Blinged-Up Squier Bullet Mustang

UnclePsychosis

Some of you may remember that I bought one of those £115 Squier Bullet Mustangs a while ago:

http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/96052/ngd-squier-bullet-mustang#latest

After having it for a while it became clear that the nut needed a bit of work (the nut was cut too high on some of the strings) but fundamentally I really loved it. 

So I did the sensible thing and contacted @TheGuitarWeasel about sticking some of his lovely pickups in this very cheap guitar. I was originally just going to "junior" it with a bridge pickup but Ash was very kind to sell me some ex-demo/ex-photo pickups for essentially half price and that was an offer I literally couldn't refuse.  

Now, I'm a contrary git and don't really like yer classic guitarists' guitar sounds. So I asked Ash for the moon on a stick---something for punky alternate rock, but that would also clean up nicely for Jangly indie. And thus a pair of Havocs made its way to me. Ash describes these as:

Nothing looks like a Havoc, and nothing else sounds like a Havoc!
Triple magnet system on the bridge unit combining alnico 8 and ceramic, over height bobbins for treble cutting power. Thicker gauge wire for harmonic sparkle and fat, punchy lows. Neck unit alnico 5 and beautifully ‘string separate’. Awesome power with a light touch when the gain is rolled back. 16k bridge, 9k neck (average). 

Built to split well for powerful single coil sounds
A few weeks ago I passed the guitar and the bits over to @ICBM to fix the nut/setup and wire the pickups. Wired as volume, tone, three way selector and with splits for both pickups---he split them by using a resistor to simulate a 250K volume pot when the pickups are split, rather than partial splits. The splits in particular are really excellent---genuinely sound like a good single coil pickup, not a weedy split humbucker. 

Got to say, between the two of them Ash and John have turned a nice budget guitar into an absolute monster. I'm dreadful at describing sounds but the guitar sounds great both dirty and clean. Interestingly I like the same combination as John did---neck humbucker, bridge split. Sounds huge through my fuzz pedal. 

So is it ridiculous putting Masterwound pickups into a guitar this cheap? Possibly.

Is this now an absolutely killer guitar? Absolutely. 

paulnb57

Fabulous! Nothing wrong with putting Masterwounds into it! But then I am biased having shoehorned Creamery and Bare Knuckles into mine, in a custom scratchplate, these are such under rated little guitars...I'm lookng for another!...

ICBM

The quality is totally unrelated to the price with these - at least the woodwork, fretting and finishing is - the machineheads and bridge aren't bad either - so it's not daft to put good pickups and electrics in. When I was working on it I really couldn't tell that it was much of a 'lesser' guitar at all - the finishing is near-flawless, and the internal routing is very sharp too unlike many cheaper guitars.

In fact the internal routing is so neat that I nearly came unstuck with the length of the wire from the switch to the controls, I left what looked like a nice loop under the guard, but after it was fed through the very narrow channel to the switch cavity it turned out to be *just* long enough by about half a mm! It is very much *not* a crude 'swimming pool' rout…

The nut did need some attention, but to be honest that isn't uncommon on guitars costing five or ten times what these do.

Even the only serious flaw in the quality of the stock electrics is the selector switch - a very cheap box-type which also works in an awkward direction, "northwest to south-east" rather than "north-east to southwest", if you see what I mean! Easily changed. The pots weren't terrible but they were being replaced with push-pulls anyway, and I also put in a Switchcraft jack while I was at it.

All in all it's just a great little guitar, and if it's cost more than the original retail price to make it even better, all it means is that you've still ended up with a bargain.

Alegree

I concur with the above. A budget instrument with improved electronics is almost sonically indistinguishable from a big name. With a good set up including the nut, it can be made to feel just as good too.

stickyfiddle

That's really cool. Can someone convince me I don't need a black one?

paulnb57

stickyfiddle said:

That's really cool. Can someone convince me I don't need a black one?

No!

UnclePsychosis

stickyfiddle said:

That's really cool. Can someone convince me I don't need a black one?

-are they black sparkle? 

Because the blue sparkle is awesome. You should totally get one. 

UnclePsychosis

paulnb57 said:

Fabulous! Nothing wrong with putting Masterwounds into it! But then I am biased having shoehorned Creamery and Bare Knuckles into mine, in a custom scratchplate, these are such under rated little guitars...I'm lookng for another!...

-I'm still tempted by a different scratch plate but I think the white suits the Harlequin pickups (and also it was difficult trying to justify ploughing even more money in!).

I'm kinda surprised these haven't proved more popular. Maybe the offset guys are all trem-crazy? 

paulnb57

I'm kinda surprised these haven't proved more popular. Maybe the offset guys are all trem-crazy? 

I think there could be a couple of reasons for this

1.They could be "too cheap" and therefore ignored by some as being poor quality..
2. The short scale will put some people off, even though the scale is ony 3/4 of an inch shorter than most Gibsons
3. Its a Squier, brand snobbery (Although I dont think the Fender versions fly off the shelves either)
4. Perhaps just a bit too niche?

