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For starters, lemme clearafy the title: I recently got a Tokai ES60, cause the Gibbo ES335 I had to sell yeas ago ($$$) kept haunting me, and for the money the tokai looked like the best cheapo alternative.

Dunno why, dunno what it is, it's just one of those cases where something's missing and you can't put your finger on it. Maybe the next ES60 would feel a lot better, but I'm just not falling in love with this one

Anyway, before I flip it with undoubtedly a considerable loss, I wanted look for ideas to maybe give it a last chance.

Should I:

- Make it my drop-C beeatch and slap some fat strings on it?
- Try some filtertron type pu's, or maybe some nasty high gain pups? Anything GFS -or similarly cheap- out there anyone can recommend?

There's no secret rules in terms of dirt/fuzz when using a semi-hollow guitar I should know of? Like I'm not missing out on an amazing combination by not trying this or that overdrive pedlol, right? I've always been into single coils, this is currently my only hb guitar, all my fuzz peds are pretty much cherry picked to sound good with my fender

I'm not after a specific sound or any type of tone in particular, I've got a pretty broad taste in music, and this is not at all my main geetar.

I would try to pinpoint what's not working for you first before switching out pickups and whatnot.

Humbucking pickups can sometimes smooth over the harmonic treble content that distinguishes fuzz pedals from one another.

Yeah, you've got to identify the stink before you wash it off.

How does it feel in your hands? If it doesd't physically feel good, it's not going to get better. SOund can always be improved!

friendship wrote:I would try to pinpoint what's not working for you first before switching out pickups and whatnot.

Humbucking pickups can sometimes smooth over the harmonic treble content that distinguishes fuzz pedals from one another.

^^ Yeah, I generally prefer OD/Distortion-type circuits with HBs. Or at least lower-gain vintagey fuzzes like a Fuzz Face.

Do you like P90s? I've never actually played a guitar with decent p90s (only cheap shitty things) but a lot of sounds I love have been made with them.

My main suspects:

The unwound strings sound ikcy. Even when they're tuned dead on, they sound flat, even though they're not. Especially the G, it sounds annoying, doesn't sing/ring like it should. Like the frequency's right, but something makes it sound painfull.

Tried fixing it by messing with different amps, tinkering with the amp's eq, an eq pedal, looking for a sweet spot on the tone/vol pots, different strings, new strings, older strings,...nothing really helped. Rolling down the highs/mids to the point where everything sounds way too dark does help, but I that's not really a solution I can live it.

Which is why I'm assuming those generic chinese pu's are to blame.

Also, somewhere halfway down the neck, the intonation gets screwy, and shit actually does get out of tune, beyond what I can fix by adjusting the screws for the intonation/scale lenght.

I'm aware it might partially be just a gibson vs fender thing, since I'm so used to playing teles and jazzmasters, and they're imo generally speaking just much more forgiving when you're not blues/jazz virtuoso

MechaGodzilla wrote:

friendship wrote:I would try to pinpoint what's not working for you first before switching out pickups and whatnot.

Humbucking pickups can sometimes smooth over the harmonic treble content that distinguishes fuzz pedals from one another.

^^ Yeah, I generally prefer OD/Distortion-type circuits with HBs. Or at least lower-gain vintagey fuzzes like a Fuzz Face.

Do you like P90s? I've never actually played a guitar with decent p90s (only cheap shitty things) but a lot of sounds I love have been made with them.

Not even sure, but I think I like P90s. It's just that I briefly owned one of those Gibson LP Special DC's from the faded series, and it wasn't exactly a high end guitar, probably not the best representation of P90s. But yeah, same here, pretty much everthing I heard coming from P90 guitars, sounds grea imo.

Something else I was thinking of, which wouldn't cost me anything: I don't suppose removing the pup covers should make more than a verry subtle difference, right?

Based on what you're saying, and I know this might not be a viable option financially for you right now, I'd get rid of it and go looking for the version of this guitar that inspires you. You might find a budget version that's not quite there (pickup upgrade, hardware, whatever), but feels "right" to you. The higher string things could be anything from pickups to gauge to hardware and nut, but the intonation thing should just be easily fixed or there's really just no fixing it at all.

Turn it into a ES330

I got rid of my ES355 copy (Edwards) because I decided after many many years, I just don't like humbuckers.

I don't like Filtertrons with overdrive, Filtertrons are very scooped with the emphasis on the treble end of things, makes them good for clean articulate playing but not so much with lots of OD/fuzz imo.


I think most GFS pickups are pretty good sounding, I've had probably 10 different ones and they all sounded pretty good.

What gauge string are you using for that G? Unwound G strings are a bitch to keep intonated in my experience. Have you tried adjusting the intonation at the saddle? Lowering the pole pieces for the G to reduce its volume relative to the rest of the strings?

ye drop tune that bitch first

I've found that lower wind humbuckers solve the muddy/dark issues that I have with humbuckers. Lollar LW Imperials are great, been meaning to get some for my 335 but keep putting it off due to being distracted by other shiny things.

Do the strings ring out nicely when you play it acoustically? If it sounds "flat" even when played acoustically, I'd recommend just getting rid of it. If it sounds flat only when plugged in, swap the pups! (Grab some P90's and drop it to C!!!)

How badly does it go out of tune as you go up the neck? Is it a subtle difference, or is it impossible to play up there because of how bad it sounds?

I'd move it along to a new owner without messing around with it.
Put your time/resources into getting the instrument you pick up, play and say "this is it, as it is"

friendship wrote:What gauge string are you using for that G? Unwound G strings are a bitch to keep intonated in my experience. Have you tried adjusting the intonation at the saddle? Lowering the pole pieces for the G to reduce its volume relative to the rest of the strings?

I'll try lowering the pole pieces, worth a shot, thanks.

And now that you mension the unwound G...I plan to tune it down a couple steps anyway, so I could probably get away with a wound G strings. Again, worth a shot.