What we will do for tone. Post your mods and share with us.

[guitarguru1969]

I have been playing guitar for over 20 years now and have realized a long time ago that it will just be a hobby and not a profession for me, but damnit doesn't mean I can't enjoy the search for "holy grail" tone. This forum has opened my eyes to all sorts of new ideas and inspiration that made this "new" again. This weekend alone I tried the 18 volt EMG mod and also modded my SM57, TY JBroll. Both are a good addition to my fingers and are much appreciated. I have in the past also modded my 5150 with a bias adjustment and love it! I use a integrated quad of JJ power tubes. Two JJE34L's and 2 JJ6L6GC's as per a suggestion by eurobob. I love the fact that people are willing to share this info as well as fail at trying to modify something so I don't have to mess my shit up, lol. That's pretty well it, I just thought that if we could group together our resources we could get a pretty good thred going on mods. After all what would "us" the weekend warrior do without something to solder remove or tweak? P.S. I have a PDF of the 5150 bias mod and will attach soon as I hunt it down.
http://www.gearo.com/Files/5150biasmod.pdf

 

[colonel kurtz]

i haven't engaged in much modding of anything so far, aside from some pickup and tube swaps

i do have a cheap-o ribbon mic coming pretty soon though, and i'm probably going to upgrade the transformer and possibly some other components...we'll see how all that goes

 

[Kazrog]

Not really much of a modder myself. I had Robert Keeley mod my Ibanez TS808 reissue, which I prefer subtly to how it was before, that's about it. I'm also really happy with the sound of my EMG 85s, 89s, and 707s and have no desire to fuck around with the 18v mods, I can already get the tones I want with one battery and to me that's worth it.

I'm heading increasingly in the direction of trying to get all my tone "in the box" vs. actually miking up cabinets. When it comes to what I do with software, there's a lot of experimentation involved with multiple plug-ins to get the tone results I want, and the real-world rules don't always apply to amp modeling. I love actual gear as much as anybody but I also like the convenience and flexibility of doing everything with plug-ins, and I think it is the future.

 

[006]

Mods? I love mods. I took my Strat and beat it to shit to make it look old - looks great! Then I put some Fender Tex-Mex pups in it, and now I absolutely LOVE the tones I get from it. My TS-9 is modded by Mr. Keeley, and I thought I liked it before the mod, even better now. I had a pair of ADA MP-1's, one was stock, the other was modded to 3.666, fucking awesome tone.

And my JSX has the XSr™ mod.

Modding shit is awesome.

~e.a

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I modded a DS-1 and a BD-2 (boss pedals). The distortion is now useable (not thin and shitty sounding anymore), not so much a fan of the mod on the BD-2.

I also bought a bias modded 5150 signature head but I never had a stock one so can't really say that did anything for my tone.

Put gibson burstbucker pro pups into my baritone guitar and it cleared up the mud ALOT.

Did the vocal mod to my vox wah and it was okay but added some noise to an already noisy wah pedal.

Modded the fuck out of my Epiphone valve jr. head I wanted it as clean as possible with a bit more headroom before it breaks up. Worked alright never got the OT mod though.

 

[Metal Overload]

i want to do the bias mod to my B52 head, but i dont know if i can take the 5150 bias mod schematics as reference, or are totally diferent shit??
also, anybody knows where i can find some other mods like, gain mods, remove the fizz, tight the bass and that stuff in the web??, i know about fja mods but i´ll spend a lot of buck if i send it to them, maybe more than the head value. and i know a guy here in my own town that can handle that kind of works

 

[JeffTD]

I've not been a huge fan of modding, tbh.

I prefer stock 5150's, EMGs @ 9v, stock Maxon pedals, stock Mesa cabinets, stock 57s... really just the tried and true stuff. If you have to mod that kind of stuff to get good results out of it... you've got bigger problems to be working out.

 

[Metal Overload]

well i never modded anything, or even tried any modded stuff, i just want to try how it sounds modded, i read about modding can do wonders, and bring back to life you amp and shit, i just want to try if it is true,

And no, i dont have bigger problems, my amp works fine, why you alway say that i have bigger problems to worry about??? Lol

Is basically say that every guy who want to try to get the best of his amp, has "big Problems" with their gear or something like that

 

[guitarguru1969]

I would love to try the ADA 3.666 mod myself. I have owned MP1's in the past and sold them before I had a chance to mod them. I will also hunt down the EMG 18v mod schematic and post it as well. http://mywebpages.comcast.net/mgollihur/emgmod.html
The harness worked well for me because it was a quick A/B method to hear the difference.

 

[Metal Overload]

You know, after playing with my head just a minutes ago, i´ve decided to not mod it at all, well maybe just bias mod, but thinking to leave just as it is, it sound really good that way, even at low volume, and i just remember that the Triple rectifier i played two weeks ago has a lot of fizz too, more fizz in fact than my head, maybe is just my inexperience with tube amps, but however i don´t think i have bigger problems to worry about

 

[Metaltastic]

He means that if you can't get good tones out of stock stuff that has worked so well for a great many people in the past, the problem probably won't be fixed by modding it (meaning, work on your playing technique/mic placement/cab choice/etc.) Basically, I always try and go for what's tried and true and attempt to get the best sounds out of it (only mic'ing my cab with one 57, for example), and once I finally get good enough that I feel I've mastered that way, then I'll try something else.

 

[Metal Overload]

well the thing is that it sounds damn good, what i am saying is that the amp has anything wrong, my playing technique neither, hehe,i never sayed that it sound bad or anything, or have problems with it, why should i have problems??? i just was saying that i wanted to try something modded and see if the amp sounds better, i have not checked mic placement and all that because i dont have studio, i use it for rehearsal and live gigs, but i will use it for some future recordings, however i never played with a tubescreamer in front, so ill will try that first.

So mod the amp doesn´t mean Fix the amp, or am i wrong???

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Modding isn't fixing problems (well except maybe for my valve jr.). Modding is simply changing preferences. To each his own, it's fucking retarded to knock anyone for doing it. Thats pretty much like knocking someone for liking fender strats or something.