Getting more out of my guitar

[Bellyheart]

Anyone know a way to make my guitar have more output, without changing the pickups? Perhaps if I removed the tone circuit...like in fuzz pedals...? It's real quiet but I just wanna see if I can vary the tone without changing the pups since I can't afford to currently.

[Toonster]

I've read somewhere that when you remove the tone on your guitar the output will increase, never did that myself, so I don't know for sure.. But it might be worth the try!

[Gunner Recall]

Have you tried raising/lowering the pickups (or the pole pieces)?

[eatyourguitar]

Have you tried raising/lowering the pickups (or the pole pieces)?

yeah thats pretty much the only way. also, going to a heavier guage string. but if you gotta floyd or a skinny ibanez neck, that can be a trip to the luthier or instant death. if your pro, you'll take the pickup off and rewind it overwound. you could probably add wire if you dont want to rewrap the whole pickup from nothing. and the last thing you could do is put your bridge pickup closer to the 22 fret. you can even put the bridge in the neck and thrown the neck out. that will be uber loud. IMO your not doing much at all with the tone knob bypass cause when the tone knob is fully CW your signal goes through the pot with either 0 resistance, like wire or if your on the bad end of an alpha pot you get the pot down to almost 0 but it still reads .7 ohms for example. but thats nothing on a 500k pot. its like less than +-1%. but some people swear they can hear it. I think its almost impossible to hear it in that situation. and it only happens if your unlucky. it doesnt happen with cts pots so a stock Gibson its a pointless debate.

[Bellyheart]

My pups have been raised. I do get a good amount of output and volume, I was just curious if more is possible. I actually have a bit of distortion from my pickups rubbing on my strings since they are so close. Gotta lower them again.

[elbandito]

Put a booster circuit in. They're small and easy to make/buy.

[Noise...]

Put a booster circuit in. They're small and easy to make/buy.

Yep. That.

You can do it a few ways. First, you could to go all out, and put a full boost circuit in. Boost control, on/off switch, the whole shebang. You'd need to put a couple holes in the pickguard for the boost knob and the switch, but it would be just like having a boost pedal right in your guitar. Next, you could get a set boost - same type of thing, minus the knob. It would boost by a set amount - say 10dB.

You could probably find something without an on/off switch, but you'll go through 9v's like crazy.

Alternatively, you could just get a boost pedal and put it first in your chain. I like my own A-OK Boost, but there's also the LPB-1, MXR Micro Amp, and several others that can be had for well under $100.

I'd go with a boost pedal, as there's no need to modify the guitar. If you're going to mod the guitar, I'd go all out and have a knob to control the boost. That way you can go up and down in the amount that you're boosting your signal, rather than being locked in to one setting.

If you're interested, I could do a custom A-OK Boost for you to install into your guitar. I'll drop you a PM with details.

[dubkitty]

the folks that i've seen comment about this say that to get the benefit of bypassing the guitar controls you need to cut out the volume knob as well as the tone control, and go straight from the selector switch to the output jack. i haven't tried this because i use the volume knob as a kill switch when not playing. i found bypassing the tone control alone to be only nominally helpful.

some people change the volume pots to different values; a higher value results in more brightness, which can be perceived as more volume. i didn't find this to be the case when i tried a 1K volume pot in my modified Gretsch Pro Jet, but i was running Dynasonics with a 500K tone pot and a .022 silver-mica capacitor, so there likely wasn't much more brightness to get.

[elbandito]

i found bypassing the tone control alone to be only nominally helpful.

some people change the volume pots to different values; a higher value results in more brightness, which can be perceived as more volume.

When I bypassed the tone in my tele, I noticed what seemed to be an increase in presence. That is to say, a slight boost in the highs but not a real volume boost.

[bob the r0bot]

you can always get an lpb-1

[Ghost Hip]

Yeah I always have a boost at the beginning of my chain for kicks and gigs. Sometimes I leave it on for songs at a time as a clean tone.

[metalmariachi]

Change the volume pot from 250k to 500k or 500k to 1 meg if that’s what it has.
Also the tone will suck a tiny bit of volume, but not that much unless rolled all the way back.
You could use a pot with a push pull switch, so you can bypass the tone control when you want.
A simple $6.00 mod.

MM