General info and how-to's regarding fly fishing, fly tying, backpacking, hiking and camping in the Rocky Mountains, USA. Plus bonus material about guitars, amps and general tomfoolery music making.
20 years ago I bought a faithful reproduction of a PAF pickup, love that pickup. Didn't know about PAF but since P90's are becoming recognised as an alternative choice I was pleasantly surprised that a PAF is a humbucking P90 (or similar design to P90)
I immediately noticed your Gibson L6 hanging behind you! I bought one new in 1976 and still play and record with it after almost 50 years! Love that guitar! Also, just bought the M-Audio Oxygen 46MKV. This was very helpful for me! Thank you.
@mtidwell111 thx for the comment. I bought that L6S from a friend 1980 for $250. Glad I did. It was my main gigging guitar in the 80s until I found the magic of a tele!
@jesusgirarte-sandoval7535 yeah, be sure to use the solar flex meant for surfboards and then gently spray paint over it to match the original finish. Then, wet buff down to a sheen with the techniques in this video.
I had to replace the bridge on my harmony meteor not long ago. The old metal collapsed on the middle. Went with an ebony loar compenated bridge, made a massive difference in tone & sustain. Best the old guitar has ever sounded
Useful video. My new Lanshan tent arrived yesterday. Sealing the seams is not easy. I diluted the seam sealant with a cap full of white spirit. Several hours down the line I have got quite an even coverage of the two seams I have treated, with no unsightly marks on the fabric beyond the seams.
I I bought this guitar recently. It was good but when I wanted to adjust the intonation, one of the screws had a problem. Then when I looked at the frets to set the action to the lowest, I noticed that there were several frets that were higher. So I leveled the freights. The trussrod had to be adjusted. Then I noticed that the pickup had a good clear sound, for playing jazz it was very good, but with overdrive the sound was not good because it was too low for that. Overall it's a good guitar especially for the price, but a demanding musician will have to spend some time to get the tuning optimal. Some negligible finishing defects exist, nothing insurmountable. So I had to change the bridge, put a shim under the pickup, and change the nut to have a reliable and efficient setup. The tuners are OK, although I think they will need to be changed later. For a beginner or an undemanding amateur this is a very good guitar. For an experienced musician, you need to know how to tune your instrument, otherwise luthier fees can make the total cost daunting. It is still necessary to take into account that guitars of a higher price are not necessarily better and very often need to be optimized in the same way. Overall it's a good investment for an archtop. The acoustic sound is weak, but it is a semi-hollow. You can't expect the same sound as an acoustic archtop. I must add that the tone potentiometer acts at the end of rotation. This isn't really a problem, but more progressiveness would have been better. I will rectify this later. It is not eliminatory. (I use a homemade Princeton Reverb 65 point to point board.)
omg i've spent hours finding how to use the transport section on my mvave smk 25 on cakewalk without any results. But this video helped me a lot, it works now, tysm
I have another modeling amp I think sounds better, but for size, features and the used market prices, you really can't beat this one! Perfect desktop practice amp.
I had bought one of these guitars. The neck angle was so far off that the bridge height couldn't go high enough to get a decent string height for playability. I returned it the same day it arrived.
Thanks for this. What I learned, don't by Epiphone P-90 pickups 😆This was a good comparison. Thanks for sharing! I didn't hear a tone comparison with the original bridge. For these Jazz Box's the bridge is a tone deal breaker. I thought the original P-90 sounded great. Nice and crisp, just what I look for in a P-90 and flat wound strings will need that extra high end. Pickups are important, but I've found that I'm able to overcome any issues with a little EQ and Gain finesse.
If your actuon is at the preferrd height, then you most likely have a high fret or two. Isolate the frets that are buzzing and use a flat edge to gently press them in further. If that doesn't work, then YT how to level frets and follow those instructions. You won't need to level much.
Top quality workmanship. Was completely mesmerized by your process. Have tried, unsuccessfully, to do the same thing you have perfected and my hat's off to you! I now know where I have gone wrong and can now correct my mistakes. So,so glad I found your video. Your process is so well presented and interesting. Thank you very much!
Yes, most definitely. An all walnut bridge made it more midrange focused and not so bright. A rosewood bridge with a bone insert was the most balanced and my preference.
Pull the plastic knob straight up and off, then tighten the thin nut to firm but not too tight for fear of cracking the guitar finish. Rotate the stem completely to the right and press on the plastic knob so that "10" faces you as you play. Done.
@rodrigomarino9813 it's more involved than a few simple sentences in a reply. I strongly suggest searching RU-vid for pickup replacements. There are plenty of great tutorials on YT that can help you out. I can tell you that this guitar has the simplest pup replacement process, so it's a great project guitar to practice on.
This is a fanstastic guitar. I got the natural color. Threw flatwounds on. Very slight work with Truss rod. Nut and frets were good. Intonation is close.....and adjustable TYG. It vibrates like a living thing...plugged in. Awesome range of tone from a single pick-up. It's so good I wish there was a cut-out version. I'd buy it. I also have a Grote 335 I bought several years ago. It was almost 100USD cheaper..but I'm still working on it LOL. It sounds good but frets are all over the place. Of all the Grotes..these by most accounts are the most ready to play.
Feel players don't realize how much the tone and volume pots and capacitance have on tone and articulation. But after this the stock pickup didn't sound bad. The Epi was quite muddy.
I like the sound of the Grote P90 best. I did not notice much improvement from the stock guitar. Although that is a good thing. I feel like I could pull this guitar out of the box and play it for quite a long time before customizing it. I really like the thoroughness of your reviews.
Did you ever raise the height of your replacement pickup, and if so, how much did it affect the sound? As others have mentioned, a technical details video on how to replace the pots and pickup (including the copper shielding you said you use in a comment--reply) would be appreciated by many. Also, thanks for doing this video - well done.
You have to be cautious in raising p90s too close to the strings. The sound will get harshly loud and lose clear definition. It's ultimately a taste thing. From experience, I tend to keep p90s on the more moderate side of things, not too close.
