Other Guitar Replacement Parts

Most everyone knows about the Seymour Duncan Blackout pickups by now. They are Seymour Duncans attack on the active pickup world. With active pickups you get pickups with naturally weak magnets whos sound is bolstered by an active preamp built into them. Now Seymour Duncan in a genius move is selling the Preamp by itself. This means you can attach the preamp to any set of pickups and wire it up and have the sound of a set of active pickups. They wont sound exactly like the Blackouts do due to the different magnets in your pickups. But to me it sounds like the preamp takes over 3/4th of the guitar tone and makes it sound like a Blackout with just a few nuances of the original pickup coming through. This is great if you have a guitar with weak stock pickups like many lower end guitars. This preamp only sells for about 50 bucks and it is very easy to install. So for the cost of one good passive pickup you have a fully active guitar tone from your guitar. The installation is very easy since it uses a system close to Seymour Duncans Liberator solderless wire system. It is not completely solderless because you will need to solder the preamp to your pickup selector and output jack. You will also have to find some place to put the battery inside your control cavity. Once that is done you are ready to rock. Currently the preamp only supports two pickups with a master tone and volume knob. Once set up it gives you the trademark Blackout tone which some people like and some do not. It will give you a thick bassier sound with a lot of high end active pickup crunch. I hope they come out with a version that is voiced like the Mick Thompson Blackout pickups. I prefer the tone of those over the Normal Blackouts. The Mick Thompson blackouts do not have so much low end and sound more like EMG pickups. If you have a guitar with lousy stock pickups for 50 bucks you can have active pickup tone very easily.

Had this puppy installed in a Telecaster for about 3 years now. I am a bit of a Metalhead, so.. this does not always get a a lot of play.. but it is certainly a classic guitar and brought to higher levels of versatility with this modification. The Powerbridge gives a decent approximation of an acoustic... in a pinch. The piezo sound is a great option if you need to pull off Stairway To Heaven live... but it also lends itself to great chicken' pickin' tones.And sweet quasi single coil tones for Blues.. Actually.. better on the latter. Believe it or not.. I have tried other setups.. as I need the versatility. I also own a Yamaha RGX820Z.. with Seymour Duncan JB bridge and 59' in the neck.. This is also equipped with an active, battery munching piezo circuit in the tremolo system. Also very sweet.. I would say this has a bit more control over the tone shaping aspects than the Fishman, but this is also a proprietary Yamaha product.. the Fishman is a great alternative to something you can install into your Tele. ( I think they also have a trem version of this for Strats. I have also tried the Parker Fly stuff.. they are all kind of the same result. The signature piezo sound... somewhere between an acoustic and an electric single coil clean tone. I find this to be a good value... *IF* you need this specific type of versatility from your equipment. Certainly better than an acoustic modeler pedal or even that found in the Boss GT8.. now, if you go Full Monty and get a VG88 or some other high end guitar synth, you can get more realistic, true acoustic tones. It really depends. If you hate those, love your tube amp and like the organic interplay between your Tele and your amp... Get this. If you would use everything in a Roland VG88, for instance... then the Fishman may not be the way to go.. and just pony up on the outboard gear. I would buy this again.. perhaps. I am not a huge Telecaster fan.. and would possibly opt for the Tremolo version for my Stratocasters. It is a great tool to have in your belt if you love your amp and don't want visual modifications done to your guitar.(i.e. Roland GK pickup,etc).. and still bridging acoustic and electric tones for live sets. This is probably not what you would ever consider using in the studio as an acoustic unless you were looking for a very specific piezo tone... It could happen..

This is a great solution to quickly drop tuning a trem guitar. I slapped this on my Charvel in no time, fine-tuned it as per the instructions and have never looked back. A quick press and pull and you get chunky drop D tuning in perfect pitch. This is a great tool from a gigging perspective as it makes for one less guitar I have to lug around. You can quickly and easily switch from drop D to regular and vice versa. Installation was as easy as removing the string lock screw on the low E string and replacing it with the one provide with the Dtuna. Once you get it attached you simply tune the E down to D and use the fine tuner on the Dtuna to get it perfect. After that your E is pretty much perfect with maybe a slight adjustment on the tuner. My only advice would be to make sure to block your trem so it is fully locked against the body, any play will create havoc and you will never get it right. I would also suggest reading the manual, which is simple and quick. There is an order to set it up and if you don't do it right, you won't get the results you hope, trust me. This is a great musician’s tool to make a great guitar even greater and more versatile. Comes in black, gold and chrome. This is a great device and works as promised. Well worth the cost. Keep in mind this does not work on a full floating trem or a trem that is recessed into the body of the guitar. I have this on my EVH Wolfgang and my Charvel and only wish it could work on my Ibanez. Great design and clever device, highly recommended!

