What to Expect: Upgrading the components on your guitar can greatly improve the sound.
Next, AiXun Precision Soldering will introduce three modification directions for you.
1. Potentiometer
If you have a low to mid priced guitar, you can upgrade the wiring and potentiometers.
A key parameter of the potentiometer is the resistance value. The cheaper the potentiometer, the higher the resistance value. The higher the resistance value, the more high frequencies the sound will have.
Take STRAT as an example, using 200K or 300K potentiometers will sound very different. Likewise, using a 300K or 500K potentiometer in a Les Paul or ES-335 will sound very different.
2. Capacitance
The capacitance on your guitar's tone knob also plays a big role.
The unit of capacitance is microfarads (microfarads, uF). The smaller the capacitance value, the smaller the loss of high frequency in the sound when the tone knob is turned down.
So if you think your guitar sound is too muddy, and you installed a 0.047uF capacitor, you can try to replace it with a 0.022uF or smaller capacitor. And smaller capacitors will make your potentiometer adjustments more efficient.
For example, old Fenders with 0.1uF capacitors sound darker, and the fact that most of the potentiometer's adjustment range is ineffective.
3. Treble bleed mod
Generally speaking, when you turn down the guitar volume knob, there will be a loss of high frequencies.
Because its side effect is that when it adjusts the volume, it will act as a low-pass filter (allowing low frequencies to pass, and cutting high frequencies).
In order to solve this problem, you can make a treble bleed mod, this mod requires you to buy a capacitor or a resistor plus a capacitor, then solder it, and connect it to the potentiometer.
A common combination is a 150k resistor and a 0.001uF capacitor, or a 100K resistor and a 0.002uF capacitor. You can find some related circuit diagrams again.
Of course, you also need to know how to use a soldering iron. If you don’t know how to choose, you can directly choose the AiXun soldering iron smart soldering station to improve your work efficiency.
How to use a soldering iron
1. Preparation tools: electric soldering iron, solder wire, rosin
2. The newly bought electric soldering iron can hang the soldering iron head with a knife (because there is an oxide layer), and then plug in the power. Be careful that the temperature is very high when you plug in the power;
3. When the temperature of the soldering iron comes up, put rosin on the tip of the soldering iron and solder;
4. First put rosin on the wires that need to be welded, and then solder on the dots;
5. Then solder on the components that need to be soldered, pay attention to the speed, otherwise the components will be burned if the temperature is too high;
6. When the soldering iron is not in use, put solder on the tip of the soldering iron (to prevent the soldering iron from drying);
7. Use rosin as the Solder Pastes flux as much as possible, and the solder paste will be a little corrosive;
The above is the electric guitar modification guide shared by AiXun. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. Follow AiXun precision soldering, we will update daily!
WhatsApp