8 Ways to Make Any Electric Guitar Sound Better

Is
there a guitar on your wall that no longer calls your name when it’s time to
crank up and record? Don’t feel bad. Even our favorite guitars can use some
sonic refreshment from time to time. Whether it’s a tonal tune-up you’re after
or a different sound altogether you’re chasing, guitar players at Sweetwater
know the struggle. Sometimes, life and climate changes can make it feel like
you’re trying to fit square-shaped tones into round-shaped voids.

Looking
for ideas to keep that special axe sounding its best? Here are eight tips from
Sweetwater for keeping your instrument in tip-top tonal shape in and out of
season.

Fresh Strings

Your first stop whenever you feel dissatisfied with your tone is to evaluate your strings. Severely worn and gunky strings can suffer tone loss in the high registers and may even have trouble sustaining and holding tune like new. Replacing strings may not always be the cure, but, unless you’re James Jamerson, it’s almost always good medicine.

Changing strings is also a good opportunity to change things up. If you play.009s, try going up a size to.010s or down to.008s. If you play standard roundwounds, try on a set of flats. If you use traditional strings, try a set of coateds. You may just like what you discover.

D’Addario ECG24 XL Chromes Flatwound Electric Guitar Strings –.011-.050 Jazz Light

Setup and Plek

A great way to rekindle a passion for a particular electric guitar is a professional setup, such as you’ll find through Sweetwater’s Guitar Workshop. Thousands of satisfied customers will tell you that allowing our skilled luthiers to dial in your electric’s neck relief, string and pickup heights, nut slots, and intonation can have a huge impact on tone, sustain, and how you approach the instrument. Our luthiers have literally brought guitars back from the dead.

One of the Guitar Workshop’s premier services is our computer-guided Plek Pro setup. We like to think of this as the Holy Grail of guitar setups. Using our highly specialized, onsite Plek Pro CNC machine in conjunction with standard setup service, we can level and shine frets, optimize relief, and perfect action to a level — thousandths of an inch — that even our top luthiers would say is a tall order to achieve by hand.

Upgraded Nut and Saddles

On
an electric guitar, the nut and saddles are the two break points where your
strings contact the neck and body. You may find that upgrading these parts can
create some pretty dramatic tonal improvements, especially on lower-cost instruments.

When it comes to nuts, synthetic TUSQ and natural bone are the big players. Either of these options has the potential to increase your guitar’s sustain and improve its tone. Bone has been used by luthiers for ages. TUSQ seeks to re-create the tonal properties of ivory in a man-made design that is perfectly consistent from piece to piece.

As for saddles, we recommend Graph Tech String Savers. They’re crafted from a PTFE-impregnated proprietary material that’s lab proven to smooth out tone and reduce breakage points. String Saver saddles are available in a number of styles to fit most Fender-style electrics.

Step Up Your Pickups and Pots

More than probably any other upgrade out there, pickups and potentiometers (“pots”) have the capacity to radically alter the sound of your electric guitar. All that’s required is a soldering iron and a strong modding constitution.

Fender Vintage Noiseless Stratocaster 3-piece Pickup Set

Uneasy about cracking open your favorite axe? Let Sweetwater’s Guitar Workshop handle your pickup and pot installations!

Buzzy single-coils? Get yourself a set of Fender Noiseless or Mojo Tone Quiet Coils. (For best performance, we advise pairing your Fender Noiseless pickups with 500K pots. Mojo Tone Quiet Coils sound best — and install easiest — with their prewired Quiet Coil wiring harnesses.)

Flubby humbuckers? Drink in the cool, vintage voicing of a set of Seymour Duncan’s PAF-styled Duncan Antiquity humbuckers. Need to push a preamp? How about a DiMarzio Super Distortion or an active set of Fishman Fluences?

Prefer a road less traveled? Duncan SLS lipstick pickups, mini humbuckers, and Filter’Trons are great for changing up your tone.

Just remember that the sound of your pickups is only as good as the pots they feed into. Our advice: don’t cheap out on the pots, especially if it’s been years since your last swap.

