Guitar Accessories: Essential upgrades to improve your guitar
Looking at ways to refresh looks and tone
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Guitar Accessories: Essential upgrades to improve your guitar · Source: Özgür Güvenç / Alamy Stock Foto
Guitar accessories can play a huge part in transforming your axe. From picks to pickups, let’s check out some effective ways to switch things up.
In this article:
Guitar Accessories: Magnificent Modifications
Do you have a tired guitar laying around? A Squier Affinity collecting dust somewhere? Or, maybe you have a trusted workhorse, but you feel that it needs a bit of TLC.
Regardless, looking into various guitar accessories can a great way to change things up. Whether you want a punchier bridge pickup, or a white pickguard isn’t quite your jam, there are loads of changes that you can make.
Here, we’ll be exploring various aesthetic, tonal and intonational upgrades that you can achieve. Don’t worry! You don’t have to be a pro luthier either, most of these should be quick and easy jobs.
Pickups
Firstly, let’s look at pickups. Arguably, components that will make the biggest difference to your guitar’s overall tone.
Before we start wiring up different pickups, let’s explore the differences between humbucking and single coil pickups.
Pickups are magnetic strips that pick up the vibration from the strings on the guitar. A single coil contains one single pickup, isolated on its own. Historically, Stratocasters and Telecasters use this design. However, humbuckers are made up of two single coils that are wired in opposition of one another. They were originally designed to reduce the hum from a single coil pickup, hence the name.
Overall, humbuckers provide a much thicker sound, as they are twice as powerful as single coils. There’s nothing wrong with either method, however we can easily upgrade should we wish.
Single Coil Upgrades:
The above pickups are all available from *Thomann, where you’ll find many more to improve your pickups. Compared to standard pickups, they have a stronger magnetic field which offers a higher output.
Humbucker Upgrades:
By default, humbuckers naturally offer heavier tones. However, some cheaper guitars may have lacklustre humbuckers equipped. Therefore, these *humbuckers could grant your wish of more gain, sustain and response.
Potentiometer Pots
Next up, we’re checking out tone and volume pots. Have you ever heard a scratching sound when adjusting the tone on your guitar? Well, chances are you’ll need these guitar accessories.
Upgraded potentiometer pots can have many subtle advantages. They provide players with low tolerance for less interference, making them more accurate.
In terms of installation, it all depends on what guitar you have. A Telecaster style guitar involves taking the entire rail out. Stat style bodies require you to remove the entire pickguard. Whereas with single cut and offset guitars, you can usually gain access from the back of the body.
Let’s say you’re installing a swanky new humbucker. Why not also throw in this *Allparts Audio Tapper? Complete with a push and pull function, this guitar accessory allows you to split your humbucker in half. Resulting in added versatility from one pickup.
Control Knobs: Guitar Accessories
This upgrade is purely for looks, but who doesn’t love a killer looking axe?
You could spend hours looking through the list of options, but here are a few of my personal favourites:
Tuners
Here, we’ve got a cost effective upgrade that will totally transform your guitar’s playability. But first, let’s make sure you order the correct ones!
When you’re browsing through potential *tuner upgrades, you may come across 6L or 6R tuners. But what difference does it make? Confusingly, 6R tuners are for left handed guitars, as the tuners sit on the right hand side of the neck. Whereas, 6L tuners are appropriate for right handed guitars.
So, why upgrade? Essentially, some guitars are made with cheap components, especially metals. Therefore, the gearing and materials in your tuners could be unreliable. Upgraded guitar tuners will have refined materials, meaning that you’ll stay in tune for longer, and tuning will be more accurate.
Not only improving the stability of your tuning, new tuners look cool too. Sometimes adding a heavier look to your axe, or giving some vintage flare to a newer model.
Go Nuts for Guitar Accessories
Okay everyone, time to look at your nuts. Grow up! Just like with our tuners, nuts are less of a guitar accessory, and more of a vital intonation upgrade.
Likewise, lower end or budget guitars will use cheaper materials for their nuts. Plastic nuts are a common place for nuts, and they’re simply not good enough! No matter how much you lubricate your nut, it just won’t be doing you any favours.
Therefore, welcome upgrades come in the form of bone or tusq. These prestigious, by comparison, materials offer vast tonal improvements as they allow the stings to vibrate throughout the neck. Giving players optimal tone and sustain.
Pickguards
Finally, we’ll be taking a look at some shiny ew and vibrant pickguards.
Mainly a visual upgrade, pickguards come in many different colours and designs. Personally, I’ve got a black and gold Strat, complete with gold hardware, control knobs and pickguard. It’s totally your choice what you go for. Your guitar can be a blank canvas. However, I probably wouldn’t start messing around with an original Nocaster, for example.
The easiest pickguards to swap out are on Telecaster and Les Paul style guitars. For Strat style instruments, it can get fiddly, so you’ll probably want to remove the strings. *Thomann have loads of options:
Guitar Accessories: Enough to work with?
There we have it! Some cost effective, and quick ways to change the look and sound of your guitar. Some of them are easier than others when it comes to installation, but its always good to get stuck in!
Is your guitar upgraded in any way? If so, what have you done? We’d love to know.
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3 responses to “Guitar Accessories: Essential upgrades to improve your guitar”
If you have scratchy pots, before replacing, lay your finger on the knob, and go from 0-10 fast 10-20 times until the scratchy goes away, if you do it often, your pots will last forever
A pro tip to save a bit of cash! I like it.
Potentiometers *are* pots, so saying “potentiometer pots” is redundant, like “PIN number”, “thought to myself”, or “Department of Redundancy Department”.