Category Archives: Tips and Tricks

In the last two articles we looked at switches, and then four-conductor humbuckers. This time round, we’re going to look at some new types of switch, and see how we can use those to access some more tones from a humbucker.

Sometimes when you’re contemplating a pickup swap or putting together a custom guitar, the hardest choice to make is what kind of pickup to use. Humbucker? Single coil? P-90? Each have their charms, of course, and you can split a humbucker into a single coil to expand your tonal reach a little further. But we guitarists are well known for looking at our instruments and thinking “What if..?” And it was one of these ‘What If Moments’ which led to a pickup which could do all three: the P-Rails.

Choosing a set of pickups for a Super Strat with a single-volume, single coil/humbucker pickup configuration isn’t as easy a task as you’d think; especially if you’re looking for versatility. There are a few things to consider, particularly balancing the neck pickup with the bridge humbucker.

In Tinkering with pickups 101 we went through some fairly simple modifications that can alter the tone of humbucker pickups. These were fairly simple, and didn’t really risk damaging the pickup. The following modifications do carry some risk of damage, but only if you are not careful.
Please understand that performing the next modification is something that you are doing of your own risk. We cannot be held responsible for any damages caused as a result.

The solo: for many of us, it’s one of the best things about playing guitar. For others, it’s a terrifying prospect. This article is for those of us brave enough to step up and take the lead for a while, and it deals with a problem as old as the guitar solo itself: how to stand out in the mix when it’s your turn for the spotlight.

Want a classic 80s-style lead guitar tone but you’re not quite sure why nothing seems to work? The secret to those epic anthemic chest-pumping killer lead guitar sounds is deceptively simple, and it has very little to do with the right hairspray, leopard-print spandex or how florescent your pointy guitar is. And this little trick is so useful that it’s able to make even somewhat novice guitarists sound (relatively) good.

In some cases, a bass that plays great, may not sound great. Customizing your bass with Seymour Duncan pickups, a new pickguard, knobs and a Hipshot D-tuner, are just a few ways you can turn that old bass into one of your main basses.

Opening up and pulling apart magnets may seem a little daunting to some, so I thought I would talk about a few things you can do to adjust your pickups to achieve the sort of sound you are after without any extensive surgery. If you can use a screw driver or allen key, and have basic soldering skills you can achieve some pretty remarkable results.

The Floyd Rose tremolo is one the most popular locking tremolo designs in history, spawning multiple imitations and licensed copy versions. And with good reason – under proper conditions, unless the guitar’s neck somehow shifts (say, by you jumping off your drummer’s riser) it will not go out of tune.

look at modifying our wiring schemes to achieve non-standard sounds. The first modification most people do is to replace one or more of the potentiometers with a push/pull pot. This is a pot that works in the same way as normal when you turn it, but also has a double-pole, double-throw (DPDT) switch attached. The switch is moved into one of its two possible positions by pulling the pot’s knob out and away from the guitar, or pushing it back in again.