MichaelW
Well-known member
- Build Rating
I still haven't gotten my gear set up to record pedal demos yet, that's coming soon.
Most of you that have been following my GAS activities over the past couple of years know that I've acquired quite a collection of guitars, most of which I've built myself under the "M-Line" brand.
Since having to move my collection from one house to another and trying to find room for them in the new house I've been slowly going through all of them and getting some playing time on them. This has also turned into a bit of a rabbit hole as it gives me an opportunity to tinker with them and dial them in. I've had do some minor fret work on a number of guitars chasing down any stray buzz or high fret. But it's all good since I have the time to finally dial them in to my personal somewhat anal preferences.
It's also given me the chance to evaluate some of the guitars that I don't enjoy playing for whatever reason. And make some decisions as to whether to move them on or dive into modifying them. Case in point was the Epiphone Firebird I got last year.
Sometimes a guitar is more than the sum of its constituent parts, sometimes the converse is true. This Epiphone is a good example of the latter for me. I love the Onamac Windery pickups I had in it. I'd replaced all the wiring and electronics and the action is dialed in perfect. Yet, I'm not feeling it. I "thought" that it might be the odd shape that was throwing me off. Which led me to build the Tele-Bird mentioned in this thread. (aka the "SparePartsCaster). Those pickups on the Tele platform just kill me, they sound so good, and ironically, so "Firebird" like. So anyways, since I swiped the pickups for that build from this guitar I decided to throw some temp pickups in it. I put a set of the Planet Tone "Mean Mistreater" mini-hums in it. Lo and behold I really enjoyed playing the guitar with the new sound. I was seriously considering putting a set of cheap pickups in it and selling it but my experience got me thinking. "Hmmm, maybe it's the pickup combo that I didn't like..what if.......hmmmmm"
So this morning I got to do some measuring to see if I could pull the mod off and before you know it, bobs your uncle and it was done.
Since the pickup routes were for Firebird exclusively, there was room to work with. And if you hadn't guess yet, I converted my Firebird into a P90-Bird.
Just enough room to make a P90 route....
I wound up removing the stud inserts so the template would lay flat.
They didn't turn out too bad, although routing the neck pickup was a bit tricky as this is neck through guitar. I had to use a number of shims with paint stirrers to make the template work. Didn't grab a picture of my contraption but suffice to say it worked. (After a few tense sphincter clenching moments)
I went to paint the pickup cavities with my shielding paint...
Aaaaaaaand crap.....it was hard as a rock......
So I had to go "old school" with foil tape. Boy do I hate messing with this stuff. Check out the laminates that make up the neck, pretty cool.
Not my prettiest work, but it will do.
I "upgraded" the stock Epiphone TOM and tailpiece with a Faber set that I had tried to put a patina on at one point but over did it.
But sonically it was still a big upgrade to the tone.
I usually use an upside down P90 cover to locate and drill the pickup screw holes.
The some Mequiers swirl remover to take off the "imprint" of the old pickup rings.
I cobbled together a set of P90's. In the neck is a Planet Tone Elite Pro II, which is a very low wind, open and "stratty" sounding P90. In the bridge I'm using the neck pickup from a set of Wolfetone P90's. It's a bit hotter and darker than I prefer for the neck position, but I've always though that it would make a great bridge pickup, It's an Alnico II build that's wound to around 8.4k.
However, I could not use 2 neck pickups that had the same polarity, so I had to flip the magnets and also flip the wind direction.
Continued in next post....
Most of you that have been following my GAS activities over the past couple of years know that I've acquired quite a collection of guitars, most of which I've built myself under the "M-Line" brand.
Since having to move my collection from one house to another and trying to find room for them in the new house I've been slowly going through all of them and getting some playing time on them. This has also turned into a bit of a rabbit hole as it gives me an opportunity to tinker with them and dial them in. I've had do some minor fret work on a number of guitars chasing down any stray buzz or high fret. But it's all good since I have the time to finally dial them in to my personal somewhat anal preferences.
It's also given me the chance to evaluate some of the guitars that I don't enjoy playing for whatever reason. And make some decisions as to whether to move them on or dive into modifying them. Case in point was the Epiphone Firebird I got last year.
Sometimes a guitar is more than the sum of its constituent parts, sometimes the converse is true. This Epiphone is a good example of the latter for me. I love the Onamac Windery pickups I had in it. I'd replaced all the wiring and electronics and the action is dialed in perfect. Yet, I'm not feeling it. I "thought" that it might be the odd shape that was throwing me off. Which led me to build the Tele-Bird mentioned in this thread. (aka the "SparePartsCaster). Those pickups on the Tele platform just kill me, they sound so good, and ironically, so "Firebird" like. So anyways, since I swiped the pickups for that build from this guitar I decided to throw some temp pickups in it. I put a set of the Planet Tone "Mean Mistreater" mini-hums in it. Lo and behold I really enjoyed playing the guitar with the new sound. I was seriously considering putting a set of cheap pickups in it and selling it but my experience got me thinking. "Hmmm, maybe it's the pickup combo that I didn't like..what if.......hmmmmm"
So this morning I got to do some measuring to see if I could pull the mod off and before you know it, bobs your uncle and it was done.
Since the pickup routes were for Firebird exclusively, there was room to work with. And if you hadn't guess yet, I converted my Firebird into a P90-Bird.
Just enough room to make a P90 route....
I wound up removing the stud inserts so the template would lay flat.
They didn't turn out too bad, although routing the neck pickup was a bit tricky as this is neck through guitar. I had to use a number of shims with paint stirrers to make the template work. Didn't grab a picture of my contraption but suffice to say it worked. (After a few tense sphincter clenching moments)
I went to paint the pickup cavities with my shielding paint...
Aaaaaaaand crap.....it was hard as a rock......
So I had to go "old school" with foil tape. Boy do I hate messing with this stuff. Check out the laminates that make up the neck, pretty cool.
Not my prettiest work, but it will do.
I "upgraded" the stock Epiphone TOM and tailpiece with a Faber set that I had tried to put a patina on at one point but over did it.
But sonically it was still a big upgrade to the tone.
I usually use an upside down P90 cover to locate and drill the pickup screw holes.
The some Mequiers swirl remover to take off the "imprint" of the old pickup rings.
I cobbled together a set of P90's. In the neck is a Planet Tone Elite Pro II, which is a very low wind, open and "stratty" sounding P90. In the bridge I'm using the neck pickup from a set of Wolfetone P90's. It's a bit hotter and darker than I prefer for the neck position, but I've always though that it would make a great bridge pickup, It's an Alnico II build that's wound to around 8.4k.
However, I could not use 2 neck pickups that had the same polarity, so I had to flip the magnets and also flip the wind direction.
Continued in next post....
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. But they're my favorite pickups.
