Building a solid-body electric. I have various questions.

[green puppet]

I am planning on building my first guitar (electric, solid-body). Before I say my problem, here is my situation:

I have an electric guitar now. It is cheap and low quality. What I am planning to do is take all the parts from it except the pickups and put them in a new body. I'm hoping to buy new pickups because as far as I can tell they are the major part in control of sound quality.

Here as some questions I have:

- What type of pickups give a clean sound? I don't play heavy metal or hard rock. I play mostly 60's style music (think The Beatles)
- How much will I be expecting to spend if I want good quality pickups?
- I also have a very poor amp, what am I looking for if I want a usable amp that provides the sound I am looking for? I am very new to this :) .



Thank you very much.

[Jminor]

I've never built a guitar so take my advice with a grain of salt.
What is it you don't like about your guitar now ? why?, because i don't think putting all of the same parts (neck included ?) onto a new body will make you happier (unless the experience of the actual building is what you want)

I would advise you to get a decent amp first and then start thinking about the parts of your guitar that you don't like.. maybe get your guitar setup properly aswell by someone who knows what they're doing..(if you haven't done so already)

It's amazing how much better a cheapy guitar can sound through a good amp..

If you just change the pickups and the body, your amp will still let you down severely and you'll be disappointed with whatever other mods you do.

Just my 2c

[Sir Fire Hydran]

I'm not sure what sort of pickups you'd be after. GuitarFetish (www.guitarfetish.com) has a vide variety of good pickups at good prices. For 60's humbucker sized pickups, I'd recommend the Dream 90 and/or the Vintage '59 (both of which I can personally vouch for). They also sell hardware (tuners, bridges etc.) so you won't have to reuse the one's from your cheap guitar.

[green puppet]

Thanks, you were really helpful.

To be a bit more specific, I'm going to build the body, neck, and the headstock. Then I was going to take the electronics (sorry, I don't have more specific terms) from the cheap guitar and use them in the new body. Then I was going to buy better sounding pickups for as cheap as possible without being on par with the ones that are there now.

But I guess for now, I will look into getting a better amp first.

[elitistlpcustom]

go to www.seymourduncan.com and browse through the pickups they have, u can listen to them on there as well so its pretty cool. only thing is that those pickups could be kinda expensive, but if u got the money its a good place to go.

[elitistlpcustom]

but if u got a cheap guitar then are you going to use its neck? because then that'd still be cheap and low quality.. what i did was i went to a guitar repairer and got a used neck from him off a fender strat and used that, much better than the neck on my old guitar which was some strat copy. but if you're building a neck, then good luck, its intense and takes a lot of precision etc..

[Sir Fire Hydran]

Thanks, you were really helpful.

To be a bit more specific, I'm going to build the body, neck, and the headstock. Then I was going to take the electronics (sorry, I don't have more specific terms) from the cheap guitar and use them in the new body. Then I was going to buy better sounding pickups for as cheap as possible without being on par with the ones that are there now.

But I guess for now, I will look into getting a better amp first.

I would recommend against taking the electronics from your cheaper guitar. You can get full electronics kits from GuitarFetish for very cheap, and good electronics makes a world of difference. Trust me. If you're going for new pickups, you'd need new pots to go with it.

[green puppet]

I would recommend against taking the electronics from your cheaper guitar. You can get full electronics kits from GuitarFetish for very cheap, and good electronics makes a world of difference. Trust me. If you're going for new pickups, you'd need new pots to go with it.

Thanks, you are really clearing up some questions for me. However, I've been browsing that site and am still a bit unclear of what to look for.

Some things say "complete electrical component kit", others say "pre-wired pickguard". I guess it really depends on whether I want the components wired into the pickguard or I do it myself, right?

[Sir Fire Hydran]

Thanks, you are really clearing up some questions for me. However, I've been browsing that site and am still a bit unclear of what to look for.

Some things say "complete electrical component kit", others say "pre-wired pickguard". I guess it really depends on whether I want the components wired into the pickguard or I do it myself, right?

I assume then that you're looking at Strat-based stuff (I'm a Les Paul kind of guy), but yeah, that sounds about right.