OK they need a bit of work out of the box, but so do many others, I wish there were more colours, Guitar Centre in the US have had a special run produced in White and Sea Foam green, the Sea Foam looks epic! Im hoping they will become available here....

I like the idea of the Fender Offset Mustang 90 with two soapbar P90's, but its £475 ish, I'm thinking of modding a Squier Bullet Mustang to the same....and looking for a suitable candidate, I was hoping to find a cheap one used....

Andyjr1515

I think the entry level Squiers are excellent for upgrading.  As @ICBM says, the wood is usually decent and the machining is usually spot on in my experience. 

This is what I did for our band's lead guitarist's old Squier Bullet Strat a few years ago.  I think this was my first go at veneering (hence the not quite joined in the middle look!):



He still plays it!

Your Mustang looks scrumptious @UnclePsychosis.  I'll bet it sounds great
 

kin

That looks great!

 It’s to my eternal regret that when I finally had the money to buy one decent guitar to replace my cheapo strat copy, that’s exactly what I did.

 I should have taken this route instead, for the money I spent I could have had three different upgraded Squiers.

 I wouldn’t mind but I’m not a logo snob and ending up buying a Godin, which, while its well made, has a versatile pickup system and plays great I can’t help feeling it would be more interesting having three different guitars.

UnclePsychosis

kin said:

That looks great!

 It’s to my eternal regret that when I finally had the money to buy one decent guitar to replace my cheapo strat copy, that’s exactly what I did.

 I should have taken this route instead, for the money I spent I could have had three different upgraded Squiers.

 I wouldn’t mind but I’m not a logo snob and ending up buying a Godin, which, while its well made, has a versatile pickup system and plays great I can’t help feeling it would be more interesting having three different guitars.

Thanks!

My own take on it is that I prefer quality over quantity: its just that with a bit of work this cheap guitar has become a thing of quality... For my own purposes two guitars is enough: between this one and my semi-hollow schecter I have all my own bases covered. I do have a third guitar but it was a totally un-needed impulse buy: it will either get converted into a down-tuned silly thing or get sold: I'm definitely not one of the "buy 18 different cheap guitars" guys!

Maybe do what I did: have your Godin as one of your two quality guitars and find something very different to complement it. You don't need to spend a lot of money: including parts and labour this Squier owes me less than £300. I think you'd struggle to find something more fun than this for that kind of money, even in the second hand market.

kin

Yep, I did that already, bought an Ibanez Rg for something completely different for £400, pro set up and its a lot of fun, but funnily enough ( and I'm arguing against my own point here lol ) apart from using the Floyd occasionally, I play exactly the same on that as the other one.

 So while there wouldn't seem much point in multiple guitars, I think it's probably the bond you might get with a guitar you've modded or built to your own specs that I'm interested in or it might just be the eternal " the grass is always greener" feeling.

   
 

UnclePsychosis

Andyjr1515 said:

I think the entry level Squiers are excellent for upgrading.  As @ICBM says, the wood is usually decent and the machining is usually spot on in my experience. 

This is what I did for our band's lead guitarist's old Squier Bullet Strat a few years ago.  I think this was my first go at veneering (hence the not quite joined in the middle look!):



He still plays it!

Your Mustang looks scrumptious @UnclePsychosis.  I'll bet it sounds great
 

-thanks. 

I love that veneer by the way. The jaguar bass (?) that you did in a similar style remains very high on my "want" list! 

Andyjr1515

UnclePsychosis said:

-thanks. 

I love that veneer by the way. The jaguar bass (?) that you did in a similar style remains very high on my "want" list! 

Well, interestingly, the Jaguar Bass is yet another Squier  

Squiers have my vote

tampaxboo

paulnb57 said:

I'm kinda surprised these haven't proved more popular. Maybe the offset guys are all trem-crazy? 

I think there could be a couple of reasons for this

1.They could be "too cheap" and therefore ignored by some as being poor quality..
2. The short scale will put some people off, even though the scale is ony 3/4 of an inch shorter than most Gibsons
3. Its a Squier, brand snobbery (Although I dont think the Fender versions fly off the shelves either)
4. Perhaps just a bit too niche?

short scale is the deal breaker for me, far too toyish. otherwise i would be all over them. but 24 is just too fiddly for me as you go up the neck. margin for error and accidental damping.

if they made a 25.5 i'd definitely take one. or if the same affinity range jazzmasters were not dramatically more (£80) for basically another inch of neck (same hardware, electrics, finish).

bit annoying. but good value for cheap. the OP has made theirs look very neat and stylee.

underdog

I bought me one of these mustangs too, to take away on holiday, what a great guitar. I like the scale length, I've put 11s on it and it plays great.

ICBM

tampaxboo said:

short scale is the deal breaker for me, far too toyish. otherwise i would be all over them. but 24 is just too fiddly for me as you go up the neck. margin for error and accidental damping.

Admittedly I have small hands, but I've never understood this.

The fret spacing is exactly the same as if you were playing a semitone higher on a 25.5" scale, and I don't think most people have a problem with that.

paulnb57

Wisdom @ICBM....