Cockos Incorporated Forums - View Single Post - Guitar hotwire 101

The Telenator · 02-29-2012, 12:46 AM

Someone linked this thread in another forum, which drew me here, so I read a couple pages worth of posts.

I realize this is an old and apparently dead thread, and I'm sure the OP meant well, but I would highly caution anyone reading these guitar mod schemes that much of the info is flat-out incorrect, or will cause damage to your instrument or should never be attempted by anyone who is not an experienced guitar tech, or shouldn't even be done by a tech (and most reputable ones would refuse to butcher, for example, guitar pickups in these ways anyhow. Just for example, the idea of pushing pole pieces through a bobbin is one of the best ways to break your inner windings of coil, rendering the entire pup useless).

I'm not going to waste my time covering each little topic here, but let me offer at least one example. At one point the OP was suggesting replacing volume pots with 2 meg pots, because the stock 250k pots on many gits, such as on most Fenders, breed off treble and don't allow the full sound of the pickup to come through. Yeah, well, there's a very good reason why 2 meg pots never come stock on gits -- the pickups would sound utterly horrible if run through 2 meg pots. You don't WANT every bit of signal to pass from pickup to amp!

And don't even get me started on the suggestion to run Elmer's Glue all around inside a hollowbody guitar to "tighten up" the sound or get more "definition," as the OP calls it. Guitars are made other than solid for the very reason of producing different note articulation. Duh.

Look, this thread is the perfect example of, although honestly intentioned here I believe, yet how there is a huge mass of bad, false and incorrect information on the Net these days. Just 'cause this sits in the REAPER forum doesn't mean anything here is safe, wise or of any merit. Sorry to say, about 95% of what I've read here so far is utter crap. You can even tell from the lack and incorrectness of much of the OP's terminology that this person is just some bedroom dabbler and certainly no professionally trained anything. I do believe all this was meant in good faith, but only an idiot would try any of this (or a very spoiled rich kid who never worries of destroying any of his guitars).

You have been warned. Do not try this nonsense yourself. There are far better ways to improve your sound. Might I suggest merely playing 4 to 6 hours a day, instead of fooling with things so much?

02-29-2012, 12:46 AM	#141
The Telenator Banned Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Oud West, NL Posts: 2,335	Someone linked this thread in another forum, which drew me here, so I read a couple pages worth of posts. I realize this is an old and apparently dead thread, and I'm sure the OP meant well, but I would highly caution anyone reading these guitar mod schemes that much of the info is flat-out incorrect, or will cause damage to your instrument or should never be attempted by anyone who is not an experienced guitar tech, or shouldn't even be done by a tech (and most reputable ones would refuse to butcher, for example, guitar pickups in these ways anyhow. Just for example, the idea of pushing pole pieces through a bobbin is one of the best ways to break your inner windings of coil, rendering the entire pup useless). I'm not going to waste my time covering each little topic here, but let me offer at least one example. At one point the OP was suggesting replacing volume pots with 2 meg pots, because the stock 250k pots on many gits, such as on most Fenders, breed off treble and don't allow the full sound of the pickup to come through. Yeah, well, there's a very good reason why 2 meg pots never come stock on gits -- the pickups would sound utterly horrible if run through 2 meg pots. You don't WANT every bit of signal to pass from pickup to amp! And don't even get me started on the suggestion to run Elmer's Glue all around inside a hollowbody guitar to "tighten up" the sound or get more "definition," as the OP calls it. Guitars are made other than solid for the very reason of producing different note articulation. Duh. Look, this thread is the perfect example of, although honestly intentioned here I believe, yet how there is a huge mass of bad, false and incorrect information on the Net these days. Just 'cause this sits in the REAPER forum doesn't mean anything here is safe, wise or of any merit. Sorry to say, about 95% of what I've read here so far is utter crap. You can even tell from the lack and incorrectness of much of the OP's terminology that this person is just some bedroom dabbler and certainly no professionally trained anything. I do believe all this was meant in good faith, but only an idiot would try any of this (or a very spoiled rich kid who never worries of destroying any of his guitars). You have been warned. Do not try this nonsense yourself. There are far better ways to improve your sound. Might I suggest merely playing 4 to 6 hours a day, instead of fooling with things so much? Last edited by The Telenator; 02-29-2012 at 12:56 AM.