I love cheap guitars, but learned a VALUABLE lesson on Friday night, ha ha!

[75lespaul]

If you guys remember, I got an el cheapo Jackson Rhoads for my 50th birthday recently, I think its the JS32 or something like that. Have been using it for rehearsal and I love the action and the sound, which is weird because I've never heard a Jackson pickup that I like. Well, we played a gig Friday and I wanted to use this guitar, so I pulled the pots and pickup selector so I could get the stupid plastic on the pickguard off. Nothing out of the ordinary, no problems or anything. A few screws, nuts, of and back on in a few seconds. This was Thursday night. I pull out the guitar for the last set, plug it in to make sure the tuning is on and voila; no sound, lol. Tap the pickguard, and now there's sound, but barely. I laughed and put it away and pulled out the Les Paul for the final set. Lesson learned--REWIRE these cheap pieces of poop before bringing them onstage, ha ha! This is the only cheap guitar I've ever had that I didn't throw CTS pots and orange drops in, and it let me down.

 

[Mrkensei]

Re: I love cheap guitars, but learned a VALUABLE lesson on Friday night, ha ha!

Wel, said, i became an upgrade snob a couple of years ago, nowadays I switch out the output jack on everything for a braided wire equipped switchcraft within 24 hours of purchase. All but one of my guitars has had SD YJM or BKP CTS pots, orange drops and quality switches. The only one relatively untouched is my Prestige Ibanez. But it's getting new pickups tonight so the wiring might get done later.

 

[75lespaul]

Re: I love cheap guitars, but learned a VALUABLE lesson on Friday night, ha ha!

Yep. You just have to. What pickups are you putting in the Ibanez?