Upgrading cheap Ibanez to sound like Gibson Les Paul!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ต.ค. 2024
- I'm upgrading my cheap Ibanez AX120's stock pickups to Seymour Duncan's Pearly Gates humbuckers that are designed for a signature vintage Gibson Les Paul sound. I'm also replacing the crappy tuners with some nice Grover locking tuners!
I have a similar guitar that was also upgraded. It feels a lot like an SG. It’s kinda crazy, people do sleep on these guitars and the one I have is super playable and sounds gorgeous.
Upgraded bone nut, locking tuners, shielding paint, top notch wiring, pots, and caps, plus a pair of Seymour Duncan Whole Lotta Humbuckers. It’s made in Korea, with a solid mahogany body, maple neck, and a rosewood fretboard. I bought it used for $250 with all upgrades already in place.
Really versatile! Rock, blues, jazz, and country all sound great. One of my favorite axes to play.
I got a similar model. I set it up. Plays really well. Very surprised. I feel like i am playing a Gibson SG. Stays in tune. Action is nice. The frets are rolled, neck is satin. I filed down a few frets, to give it a real low action. I took the guitar apart, to see is it was sheilded. It was.
Guitar play really nice. The guitar was made in Indonesia. I noticed the Chinese built guitars are not made so well. Good video..🎸👍
The old pickups weren't bad but the SDs have more bright tones to work with. Good pickups make a big difference! Thanks for the demo!
I think you forgot something when you shielded the pockets. I believe you are suppose to run ground wires from the paint to the main ground. Also you didn't paint the backside of the plastic cover and make sure it has contact with the paint in the pocket.
He's not trying to make a complete circuit, he's just wanting to reduce any hum.
Hey Tom, I think you're right about painting the back of the cover, I should have. I had a ground wire making contact to the underside of the bridge, I didn't think that I needed more than that...
Very true, my main concern is hum
I just bought one of these. The tuners are some of the best I've had, including Gibson and Fender guitars.
The AX120 guitar Ben modified is a 1999-2006 AX120 with a mahogany body. The tip off is the string through bridge. Current AX120 guitars are made of poplar wood and have a TOM/stop bar bridge set up. Do not be surprised if you mod a current AX120 and it does not sound like Ben's. For the record I have two mahogany Korean AX120s from 2000/2001 and I replaced the pickups as well. They sound similar to Ben's. I also have two 1999 Japanese AX7521 guitars - the 7 string version of the AX120. I put DiMarzio CrunchLab 7 in the neck and DiMarzio LiquiFrire 7 in the bridge. One is tuned normal, the other one is tuned down 1/2 step to Eb. These are sleeper guitars.
Yep, I must have bought it in 1999, I think it was just over $300 new, totally worth it!
Badass video. Thanks for sharing.
Just bought a GAX 70 black and adding the seymore Duncan pickup black winter and SD custom humbucker.
I HAVE A ibanez gax70 THAT I PUT EVO PICK UPS AND REALLY CHANGE THE TONE OF THE GUITAR
Yeah, I'll bet those pickups make even more of a difference than mine. It's difficult to hear just how different they are in my video due to the limited recording equipment I had at my disposal at the time. I have a much better set up now and I think I'm gonna record some more video of the tone
The upgrade cost you more than the guitar itself. Being a happy owner of a low price but high quality Ibanez SA260 I never felt in need of changing the pickups, but I put locking tuners.
He needs viewer
Maybe so, but the sound quality difference is huge, especially in person. The video doesn't capture the difference very well! Also, it was a project designed to learn to upgrade and mod guitars
Dude come on let your hair down you haven't never like hot rods or building a fast car making it high performance, people put a lot of money into cars everyday and most of the time people don't never get their money back out of them it's what you enjoy doing and the thrill you get from doing something to o make it cool upgrading it or making it better for your pleasure, chill out dude go get you a girlfriend or something and see if you can't make her happy instead of just making yourself happy do you know how have you ever had her to actually tell you that you made her happy, or are you just one of them guys that thinks you're all that, most guys don't know how to make a woman happy no way, wham bam thank you ma'am see you later 😁🤣😂😭
@@llengford Fantastica risposta! Sei un mito. Peace and Love, bro! 🤟
Sounds amazing. I'm going a different route with mine. I took out the neck pickup and put a Les Paul Junior pick guard on. I'm gonna upgrade to bridge pickup to an SD Invader or maybe passive EMG for a heavier punk/metal tone.
Nice! Either will sound great I'm sure!
Ordered me a candy apple red one, backordered......
I'm doing a JB-bridge and Jazz 2-neck, CTS pots, can't wait......
Great video, great tip on the DIY shielding paint, thanks a bunch.......
Sounds like it's gonna be awesome! Yeah that was the first time I've tried paint, it sounds pretty good, but I may not have added enough graphite, so I would say add very liberally!
@@mixtapemusicstudio Thanks for the heads up on the DIY shielding paint, I really appreciate you getting back to me........
Mine had dangerous fret ends that had to be filed. But otherwise, the frets were pretty level and it could be intonated fine. I put some GFS alnicos. Sounded great. I guess I ended up selling it because the frets got so worn. My other Ibanez SA32EX had frets that lasted much longer.
