down the rabbit hole of modding a guitar that doesn't inspire you, hoping it will change the way you feel about the guitar. Yeah, it might technically be a better guitar after the mod, but it still might not be the guitar you want it to be.
I change pickups all the time, If I sell the guitar I just put the old ones back before selling. So there should no problem putting really good pickups in a cheap guitar.
I have 1 guitar that I endlessly tinker on. It's the only one that never goes to the luthier 😂 It's perfectly fine to keep a guitar for tinkering, because it teaches you about how guitars work. I keep the rest factory standard, because I simply don't buy guitars that need work. I keep my tinkering guitar where I sit, because I wont cry if it gets nicked. That's how it's my most played guitar too 😂 I honestly like my tinkering guitar alot and would never get rid of it, eventhough it's really nothing special.
Modding a cheap guitar is the same as putting all your money into a car with rims and such. For me, it's a fun project that I'm doing for myself. I'm having my first ever project guitar now. It is an expensive thing to do, and I kind of like that fact that it has the cheap brand's name on the headstock. I don't care, as I don't play out. I always wanted to try certain pickups and try out some other products just to see what can be done. I'm having fun with it.
I've got a few husks that just needed to be stuffed that I really enjoy. Got an Epi EB5 for two fiddy all in I still haven't put electronics in it; it's just fun to sit and play.
If I'm gonna spend 500 bucks then 300 more or even more than that, then I'd rather find something interesting that needs a little love and parts and invest a few bills in it
also a great way to get a deal is to go in pawn shops and try literally every electric guitar, some will have simple issues you can fix with a setup or screw, you can talk them down on it (especially if the guitar they swear is working is somehow not lighting up at all).
G&L (not affiliated) sells all their parts including necks, bodies, pickups, and preamps, switches, if it's on there you can buy it - their side lock bridges are pretty cool.
Who else spends like $1,500 building custom guitars every 2 years or so so you can play exactly what you want?
The difference between cheap and expensive guitars is so small these days. There’s times where the only difference is hardware/electronics-which are so easy to upgrade.
You're far too casual with the coffee slurping to be taken seriously.
😂 Never been taken seriously in life but I found myself surrounded by the old amps I love and I get to make a living with a guitar in my hands so…
It’s working for me so far.
Cheers 🍻
HW
I have the same guitar and the only thing I've changed is I carved an arm rest.
I love it but now I've upgraded so many guitars I just sit there and stare at them,,,,,I hardly ever play them.
I don't think I own a guitar that I haven't modified. It is a money pit, but for me it is worth it. I never resell a guitar.
i bought a $500 se ce 24. it still needs work to be where i think it needs to be to play well. couple high frets etc. neck pickup sounded too flubby. some people buy 10k guitar and still change pickups haha. in the end just do whatever you want lol.
The problem is a lot of guitars need some work including more expensive ones. I keep all the original parts and if I want to get rid of a cheaper guitar I just put it back to stock and sell or trade. Buy good parts and keep them. Avoid permanently modifying a guitar if at all possible.
That makes a lot of sense.