Modding a cheap SX tele!
 

I'm currently modding my SX tele. And I gotta say. Before I had a cheap crappy chinese tele clone, and now I have a nice guitar (though it doesn't sound much like a tele anymore). The difference is that big.

I changed the tuners (brand: Gotoh). Before tuning it was a tough sqweeking experience, now it's just smooth and unlike before it stays in tune even when doing bends on my .012 strings.

I changed the neck pup to this PAF humbucker and the pots (brand: DiMarzio). I really didn't like the way it sounded before but I gotta say it sounds great now. Not really a tele sound but I was looking for a guitar to play some more jazzy / bluesy stuff and wanted a fatter sound (besides a much better one).

Besides I'm currently in the process of changing the tone circuit to a socalled greasebucket circuit. Also I wanna reverse the metal plate with the tone knobs so that I have the volume knob much closer rather than the pup switch. Ah and I wanna change the knobs to these ones.

Details... should be all done in days. Here is a shot when I just got it back from the luthier (had it routed for the humbucker etc.). I'll be posting some more shots when it's all done. I also uploaded a sound sample. It still isn't calibrated fully (neither the pup nor the bridge) and it's recorded with Guitar Rig (no amp) and my playing isn't that great so bare with me.

Just wanted to say that for a couple of 100 bucks you CAN have a great guitar :D

In the future I would like to change the the bridge pup to this one I think. Plus I would wanna mod the "knob interface" complete. Seperate tone control for each pup and a "blend" knob to ..well.. blend the two pups as I please. And off course a nicer switch. I would off course have to make a new metal plate. Well.. in the future...

That looks cool. I'm currently modding a SX tele copy too. It has American Hwy 1 pickups and Grover Mini Rotomatics. Next up is a 4 way switch, new CTS pots, and a new jack. Even now with the crappy stock pots and switch it sounds really good.

Yes it's amazing how different it sounds with a good pup. Well.. like a real guitar and not some cheap chinese toy. I wasn't sure how it sould turn out but it's definately the cheapest route to a decent guitar. Only problem is.. now I wanna keep modding it. Also thinking about changing the saddles. Maybe some bronze ones :)

Ah I forgot to mention: If anyone around here is knowledgeable about tone circuits and stuff like this I'd be very interested in some advice these days...

I really like my SX now that I've figured out the setup issues. The setup is slowly getting to the point where I really want it. It used to be just fine to me until I played a guitar that was worked on by a real live guitar technician who made a living working on a touring pro's guitars. He's kind of talking me through getting the SX where it needs to be. I've changed everything but the neck, body, a few screws, output jack, and bridge plate. It was fun and I learned a lot but I'll never do it again.

Now I've got a decent enough guitar with a fingerboard radius that is starting to annoy me. So I either change the neck or start looking for another guitar. Problem is my mods have kind of raised the bar on what I want out of a Tele so I'll be spending money for the next one.

Esquire!
 

I went a different route with mine.

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/...e_144_crop.jpg

CV 50's Alnico III pup, Warmoth neck, Alpha pots and switch. These guitars are an ideal modding platform. With a little work you can have a great sounding instrument.

Yeah...I like mine so much that I kind of want a "real" tele. I'm not really sure how much better one would sound though. haha

That looks pretty cool - SX's are a lot of fun to mod. Looks like yours has a vintage style top loader bridge and also see that you are in Argentina. Did it come with that bridge? The SX models in the US have a more modern "Squier style" bridge.

Enjoyed the sound clip.........and your English is pretty darn good too - far better than my spanish lol!

The thing with solid body guitars is that if the wood is decent then the pups and the electronics etc. pretty much determines the sound. So I don't think a Fender tele would sound much (if any) better than an SX tele modded with the right stuff.

In general I don't like buying brands that much. Sure quality costs, but in my experience you often end up paying a lot extra simply for the NAME. I try to avoid fanzy brands when I can. Even when I can afford it. But sometimes there just isn't any alternative. When I bought amp recently there wasn't. I just couldn't find ANY amp in my pricerange that could compete with the Roland Cube40xl. Had I lived somewhere else I would have had more options and probably would have bought something else.

Also I've been checking out semi-hollows recently and even if I could afford a Gibson 335 or an Ibanez AS200 I would definately go for a Hagstrom Viking and simply change the parts I wanted to. It didn't feel inferrior to the 335 in any way.

So if I had money for a Fender tele I would 1st check out every clone there is to see if I could find something cheaper of equal quality.

Anyway that is how I see it..

Well I bought it here a year ago and yes it came with that bridge. Unfortunately. I would like to have a 6-saddle bridge but this is what I got. Don't think I'll spend more resources on this guitar though (except for the future mods I allready mentioned).

And my English is also better than my Spanish actually, though not as good as my Danish. I am Danish but I live in Argentina for the time being :)

Ah and thanks for the replies y'all. Glad to hear that other too have created great guitars out of these cheapies :P

ds a full, re buenos pickups, te debe haber quedado una muy buena telecaster, felicitaciones

Si de verdad son buenos. No sabia que esperar y casi compre uno de DiMarzio pero al final compre el DS y me encanta como suena ;)

I have some technical questions. Not sure this is the right place to post them but here we go...

As mentioned I wanna change the tone circuit to a greasebucket circuit (the original one in the drawing).

It currently looks like this and it after the mod it should look like this. I would just like for someone to confirm that both drawings are correct. The drawings a made seen from the botton of the plate as seen here.

Damnit no answers. I could really use some input on this one. Can anyone tell me then where I should post these kind of questions if not here??

Maybe try "Tele-Technical" subforum.

OK! Thanks..