Talk to me about pickup upgrades for guitars.

I have an old (1982) japanese made Aria Pro semi acoustic – ES copy. it’s lovely to play and a few friends with much more knowledge and experience than me who have played it have remarked on what an amazing neck it’s got. One friend who plays very fast metal didn’t want to give it back.

However, i’ve always felt that the sound through the amp was a bit lacking distinction. And recently when i’ve been playing the tonal difference between bridge and neck pickups has been a bit dull. On top of that there’s a bit of noise in the pots. So I was thinking of spicing it up with a couple of seymour duncan pickups and refresh the pots and fit some nice new knobs.

Happy to do the work myself but there’s a minefield of different wiring options, anyone done this and what is the opinion on SD humbucker pickups? (I’m thinking a 59 in the Neck and a custom 5 on the bridge)

Then there’s my old amp. I bought it 2nd hand in 93, it’s a Marshall 10 watt practice amp. many years in the loft have left all the pots a bit noisy – which i have improved with contact cleaner. But it seems that the gain control has little effect in boost mode so i think it’s poorly.

I was considering selling for repair on ebay – although i doubt it’s worth anything, it’s only a solid state amp from a long time ago.

I have a hankering for a small valve amp like the Vox Ac4 TV or maybe the blackstar 5 watt valve amp. what’s the group wisdom on these things?

I have the Vox AC4 with the 12″ speaker, and I love it, if you play clean it’s head and shoulders above my old blackstar ht-5. The HT-5 has more features (headphone jack, effects loop, more adjusters), but the vox sounds better to my ears.

Amp first 🙂 a good one may be enough to give you the clarity you’re looking for, take the guitar to a shop and try out, you may be able to part-ex the old one if it doesn’t go on ebay

I got a Vox ‘Valvetronix’ VT20X modelling amp and it’s great, it’s not a full tube amp but it’s got a tube in it and does a good line in crunchy tubeyness. It’s pokey enough for making a racket in the house and you can plug it into a laptop and mess about with the amp models as well, if that’s your thing.

try different strings firstly, the tonal difference of NYXLs compared to the like of ernie balls is ridiculous imo. On My mexi strat the ernie’s sound fragile, the NYXLs are so much fuller(They have a boost of some sort around the 1-3.5khz region, which is why they sound clearer). It’s the pickups for sure that aren’t playing nice with the ernies, as they sound fine on other guitars. But a set of strings for 15 quid is worth a go firstly, rather than forking out for new pickups and wiring and doing all the work yourself.

cheers. i’ll be re-stringing this weekend. and do some testing. My son’s very cheap ebay special with single coils seems to be louder than my humbuckers.

as for amps, i’m listening to some demos on the laney cub 12R. Looks interesting alternative to the Vox.

Might want to look into compressor peddles too, they do all sorts of subtle(and not so subtle if you ramp them up) goodness. (wee bit of a learning curve with them though, I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what they were supposed to do at first! 😆 I’ve just used the boss cs-3 and some software compressors within abelton though, so can’t really recommend the best there hardware wise. See if you can borrow one for a weekend.)

you might want to check your pots are suitable for your pick ups

also THR10 for an amp if you don’t intend to gig – though I did gig with mine in a large hall

I’ve got a 50watt Vox Valvetronic. Normally it just gets used in the house, but my guitarist borrower it for a few gigs and it was fine with a full band at gig volume.

Sounds good,

Has lasted well

They are £50- £100 on ebay 2nd hand now.

Try the amps in a shop with your guitar and see what you hear. Another guitarist mate loves his small valve amp.