bmarsh
Well-known member
Sorry if this is already a thread. I guess if no one else cares, this thread will die an early death...
I know a lot of you like to keep things stock. But I am a constant tinkerer looking for the best tone to my ears. And I figure there are others out there like me. I've had some successes and failures and thought the forum might benefit from a thread on this. What mods have you guys tried in your Greco Strats, Teles, LPs etc?
I'll start...
As I've mentioned a few times on other threads, I've switched out pickups quite a few times on my '80 SE800 strat. First I should mention, this guitar sounded awesome out of the shipping box, but lacked brightness big time. Ended up being a wrong cap. But I didn't know what a cap did at the time. So having a LP brighter than my strat forced me into modding mode. Once I discovered it was the cap and not pickups it was too late, pandora's box opened. I swapped in tokai U pickups for the Excel and noticed things got slightly brighter and cleaner. These pickups didn't breakup quite as easily. The excels seemed to be creamier(excuse the language) and could take on a fuzz when through an overdriven amp. The tokais sounded more round? Not quite glassy tone though. I liked them...until I didn't anymore. I had a pro borrow my strat for a gig and listening to him made me realize I just didn't like the tone.
And then I did a stupid thing. I had the opportunity to jam on a '65 fender strat. Let me first say I'm not into all the vintage is always better garbage. I've played old guitars that sound like trash. But this strat's in between sound blew my mind. So I started researching pickups a bit. In other strats I've tried fralin real 54's and blues and liked them. But for around the same price I found I could score 60s fender mustang pickups. I read they were wound less but had almost the same output and that some guys swear by them in their strats. So I gave them a try. This turned out to be a great mod. I feel it brought my Greco very close to '65 original, scary close. Definitely 100x better than a 70s strat and close to a '69 I tried a while back in terms of brightness. I've gotten some cool compliments on the tone at local blues jams too. My old guitar teacher who runs one asked me immediately if I had dropped fralins in. Anyway, that's my story. Hope it inspires or helps folks try different things.
I know a lot of you like to keep things stock. But I am a constant tinkerer looking for the best tone to my ears. And I figure there are others out there like me. I've had some successes and failures and thought the forum might benefit from a thread on this. What mods have you guys tried in your Greco Strats, Teles, LPs etc?
I'll start...
As I've mentioned a few times on other threads, I've switched out pickups quite a few times on my '80 SE800 strat. First I should mention, this guitar sounded awesome out of the shipping box, but lacked brightness big time. Ended up being a wrong cap. But I didn't know what a cap did at the time. So having a LP brighter than my strat forced me into modding mode. Once I discovered it was the cap and not pickups it was too late, pandora's box opened. I swapped in tokai U pickups for the Excel and noticed things got slightly brighter and cleaner. These pickups didn't breakup quite as easily. The excels seemed to be creamier(excuse the language) and could take on a fuzz when through an overdriven amp. The tokais sounded more round? Not quite glassy tone though. I liked them...until I didn't anymore. I had a pro borrow my strat for a gig and listening to him made me realize I just didn't like the tone.
And then I did a stupid thing. I had the opportunity to jam on a '65 fender strat. Let me first say I'm not into all the vintage is always better garbage. I've played old guitars that sound like trash. But this strat's in between sound blew my mind. So I started researching pickups a bit. In other strats I've tried fralin real 54's and blues and liked them. But for around the same price I found I could score 60s fender mustang pickups. I read they were wound less but had almost the same output and that some guys swear by them in their strats. So I gave them a try. This turned out to be a great mod. I feel it brought my Greco very close to '65 original, scary close. Definitely 100x better than a 70s strat and close to a '69 I tried a while back in terms of brightness. I've gotten some cool compliments on the tone at local blues jams too. My old guitar teacher who runs one asked me immediately if I had dropped fralins in. Anyway, that's my story. Hope it inspires or helps folks try different things.