Jack_TriPpEr
New member
** Pics at bottom
I bought this guitar last spring and it needed a lot of fixes and mods to get it playing and sounding good. I also just recovered from an injury that had halted my progress on this project for months. I finished up the mods and fixes this weekend.
Following is a quick run-down of mods/fixes that I performed on the guitar:
1) this guitar naturally has a low frequency boominess that dominates its sound, even in the bridge position. I first tried Artie's Demud mod on the stock pickups (adding capacitor and resistor in-line with each pickup's hot lead just before it attaches to their respective volume pots) and while that did significantly reduce the boominess, it was still too present for my tastes.
2) So then I struck upon the idea that in this case, the tendency of active pickups to dominate the tone of a guitar would be a virtue and advantage in this case. So I installed a set of Seymour Duncan Blackouts, and this yielded enough reduction in the boominess in the bridge position that I was happy with the result. BTW, I prefer the A5 "neck" Blackout in the bridge slot. The Ceramic "bridge" Blackout in the neck isn't a great fit tonewise, but I don't tend to use the neck position that much anyways.
3) so now I needed a place to store the battery since this guitar wasn't set up originally for active pickups. I bought an aftermarket battery tray and modded the control cavity cover plate to house that tray. This was my first time using a dremel tool and so I went about the task cautiously, practicing on a piece of scrap wood first. The mod of the cavity control platr went well. But then I discovered that the long-shaft pots i installed with the Blackouts didnt leave enough room in the control cavity to let the modded plate fit into the cavity, so I had to remove/replace/resolder the 4 pots using traditional/short shaft length pots.
4) as I spent time with the guitar on a strap, I noticed that it had enough degree of neck dive that annoyed me and affected my playing , so I replaced the stock Grover tuners (totaling about 9 oz) with Gotoh Stealth tuning keys, which amazingly only total 2.12 oz. The almost 7 ounce weight reduction resolved the neck dive problem. One note about the Gotoh Stealth tuning keys: they will require extra time after the basic install because their shaft diameter is so much narrower than a traditional tuning key diameter. The space left open around each new key needs to "filled up" to stabilize each key. I was disappointed that Gotoh didn't design this with a "sleeve" component to do that for you. So you have to end up rigging up some material to fill up those spaces.
5) then just this weekend after i finished up the incomplete work mentioned above, the guitar suddenly started buzzing in the bridge on 5 of the 6 strings. It turns out that the bridge design Dean uses, is susceptable to the intonation screws in the bridge rattling around, causing the buzzing. I found this YouTube video where a guy with a Gretsch with the same general type of bridge design, fixed the problem by inserting improvised lengths of springs onto each of the intonation screws. https://youtu.be/SciXQpYQGD0
He used the springs from ballpoint pens, I decided to use cut up lengths from springs found in pickup mounting rings (which I had spares of). I gave that method a try and it worked like a champ. Of course I had to remove and disassemble the bridge to do this, which meant having to reintonate the guitar after I put the bridge back together.
6) the stock control knobs had an awkward appearance because they were unusually tall. I replaced them with some short profile top hat knobs that match the hardware color.
So, this guitar needed a lof of attention, and it took a while to get it all done. But now that it is done, it looks, plays and sounds great.
This is how the guitar looked stock:
This is my guitar post all mods/fixes. The lighting in this picture almost makes it look like the color of the Blackout pickup covers are black, but they are in fact nickel. See other pic down below for comparison.
This is the control cavity plate modded to house a battery tray
This is the bridge with the improvised lengths of spring inserted into the channels where the intonation screws sit:
This is the backside of the headstock with the replacement Gotoh Stealth tuner keys installed:
This is the guitar, post mods/fixes, with all the stock hardware that was removed from it
I bought this guitar last spring and it needed a lot of fixes and mods to get it playing and sounding good. I also just recovered from an injury that had halted my progress on this project for months. I finished up the mods and fixes this weekend.
Following is a quick run-down of mods/fixes that I performed on the guitar:
1) this guitar naturally has a low frequency boominess that dominates its sound, even in the bridge position. I first tried Artie's Demud mod on the stock pickups (adding capacitor and resistor in-line with each pickup's hot lead just before it attaches to their respective volume pots) and while that did significantly reduce the boominess, it was still too present for my tastes.
2) So then I struck upon the idea that in this case, the tendency of active pickups to dominate the tone of a guitar would be a virtue and advantage in this case. So I installed a set of Seymour Duncan Blackouts, and this yielded enough reduction in the boominess in the bridge position that I was happy with the result. BTW, I prefer the A5 "neck" Blackout in the bridge slot. The Ceramic "bridge" Blackout in the neck isn't a great fit tonewise, but I don't tend to use the neck position that much anyways.
3) so now I needed a place to store the battery since this guitar wasn't set up originally for active pickups. I bought an aftermarket battery tray and modded the control cavity cover plate to house that tray. This was my first time using a dremel tool and so I went about the task cautiously, practicing on a piece of scrap wood first. The mod of the cavity control platr went well. But then I discovered that the long-shaft pots i installed with the Blackouts didnt leave enough room in the control cavity to let the modded plate fit into the cavity, so I had to remove/replace/resolder the 4 pots using traditional/short shaft length pots.
4) as I spent time with the guitar on a strap, I noticed that it had enough degree of neck dive that annoyed me and affected my playing , so I replaced the stock Grover tuners (totaling about 9 oz) with Gotoh Stealth tuning keys, which amazingly only total 2.12 oz. The almost 7 ounce weight reduction resolved the neck dive problem. One note about the Gotoh Stealth tuning keys: they will require extra time after the basic install because their shaft diameter is so much narrower than a traditional tuning key diameter. The space left open around each new key needs to "filled up" to stabilize each key. I was disappointed that Gotoh didn't design this with a "sleeve" component to do that for you. So you have to end up rigging up some material to fill up those spaces.
5) then just this weekend after i finished up the incomplete work mentioned above, the guitar suddenly started buzzing in the bridge on 5 of the 6 strings. It turns out that the bridge design Dean uses, is susceptable to the intonation screws in the bridge rattling around, causing the buzzing. I found this YouTube video where a guy with a Gretsch with the same general type of bridge design, fixed the problem by inserting improvised lengths of springs onto each of the intonation screws. https://youtu.be/SciXQpYQGD0
He used the springs from ballpoint pens, I decided to use cut up lengths from springs found in pickup mounting rings (which I had spares of). I gave that method a try and it worked like a champ. Of course I had to remove and disassemble the bridge to do this, which meant having to reintonate the guitar after I put the bridge back together.
6) the stock control knobs had an awkward appearance because they were unusually tall. I replaced them with some short profile top hat knobs that match the hardware color.
So, this guitar needed a lof of attention, and it took a while to get it all done. But now that it is done, it looks, plays and sounds great.
This is how the guitar looked stock:
This is my guitar post all mods/fixes. The lighting in this picture almost makes it look like the color of the Blackout pickup covers are black, but they are in fact nickel. See other pic down below for comparison.
This is the control cavity plate modded to house a battery tray
This is the bridge with the improvised lengths of spring inserted into the channels where the intonation screws sit:
This is the backside of the headstock with the replacement Gotoh Stealth tuner keys installed:
This is the guitar, post mods/fixes, with all the stock hardware that was removed from it
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