New guitar or upgrade old one ?

Universal8

I’ve got an Epiphone Les Paul standard, it’s around a year old. Quite like it but pickups aren’t great and the nut needs sorting etc. Worth upgrading it or should I just buy a new toy and sell the old one on ? 

Sesh

Upgrade the one you have and buy another. That's the fretboard way!

Sassafras

Seeing as this forum is all about buying stuff I'd have thought the answer was obvious.

Cols

If you want to keep it, upgrade it.  Hardware and electronics are the most obvious areas where costs are controlled for budget brands.  I have an Epiphone Les Paul which I bought in 1997 and subsequently upgraded with new pickups, controls, bridge, nut and machine heads.  It continues to be one of my main gigging guitars to this day, but it needed the upgrades and a good setup to get it to that level.

The note of caution would be that if you sell the guitar on you’ll never get the value of the upgrades back.  It might make it easier to sell, but if you spend £200 on new bits you’ll not be able to sell it for £200 extra.  So keep the old bits to refit where possible.

Branshen

Since you quite like the guitar, fix the niggles and play it to death! I find obsessing over new gear stops me from the most important thing, which is making music! 

Lestratcaster

Upgrade it! I have an Epiphone standard too which I got about 7 years ago (tax rebate) and changed out the bridge pickup for a BKP Nailbomb. Also had a new nut put in and replaced the tailpiece. Plays great and well worth it.

Musicwolf

Universal8 said:

Quite like it but 

When you say quite like it, do you mean that you love it apart from the pickups and the nut?  Do you know specifically what is lacking from the stock pickups?  Upgrading the pickups can make a big difference but there's a lot of choice and you need at least some idea as to the character / output of what need.

If you don't love the guitar (the feel of the neck, the weight, the colour etc) then you may spend quite a bit of money only to be less than entirely satisfied.  I would suggest that you price up the work that you are proposing, add that to the realistic price that you might get for the guitar as it is and try as many guitars that you can around this total price level.  You may find something off the shelf that ticks all your boxes.

Grumpyrocker

Head over to Axetec for all the bits you need to make the Epiphone a really class guitar (they are pretty damn good to start with though). Iron Gear pickups will be a great addition and not expensive.

Rocker

OP, take your Epi to a music shop. Plug it into a Marshall head and a 4 * 12 cab and hear/feel just how good it is.  Then ask the shop techs opinion on pickup options, new nut etc.  Take your upgraded guitar home and play it.

ICBM

In terms of most performance upgrade for least money, new pickups and electrics for the Epiphone.

In terms of what makes you feel good about owning the guitar, sell it and buy a Gibson.

Maynehead

Sell it, then put the proceeds plus the upgrade budget into a second hand Gibson LP Studio.

Ask yourself the question, if you had your upgraded Epiphone and a Gibson LP in front of you, which one would you pick up?

OilCityPickups

Maynehead said:

Sell it, then put the proceeds plus the upgrade budget into a second hand Gibson LP Studio.

Ask yourself the question, if you had your upgraded Epiphone and a Gibson LP in front of you, which one would you pick up?

Having owned both an Epi LP and a Gibson LP Studio ... I totally agree with this. 

merciful-evans

Play a few other guitars and evaluate them against your Epi. 

I took a trip to Guitar Village earlier this year to try out some classy archtops. I took my modest Hofner archtop along as a possible trade in. None of those guitars were as nice as my Hofner. I came home appreciating the Hofner a whole lot more.