Galveston PE-33 - modifications
Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2012 8:48 pm
So I picked up a new guitar this week. I went into Beats & Bytes on Thursday to look for a pedal a friend had told me about, when I spot this clear acrylic Flying V for a hundred bucks. Not being made of stone, I tried it out and brought it back to the office. (Pictures of my model are right here).
The tone's a little flat/dull sounding to my ears, but to be honest I've mostly been mangling it through distortion and modulation since I've got it, so maybe that's a premature assessment. The low E string doesn't want to stay in tune - although I think it's just the guitar demanding to be tuned to Drop D.
Obviously, the first thing I'll have to do is buy an RGB LED strip light and a controller so that I can change what colour the guitar glows as, strobe, etc. That's the most important upgrade. (As seen here, although I wouldn't bother getting the colours to change to the music).
I thought about using it as a MIDI controller, but after a bit of research, that couldn't happen for less than $700, which is far beyond my "this might be a fun lark" budget. Adding a whammy bar seemed like too much trouble for a feature I probably wouldn't use all that often.
Which leaves me with pickups! All I can find out about the installed pickups is that they are "Humbucking Pickups," which, sure, that's a great name and all, but maybe a bit of an upgrade is in order :) I browsed some forums looking for suggestions for Flying V's, and Seth Lovers seemed to be the most recommended...although these were for regular Flying V's, not acrylic.
So what do you guys think? In terms of tone, I guess I just want everything...I want to be able to have rocking distortions and fuzz, but also keep things clear and shimmery for some more mellow playing. I like that I can get a pair of Seth Lovers in gold to match the rest of the hardware, too. Any suggestions are welcome.
The tone's a little flat/dull sounding to my ears, but to be honest I've mostly been mangling it through distortion and modulation since I've got it, so maybe that's a premature assessment. The low E string doesn't want to stay in tune - although I think it's just the guitar demanding to be tuned to Drop D.
Obviously, the first thing I'll have to do is buy an RGB LED strip light and a controller so that I can change what colour the guitar glows as, strobe, etc. That's the most important upgrade. (As seen here, although I wouldn't bother getting the colours to change to the music).
I thought about using it as a MIDI controller, but after a bit of research, that couldn't happen for less than $700, which is far beyond my "this might be a fun lark" budget. Adding a whammy bar seemed like too much trouble for a feature I probably wouldn't use all that often.
Which leaves me with pickups! All I can find out about the installed pickups is that they are "Humbucking Pickups," which, sure, that's a great name and all, but maybe a bit of an upgrade is in order :) I browsed some forums looking for suggestions for Flying V's, and Seth Lovers seemed to be the most recommended...although these were for regular Flying V's, not acrylic.
So what do you guys think? In terms of tone, I guess I just want everything...I want to be able to have rocking distortions and fuzz, but also keep things clear and shimmery for some more mellow playing. I like that I can get a pair of Seth Lovers in gold to match the rest of the hardware, too. Any suggestions are welcome.