Explore All Electric Guitar Pickups

Push-Pull Your Humbuckers

If your guitar has humbuckers with four-conductor wiring, then you’re a prime candidate to coil split those. Coil splitting effectively lets you toggle between standard and single-coil tones with a flick of the wrist. All that’s required is a compatible humbucker and a set of push-pull pots. Don’t want the headache of doing it yourself? Sweetwater can transform your axe in time for the weekend!

Add Some Variety!

Adding
an alternate tonal option to your axe can rescue you from riff mundanity. Here
are some simple mods we love.

Prewired 4-way Tele harnesses from Mojo Tone and Emerson Custom give you the option to run your neck and bridge pickups in series to access humbucker-like fullness from any standard Telecaster! It’s accessible via an exclusive fourth position on the pickup selector of these drop-in harnesses, so you don’t have to sacrifice any of your preferred positions in greater tonal pursuits. Both harnesses are made by hand with premium parts like CTS pots and Oak Grigsby switches. Highly recommended by Tele players at Sweetwater!

The EMG Afterburner is a simple push-pull pot that adds serious gain to your output stage — +8dB, +15dB, or +20dB. Even moderate-gain amps become fire-breathing monsters when you engage this discreet active boost. And, since the Afterburner works with both active and passive pickups, you can install one of these on every guitar in your arsenal.

Buffer & Gate Your Board

If your guitar is coming across dull and thin on the other side of your pedalboard into your amp, then a pair of high-quality buffer pedals — one on the input, one on the output — can preserve your signal amid a spaghetti mess of cables and stomps. The TC Electronic BonaFide and JHS Little Black Buffer are two great-sounding, space-saving options. Double-duty options would include the TC Electronic PolyTune 3 (which has the BonaFide’s buffer built right in) and the Vertex Effects Boost MKII, which is an ultra-clean +16dB amp booster and signal buffer with a ton of utility baked right in.

Another common issue is unwanted noise, especially with high-gain rigs. For these scenarios, we at Sweetwater recommend a high-quality noise gate pedal with a dedicated effects loop, such as the EHX The Silencer, BOSS NS-2, and ISP Deci-Mate G. These stomps “listen” to your dry guitar signal while allowing you to place them in the noisiest spots on your amp — commonly, into your amp’s effects loop. This filters out noise and hum from everything prior to the power tubes and speakers: dirt boxes, cheap effects, and even your tube amp’s preamp section. And believe us: a tighter chug and a quieter stage are definitely a recipe for better tone in Sweetwater’s book.

Trick Out Your Trem

Even a tremolo system like the Floyd Rose Special can use some tonal tweaks here and there. One great place to look for better sound is an upgraded Floyd Rose Original trem block. This solid brass block adds mass to your bridge, often translating to a punchier tone and improved sustain.

Another tone trick resident guitar players love is to upgrade our licensed claw and springs to Original-series spec. Players report a subtly sweetened tone and improved tremolo performance across the board.

Be
advised that some of these upgrades may require routing and modifying your
guitar. Contact your Sweetwater Sales Engineer for more information.

Bleed and Grease Your Signal Path

Traditional
guitar knobs are not exactly linear — they’re not as predictable as, say,
rolling down the volume or treble on your car stereo. Fortunately, there a few
mods that can give you greater precision on your pinky swells and level riding.

A treble-bleed circuit from Mojo Tone or Emerson Custom will ensure you don’t lose high end as you roll back your volume. This helps you dial in to a driven amp’s clean and dirty tones directly from your guitar. Similarly, a Greasebucket circuit allows you to mellow out your tone as you roll back the tone knob without adding lows or inserting that characteristic mid bump.

Mojo Tone Volume Mod for Guitars

Tone Hacks? Let’s Hear ‘Em!

What tonal tricks have given your instruments a new lease on life? What are some tone hurdles you’re currently trying to overcome? Reach out to your Sweetwater Sales Engineer at (800) 222-4700 and let us know! Remember: whether it’s a new set of pickups or just a new set of strings, Sweetwater is your one-stop shop for all your electric-guitar needs.

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