Back in December I bought an extremely cheap Les Paul copy (Rockburn) for £25 as my first guitar. I couldn't get on with it & thought that the problem was the guitar (scale length fret/fingerboard size/shape) so bought a Yamaha 611 off here (which I love).
3 months in to learning I now realise that the problem was me as then any guitar felt alien in my hands & my fingers wouldn' go where I wanted them to ( still won't but getting better).Now that L.P. feels ok so as I like the shape & colour, & it owes me practically nothing I am considering upgrading a few things (even if it is just an exersise in how to swap things out on a guitar).
The neck is set & is straight.
I know that the tuners are rubbish as are the pick ups & the 2 tone controls don't seem to do anything (the 2 volume pots seem to work fine) ?
Any suggestions (links would be great) to some better but budget tuners & pups & tone pots ?
I don' want to spend to much but as it only owes me £25 I don't mind throwing a few quid at it even as a learning exersise.
I can solder & have a bit of an engineering background so think that it should be do-able for me ?
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For that guitar, I'd be looking at someone's cast off Epiphone stuff for pots and tuners etc. People who upgrade their Epiphones must have leftover bits that would be a siginificant upgrade on that guitar.
Tone Rider or Kent Armstrong are reasonable quality budget pickups. Not sure you would want to buy new for that guitar but might be worth it if you can find a set second hand on Feebay.
- Tuners = easy change, worth the money to make it stay in tune (prime requirement whatever the rest of the instrument is like)
- tone controls = do-able, try checking the wiring and maybe substitute caps before removing pots as you may not need to remove pots. relatively cheap.
- Pickups = do-able, but you can easily spend more on them than you did on the guitar, so do last only if you really like what you've done up till now and want to take it a stage further
Keep the bits you took off, just in case you want to move the new bits from the £25 guitar to another one you buy later and want to tart that up instead. Then you refit the old bits to the £25 guitar and either move it on or hang it on the wall for decoration.Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
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My advice, if you are determined, is to use all s/h stuff. used iron Gear pickups can go for very little s/h and they are very good. Same with tuners.
Now, if you're really serious about splashing some cash, your Pacifica will react very well to upgrades as the platform is a good one.
https://imgur.com/a/v9K93
The pups are some unbranded Chinese ones that probably cost a couple of quid each. Acoustically the guitar is quite resonant & seems pretty solid.
I just thought that considering what it owes me then for not a lot of money swapping out parts I could have something at least as good as the cheaper epi's.
Even if not the exercise would be good practice for any future mods I may want to do.
I also think you should invest little in the way of cash but use it as a learning experience or skill development project. Well worth knowing how to maintain your gear.
I have, many times.... probably because I used to help out a mates rock school to keep the cheap guitars like this running. Failed tuner gears was a common issue.
regluing spliced headstocks that had opened up was the second most common issue on the Gibson styles
Tuners would be the first thing I would replace, because even a budget set will often give an instant improvement. Check the bridge over too, Cheap TOM's can be very rattly.
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I'd recommend the Vanson guitars unbranded tuners (look on ebay for their shop), they are pretty good for cheapies (£15). I just stuck a set on my "Scraptocaster" and they work perfectly.
Pots are cheap - the Alpha ones (both full size and minature) are under £3 each.
Pickups - your call completely. See what is around s/h on here, or maybe toneriders or irongear - they are both affordable.
If a friend of mine pulls his finger out about tarting up his Höhner L59, I may soon have a spare set of faded gold 'heads.
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On a general level, it would be worth your while removing one of the wound strings on the Rockburn LP copy and, then, carefully unfastening the tuner.
With the tuner removed, you can look for manufacturer identity markings on (normally hidden) face of the gear housing.
Also, measure the diameter of the drilled hole through which the tuner passes through the headstock. This will give you a better idea of which replacement hardware would fit without resorting to modification.
It is a 611s, hardtail model.
It has Grover autolock tuners, roller string trees, graphtec nut, Seymour Duncan SP90 on the bridge, Seymour Duncan Custom HB on the bridge, coil split on the HB, Graph Tech String Saver saddle as standard.
I use Dunlop strap locks just to be safe.
Plus as other people have said had I completely screwed it up I would have been down a £100 guitar and still had the parts.