I just noticed this was 3 years ago. Why is youtube showing me this now?
Cool upgrade, but I'm of the "if it ain't broke, then don't fix it" school of thought. My used AX120 sounds great "as is" through a Marshall DSL40CR and it only set me back $200 CAD. Not bad for a guitar with a mahogany body, maple neck, and rosewood fretboard.
Very true, this project was primarily one of getting more practice with luthier/guitar tech stuff
Very nice job! Thanks for posting!
Thanks for watching!
The title says it all. This is a great upgrade. Huge difference between the two comparison blues riffs on the bridge. The Pearly's are so much brighter sounding and have much better response. From a base price of $200, how much would you say you put in it from just hardware alone? Thanks
Hey Tim, I think I got a deal on the Pearly Gates set for around $170, and the locking tuners were another $40 or so if I remember correctly. I am gonna upgrade the pots and other electronics soon. I also have a much better amp and recording tools, so I'm hoping to get even better video of how good it sounds!
Totally agree. Sounds like a les paul!
Sweet. I love pearly
I just picked up a used GAX70 for cheap that I'll be doing something similar with. I decided to go with a cheap set of Fleor Alnico 5 humbuckers, upgrading to Bournes pots , .047 caps and 50's LP wiring. The same combo sounds awesome on my cheap Glen Burton LP, hopefully it turns out well on the Ibanez!
Nice! I think the next thing I need to do is upgrade the pots. The tone ones are particularly noisy. Before that though, I have a full Tele build to do
@@mixtapemusicstudio Right on! Can't wait to see thr finished product!
I really appreciate this video, showing how to replace pickups. Were those the same strings for both? I preferred the sound of the original pickups. They had more of a classic sound to them. Especially for the blues licks you were doing.
I'm pretty sure I replaced the strings with lighter gauge, didn't think about how that would change the sound...
dang dude the stock pups actually looked like they were good components though. Thick brass plating, lots of winds I take it? Looked like they were alnico cause of no bar magnet on the back?
They might be better than you think
True, the stock ones weren't bad, the upgrade was mostly to practice upgrades/repair in general. And I really like how the pearly gates sound!
@@mixtapemusicstudio Totally fair, I'm sure it was a great learning experience. Also those Pearly Gates did actually look and sound really nice. I'm sure in reality it still was definitely an upgrade, at least for the kind of sound you'd want out of a guitar like this.
Awesome, nice upgrades. 🤘🏻
Thanks! Yeah I really like it, I was seriously thinking of selling that guitar beforehand, I'm glad I didn't!
Dear Ben,
This is awesome. I am planning to do with my GAX, however mine is GIO GAX 70. My question is what kind of pedal did you use for the clean and distorted sound. So what is your loop before it reaches finally the recorder. The distortion is gold, I really like it very much I am curious about the pedal.
Bests,
d.
All of the sounds are different presets of a vst plug-in called voxenga boogex amp simulator that came with my DAW. I'm not much of an effects and pedal gear person
@@mixtapemusicstudio thx for your answer
Sounds great!
Thanks!
What would you replace that bridge with if you wanted to upgrade it or make it a tremolo??? I got the same guitar and I’m trying to upgrade it!!
Mine came with chrome shielded humbuckers.... 🤔
Nothing like throwing a 350 in a Pinto :)
Hahaha! Hell yeah!
Nice job, example where we see that everything is possible. Stock pickups sound also really good to me...
Question, is it necessary also to upgrade entire electronics up to seymour duncan pickups, or stock is enough?
Thanks
I didn't upgrade the electronics this time, but I'll be doing it soon, I'll have a new video for when I do that!
I have a similar model Ibanez AX220QM and I was wondering if it would be worth it to also replace and upgrade the pots as well. Would it make a difference? Thanks for making this video.
I'm not sure if it would make a noticeable difference, unless they are scratchy when turned and aren't responding to cleaning. I am gonna replace mine soon mostly cause I want to get some more practice with doing it. I'll do a before and after comparison again to see if there's noticeable difference
It's hard to tel THAT much difference on YT, is there a difference that was worth the price of SD pickups? Or maybe just a GFS upgrade?
I did the latter. Luckily I don't play well enough to notice any difference.
A question, what locking tuners did you go with as a replacement for the stock tuners? Thanks
These:
stratosphereparts.com/new-grover-locking-tuners-3x3-for-gibson-les-paul-chrome-keystones-tk-7935-ckey/
They work great!
We're the tuners a direct fit or did you have to modify the holes?
No grounded a pocket pickup!
Does that paint actually conduct?
I didn't test the conductivity. I just followed a different video's instructions in which he did test the conductivity
how much did it cost you in the end?
The pickups were around $170, and I think $40 or $50 for the tuners.
@@mixtapemusicstudio Can you let us know where you got the pickups at? I’m having a hell of a time finding the pair for under $278
Hey you wanna sell it?
Hadn't really thought about it, what might you be willing to offer?
@@mixtapemusicstudio $350usd?