Is your current 5-way switch on your Fender Strat or strat copy old, tired and noisy? Time to kiss it goodbye and upgrade to the American Standard 5-way switch. This switch is the same switch found on all USA made strats. Nice and tight switching and it will most likely fit right into your current guitar. Mine came with 2 tips a white and a black tip to use depending on what color pickguard is on your guitar. I am currently building a Partsocaster aka a Frankenstein parts guitar. This 5-way seemed to be the best out there and was only $10. I bought it off of Sam Ash's website. Sam Ash currently does free shipping with no minimum order, so it really comes in handy when you only need one or two things. It fight directly into my non-Fender pickguard and sat right in the body without any additional routing. None at all. Felt solid and the switching is very firm. It will probably loosen over time, but I don't have to worry about accidentally hitting it and having it switch on me like my old switch did. I mentioned it came with two different colored tips as well as mounting screws to mount it to the pickguard. The best 5-way switch on the market. Don't skimp. Everything was easily marked and easy to solder. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Unlike the guys that made term stops before this one actually works. And works well. What is it? It's a device you install in your guitar. I hooks into one of the holes on the term block where the trm springs are attached. So 5 spring guys are out of luck. And replaces the term's claw with the tremolo-no propriety version of it. Where the shaft assembly is mounted. It;s a rod inside a tube with two locking nuts (knurled thumb screws) to lock it. Why? Simple when you have a floating bridge and break a string all strings are out of tune and it's time to change your guitar mid song. There were devices before as I said like the Hip Shot trmesetter or the Rockinger version that did that. However with those unlocked you couldn't do the things that are the reason to have a floating bar, like Brad Gillis/Jeff Beck style whammy warbles. With the Tremol-no you can. But it doesn't just lock your bar to let you do all those Country bends where one string stays stationary while you bend the other up that are never in tune on any term equipped guitar since as soon as you put more tension on one string (bending it) the other strings tensions lower and their tune goes flat. So...locked you can do all that, including behind the neck bends, assuming it's on a guitar sans locking nut. AND then you can set it as a term that is flush to the body, meaning you can only lower pitch ala Van Halen. Which still gives you more sustain than on floating bridge. Simply put the bottom-line here is this...if you use a flowing term this little device is in my opinion a must have. The only issue I found with it is that the screws come out a bit easy when they're unlocked. But a bit of grease on them held them actually in place. After one too many times crawling around looking for them on the floor.

I wish Gibson would put these on more of their guitars. If they are not going to use better tuners you will need one of these to get your guitar in perfect tune. The TP6 is not just for Gibsons. It will work on pretty much any tune-o-matic bridge guitar and have bad tuners this is a good part to have on your guitar. It give you the fine tuning capabilities of a Floyd Rose or a similar type of bridge. If you have locking tuners this is also great because you can adjust your tuning without unlocking your tuners. This is good for when your guitar is just slightly out of tune due to like temperature changes or something. Its out of tune but it is not worth unlocking your tuners to fix it. This stop tail setup lets you finely adjust the tuning of the strings. I think the tuners on this have something like a 40.1 ratio or something very fine. It is a lot finer than any headstock tuners you will ever find. They will get you right in tune. The biggest problem with these is the price Gibson sells them for. Currently on their site they have them for sale for 170 dollars which is a joke really. These go for about 30 or 40 dollars used and frankly I got my first one for free. Frankly if Gibson just put good tuners on their guitars there would be no need for these. Gibson puts low quality non locking tuners on their guitar then sells a piece to fix it for 170 bucks. That is a joke on Gibsons part. I would never pay what Gibson is charging for these. If you are looking for one of these get one used and dont pay more than 50 dollars.