Hi
I was recently thinking about upgrading my LS85S GT (see my last threads).
It all started with pickups. I went from Gibson to Lollar to H?ussel to Leosounds. Alnico 2,3,5, Ceramic P-90s? Which impedance? How many Henries?
Then I realised I didn't have an aluminium tailpiece and a bridge with brass saddles. Should I buy a Faber kit?
Oh no, my guitar has got a two-piece back. I definitely need a one-piece back and nitro finish! LS160S or LSS195?
After that I thought I needed the 50s wiring along with bumblebee caps and cloth wire and matched CTS pots.
I should definitely change to pure nickel strings. But which one's? D'Addarios? Ernie Ball? Definitely no more Nickel wound strings.
Should I buy one or three baseplates for my Strat pickups to get some more output and bass response?
Oh, no, my guitar cable is not good enough. I need George L's. Low capacitance is a must have!
Then I realised my Fender Silverface Super Reverb needed some new caps and resistors to be fully blackfaced. And I hadn't replaced the transformers to really get a real Blackface.
Should I add a pot in the ext speaker hole to reduce negative feedback to let it distort earlier?
Which NOS tubes should I use? RCE, GE, Philips, Sylvania? And which caps? Sprague, Silver Mica, Orange drop?
Should I bias my amp hot or cold? How many mA? I should definitely add a switchable intensity pot to get the (tone stealing) tremolo circuit out of the circuit.
Then I thought my CTS Alnico speakers might be a little bit old and weak and I might replace them with Webers.
What I'm saying is: There are too many factors in the whole process. And the fine tuning is a thing that might lead to some improvement in tone, but if you want to do it right, you will have to spend more money than you actually paid for your gear to get 5% improvement in tone. And you never know which direction you're going because normally you don't really know how these things will affect your sound.
I think we should rather play our guitars more often than spend so much time online and pay so much money for a lot of gear that will only partially solve "problems" we most likely don't have at all.
That's my conclusion of the last weeks' research... All IMHO of course ;-)
I was recently thinking about upgrading my LS85S GT (see my last threads).
It all started with pickups. I went from Gibson to Lollar to H?ussel to Leosounds. Alnico 2,3,5, Ceramic P-90s? Which impedance? How many Henries?
Then I realised I didn't have an aluminium tailpiece and a bridge with brass saddles. Should I buy a Faber kit?
Oh no, my guitar has got a two-piece back. I definitely need a one-piece back and nitro finish! LS160S or LSS195?
After that I thought I needed the 50s wiring along with bumblebee caps and cloth wire and matched CTS pots.
I should definitely change to pure nickel strings. But which one's? D'Addarios? Ernie Ball? Definitely no more Nickel wound strings.
Should I buy one or three baseplates for my Strat pickups to get some more output and bass response?
Oh, no, my guitar cable is not good enough. I need George L's. Low capacitance is a must have!
Then I realised my Fender Silverface Super Reverb needed some new caps and resistors to be fully blackfaced. And I hadn't replaced the transformers to really get a real Blackface.
Should I add a pot in the ext speaker hole to reduce negative feedback to let it distort earlier?
Which NOS tubes should I use? RCE, GE, Philips, Sylvania? And which caps? Sprague, Silver Mica, Orange drop?
Should I bias my amp hot or cold? How many mA? I should definitely add a switchable intensity pot to get the (tone stealing) tremolo circuit out of the circuit.
Then I thought my CTS Alnico speakers might be a little bit old and weak and I might replace them with Webers.
What I'm saying is: There are too many factors in the whole process. And the fine tuning is a thing that might lead to some improvement in tone, but if you want to do it right, you will have to spend more money than you actually paid for your gear to get 5% improvement in tone. And you never know which direction you're going because normally you don't really know how these things will affect your sound.
I think we should rather play our guitars more often than spend so much time online and pay so much money for a lot of gear that will only partially solve "problems" we most likely don't have at all.
That's my conclusion of the last weeks' research... All IMHO of course ;-)