Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

Re: Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

back in the olden days (20+ years ago)... I put a JB in my crappy plywood Ibanez Iceman and it really made a huge difference. changed my life. I went from a bland tone with squealing feedback to controllable feedback and I tone I could live with. I've been a Duncan fan ever since.
 
Re: Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

i will occasionally stick a duncan 'bucker in the bridge of a plywood squier strat laying around since it's the only trem guitar i've got sitting around. the guitar itself sounds very flubby in the low end, and it comes through when plugged in. it works alright for VH style stuff:naughty:
 
Re: Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

Willybomb said:
I've put good pickups in cheap guitars pretty much with every guitar I've ever had. JBs, Tonezones, Hotrails, Megadrives, PATB2s ... all good fun.
Click to expand...

Key word was observed above. "Fun"
If it's fun, do it. If it isn't, don't.
I have a few vintage guitars that have managed to stay stock...for now. They spend more time gathering dust. I have about 6 cherry-picked Squier Strats (Chinese) that have become PU and re-wiring obsessions. ALL have been fun, and the results have always exceeded my expectations (I usually have none!). I play them more than anything else I own. Granted, be prepared to spend some time working on the necks if you want to actually play them on a regular basis. And another poster made a good comment about the amp as well. I can plug just anything into my MesaBoogie Heartbreaker and it will sound good with enough volume to get it out of the mud...even the stock Chinese Strats. If it plays well, and you like the sound, then it is a good guitar. The latest one has two P-Rails in it (HH), wired per the 2 pot, push/pull, 3-way Seymour config. It is a very fun guitar to play, with one of the crappiest bodies I have ever seen. While doing some routing, I wondered if the body might fold-up when re-stringed (it didn't, yet). And after about 4+ hours of TLC, the neck is as good as any Fender I own.
 
Re: Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

I agree that an X2N through a cranked quadruple rectumfrier likely wont care what kind of wood it is in.
If you get the pickups you want, and good hardware, it will make the guitar better. I had a plywood squier that actually resonated fairly well. And if you get all the awesome parts you like, be happy with it and save up for a warmoth body or similar, then transfer everything over (like someone else suggested)
Then you have an awesome guitar with your choice of parts. If you already have the body then why not?
 
Re: Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

I have an "indonesion" Squier Bullet and was thinking maybe a 59 in the neck position and 500k pots, 1 vol. 1 tone, no switch and use it for slide. what do you guys think? Can i get a pickguard blank?
 
Re: Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

You could learn something from the experience, OP. But, it's not necessarily cost effective.
 
Re: Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

Go for it. You could end up with a cool sounding beater
 
Re: Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

It varies from guitar to guitar, but sometimes (as it's been with some of my instruments) the results are surprisingly good.
 
Re: Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

Here what I would like to do...stay with me......get a 2 x 12 at Lowes-use enough to get -about the same weight as a guitar body...puts some pickups in it and LISTEN to what it sounds like...I bet it sounds just as good a a regular body...(I'm guessing) anyone tried it? Cheers! JIMO

Tell everyone i used to play with "The Carpenters".....
 
Re: Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

I've actually heard plywood sound pretty good.

Now, it was a sh!t guitar.

But it sounded pretty good.
 
Re: Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

I'm not sure if you mean a *real low quality body, but if so, then no.well, maybe sometimes sticking a good high powered pickup might make it have some sort of decent sound for heavy rock, like for instance I put a JBjr in my plywood Strat bridge, and I can see maybe an Invader or a Detonator (being more reasonably priced) ... but otherwise ,not usually. Especially from a value standpoint, you'd be shooting yourself in the foot.
If, on the other hand by" Low quality", you mean something like an old Peavy USA Predator instead of just a POS , then I think you'd benefit form "good" pickups, if by "good" you meant an average set of generic alnicos priced at around 60-75 bucks a set.
Lets face it, you aint gonna make a silk purse out of a sows ear, and spending more on the pickups than the entire guitar is worth is downright absurd.
 
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Re: Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

You can tell when Jerry is posting drunk because all his punctuation has weird extra spaces all around it.

And by that, I mean:

You can tell when Jerry is posting drunk because he is posting.
 
Re: Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

If you have both the cheap guitar and the high end pickups on hand, there is ZERO harm in experimenting. If it works out great (and sometimes it does -- not every piece of wood in cheapo land is a piece of crap), you've just saved $3,000 on a high end guitar...
 
Re: Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

Zhangliqun said:
If you have both the cheap guitar and the high end pickups on hand, there is ZERO harm in experimenting. If it works out great (and sometimes it does -- not every piece of wood in cheapo land is a piece of crap), you've just saved $3,000 on a high end guitar...
Click to expand...

This!

My son has a Kramer look-alike "Hyundai" guitar from the 80's (he put a Music Man sticker on it...haha!), for which he commissioned me to paint EVH stripes on it. The stock tone was surprisingly good for a generic ceramic pup in plywood... I mean seriously, I was floored and I don't impress easy. The pickup stopped working so I'm considering putting VEH by GFS in it. I would consider those "good" pickups, not great, not the best (certainly not comparable to yours) but I've heard Les Pauls transformed into tone monsters with those. To me, $35 is worth it for that guitar.

My alder Squier is certainly not "top end" stuff, but it's comparable to anything I've encountered within a realistic price threshold. "Polishing a turd" might be the best idea for somebody who CAN afford a $70 pickup but not a $1000 guitar. At worse, it will improve the sound, at best, it will improve the sound. I don't see the problem.

Now, Custom Shop, Bare Knuckle, Lollar, Fralin, etc... that might not yield you the quality you expect for the money you pay. Then again, what AMP are you playing through?

EVH's Frankenstein was a factory second junker put together by a drunk teenager and it's one of the most sought after guitar tones ever.
 
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Re: Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

If you've got a good amp and you like the neck on the guitar it's definately worth it, if it's just going to sit in a corner and collect dust than just save the money for a decent back up.......

If you're plugging into a piece of **** amp though forget it......
 
Re: Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

IanBallard said:
This!

EVH's Frankenstein was a factory second junker put together by a drunk teenager and it's one of the most sought after guitar tones ever.
Click to expand...



With your kind permission, I would like to use this as my signature...it tells the tale..and is 100% spot on!
 
Re: Is it worth putting good pickups on a low quality body?

jimo said:
Here what I would like to do...stay with me......get a 2 x 12 at Lowes-use enough to get -about the same weight as a guitar body...puts some pickups in it and LISTEN to what it sounds like...I bet it sounds just as good a a regular body...(I'm guessing) anyone tried it? Cheers! JIMO

Tell everyone i used to play with "The Carpenters".....
Click to expand...

did you play the solo on ¨Goodbye To Love¨ ? THAT WAS AWESOME !!!!!!!!!!!
 
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