Upgrading your Epiphone

I thought it was about time I did something to make my ol` Epiphone Black Beauty a better sounding/playin`axe. I`ve had it for almost ten years now and I`ve never really been happy with it. Dull, lack of sustain, muddy sounding etc. All these things which are common to most korean made Epis`.

Since it`s not the most expensive guitar I wanted to make it sound and "feel" better with the most "bang for the buck" upgrades. Here`s what I did:

-Changed the plastic nut for a GraphTech Tusq nut.
-Installed a Faber kit Tone Lock system.
-Changed pickups to a couple of GFS Humbuckers.
-Changed all electronics( alpha pots, switch, wires, Sprague "orange drops"caps).

The first thing I wanted to do was to get rid of the plastic nut. A little tap with a hammer and a pice of wood that was all it took to get the old nut loose. That was almost too easy! The slot was clean and ready to get a new nut installed. I`ve heard good things about the GraphTech nut and thought it would be a good chance to try it out. The tusq nut comes already shaped and with string slots ready for installation. It was just a little to thick and wide but a little sanding was all it took. When it fit snug I trimmed off the edges to make it look nice. Next I sanded the bottom of the nut down on a pice of sandpaper laying on a flat surface to get the height just right. Now the nut was ready to be installed. I glued it in place with a couple of tiny drops white wood glue..just enough to make the nut stay put when changing strings. With the nut into place I clamped it down with the strings for preasure. I left it to dry until the next day. The high b and e needed to be lowered just a tiny bit so I lowered those slots down a little with a nut file. So, did the nut make any difference?? The answere: Yes! I did not believe it could do this much to the guitar, but it did! The guitar was "singing". The sustain, definition of the strings was defenitely better. When playing some open chords the guitar was vibrating more in my hands. Cool!! And I was using the same old dirty strings as before..!

Next up was the Faber kit whitch basically are stoptail "studs" you replace to get the stoptail locked in place. What this is supposed to do is to improve the "transmission of string vibration to the body"...in other words improve the sustain, attack etc. The installation was super easy. Just replaced the old "studs" whit the new ones. Now the stoptail was locked! So, I strung up again and tested. Well..It did make a difference.. But the nut impressed me more. One cool thing about the locked stoptail is that it stays in place when changing strings..

The last thing I wanted to upgrade was the electronics and pickups. The old stock pickups never sounded good to me. To muddy and not enough "yeah, I`m a rocker!!"... I got the pickups and electronics form guitarfetish.com who are known for theire "bang for the buck" parts. I got a "PAF 59`" for the neck and a "FAT Pat" for the bridge. Some 500k Alpha pots, wire, and a couple of "orange drops" caps(.o15uf). I chose a lower value caps to get a little more treble out of the guitar. What about the mid bucker? I skipped it. I never use it so why bother...? So...I spent a day rewiring the electronics. I used this schematic from seymour duncan. The result? Better! More punch, less mud, clearer, better string-to-string def...and more RAWK! Worth it..? Yes!

To sum it all up: All these upgrades made a difference. They made a boring guitar fun to play! After a setup with new strings I really enjoyed playing my guitar. Finaly! It sounded better and felt better. The guitar just felt more alive! And..now it rocks when plugged in aswell! I`m very happy with the outcome. To me the tusq nut made the most difference. Really made the guitar sing. The locking studs also improved sustain. I can defenetly feel the guitar vibrating more now. The GFS pickups rawk nuff said!

Do it! Your Epiphone deserves it!

Green Ringer

The Green Ringer is one of the classic effects created by Dan Armstrong. A slightly dirty unique ring modulation type effect. When single notes are played into the Ringer an octave up effect is produced. When two or more notes are played at the same time it behaves more like a ring modulator. I`ve found the octave up effect to be the most pronounced from the 10th fret and up. You can get some pretty cool and weird sounds from this thing.

I etched the pcb myself for this project. I matched the components recommended here, but I`m not sure it made a whole lot of difference. The enclosure is finished with a black/green/white "swirl" paint job, I learned how to here. And..the icing on the cake: A green LED! Do a search for "Green Ringer" on Youtube and you`ll find some cool demos. Now..some pics!

Moody Sounds Wah kit

The sweeds over at Moody Sounds has created a different kind of wah that`s for sure! The wah effect is controlled by light! By simply covering/exposing the light sensitive resistors with your foot you are controlling the frequency response. Pretty cool!

The kit came with instructions(sweedish and english), a pre drilled enclosure, a sticker and all the parts needed to build the kit. Even parts for mods was included! The PCB was of good quality with the component placements silk screened. The PCB is held in place inside the enclosure by the LED bezel.

The building process was painless. The instructions were visually exellent and easy to follow. A couple of hours of soldering and..done! It even fired right up! I decided to ditch the sticker and made a waterslide "clone" of the sticker instead. Scanned, printed and voila! Worked out great! A couple of clear coats and this is what you get:

A fun effect but not sure how usefull it is. You need quite the amount of light to get the most out of it. All in all it was a fun and easy build and not that expensive.

Check the moody wah out at moodysounds.com. There`s even a video demo that`ll give you an idea of what this little wah can do. I got my kit here. You can even order direct from Moody Sounds aswell.

DIY IKEA Pedalboard

Yup! I came across this thread/tutorial over at Harmony Central a while back & had to give it a go. The basic idea of making a dirt cheap pedalboard from a IKEA "Gorm" shelf was just too cool not to try out.

I picked up a couple of "Gorms" & got started. I wanted to make a smaller board like the pedaltrain mini. So, I cut one of the boards off the shelf and trimmed the edges. I reinforced the the board underneath with a pice of leftover wood from the shelf. After the glue had dried I gave the board a quick sanding, primed it & let it dry over night. Next up I brushed on a couple of coats flat black enamel paint. When the paint was dry I screwed on some rubber feet. Printed out a couple of logos &.. Thats it!!

A sturdy cool looking pedalboard.. & best of all: Dirt cheap!

Now, lets get this baby velcro`d up!