closetrocker
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I have a 2005 sunburst Epi LP Standard Plus that I have been tinkering with for about a year. In addition, I have been setting up my closet rocker studio at home. Here is what I currently have as my home studio.
I use a B52 Matrix 200 PA as my amp/PA. Am very happy with this set up for plugging in guitar on Digitech RP150 pedal, a bass guitar, my Tascam MP-GT1 MP3 guitar trainer, laptop or drum machine. I play with backup trax that I play through my Tascam MP-GT1. The PA system allows the flexibility of mixing the sound and maintaining good fidelity. With the RP150 pedal, the presets have amp modeling that sounds great through the PA system.
Back to my LP. The standard comes with Grover tuners, alnico humbucker Epi pickups, Epi stock Nashville style bridge and tail piece, plastic nut, Alpha pots with modern wiring (cap wired between pot posts).
The first thing that drove me to start thinking about tinkering was the quality of tone when using the volume knobs to control volume. I hated how I needed to turn the knob almost all the way down before any noticeable volume control took place. I also started comparing my epi to the Gibson out there and noticed that my Epi had a lot of quality workmanship in the neck, finish, binding and fret board that compared well with the real thing. With some hardware upgrades, it looked very doable for the average hobbyist and tinkerer.
Ok, first steps where to replace the stock bridge and tailpiece with something better; TonePro chrome that fasten on the pegs. These are available in metric sized from several vendors and are easy to drop in, bolt down and intonate. They are beefier than the stock Epi versions, and look very nice. Only disadvantage of the springless TonePro bridge is that the saddle adjustment screw is bolted to the securing nut and you cant flip the saddles around to give a little more tone length to the string. This only became an issue with the G string, as it intonates a little sharp using the lighter super slinky gauge strings. I also was considering replacing the saddles with the Tusq versions. Bought them, but decided to abandon this idea after sticking with the TonePro bridge. Feels good and sounds fine with my rig, so I left it alone.
After replacing the tailpiece and bridge, I spent some cycle adjusting their heights to optimize the action and height of tail piece. Too low places too much strain on the bridge and too high causes strings to pop out of the saddles on bends.
Next was the nut. I bought a Tusq nut, but noticed on its arrival that it would require significant sizing to get it to match my guitar. Seems the string spacing and nut width was a bit wider than my Epi. I then ordered a Earvana drop-in LP replacement nut. From carefully evaluating it against my stock nut, I could see that the sizing was right. I then took action of removing my stock nut and gluing in the Earvana version. That required filling/re-drilling the truss rod cover screws. After stringing, I noticed that string slot height would need to be lowered to get the action I wanted.
At the next opportunity, I took my Epi to a local guitar shop and explained what needed to be done. They adjusted the string slots in the nut, tighten my truss rod and lower the action on my axe. The result was very good, eliminating a buzz spot that I had on the high E string around the 17-20 frets and improving playability. Jury is still out on the Earvana nut replacement. I noticed that intonation is very good in the 3-12 fret range, but still believe that playing a cowboy D chord sounds no better. Strings fretted near the nut are just bent too much to be compensated for by this nut; especially the G string. This could be due to the string gauge that I use; super slinky (09s)
Ok, on to the electronics. I spent a lot of time reviewing possible PU choices. Since I am a closet rocker, I picked the Golden Age zebra humbuckers from StewMac. These are very reasonably priced and allow for coil tapping with the white wire. I read many reviews of these with folks generally in favor. I couldnt justify spending big $$$ on a home-playing guitar
I also started studying wiring options, and decided to go with a classic wiring with coil tapping. I ordered some of the Vitamin Q Sprague capacitors, picked up some standard height CTS pots, a classic volume bleed cap/resistor kit. Once I determined I had a free day without wife and kids around, I put my LP under the knife! Heres how it went:
Tear out was easy
PU placement was a snap
I did most of the soldering outside of the guitar on a cardboard template that spaced the pots correctly for later placement into the cavity.
CTS pots required some reaming of the body holes but wasnt a problem with a standard electric drill and a ½ inch bit.
The bridge volume pot was on the short side, but was able to thread it in after eliminating the washer.
I got confused with the wiring of the push-pull pot mainly due to not understanding how the Golden Age white wire functions in a coil tap set up. After re-reading all the instructions and reviewing the StewMac PU theory material on their website, I got it right!
In general, I did a neat job of soldering all the groundings and components. Things just got a bit tight around the push pull pot. In retrospect, I should have used the inside connectors of the push/pull pot for wiring as this would give me much more room to work.
So, are you dying to know how it all turned out? Well, I was very happy that everything worked almost perfectly the first time I plugged into an amp. I had one of the tone pot wires reversed on the push/pull pot that cause the knob to work in the opposite direction. After reversing those wires and figuring out the coil tap, I had a short with the grounding paint from one of my solder joints. This took some head scratching to figure out, but was easily fixed by just bending the solder point away from the paint. Ok, so I didnt accomplish all this in just an hour, but more like 6! But in the end, everything worked out and I am very happy with the results.
The volume and tone controls actually do something on my axe! I can actually lower the volume and use the tone controls to come up with some different tones and still keep everything sounding good! The Golden Age PUs with the new wiring do really sound like the classic LP sound. I get really full sounding tone from the neck PU on up-neck leads and can get that 80s growl out of the lower strings with the bridge PU. The bridge PU also delivers nice biting high note leads as well. The coil tap on the bridge PU does give you that strato sound, but a lower volume. If anything, it reminds me that I am just an LP kind of guy. I just havent spent much time futzing around with the coil tap tone, as Im still exploring all the full humbucking tone that Im getting out of this axe. This axe kicks butt on classic 70s rock, blues, heavy metal and 80s glam. I play along with backup trax ranging from ZZ Top, Bon Jovi, Santriani, Hendrix, and just heavy rock jams. Hey, Im a closet rock star now with a cheapo kick butt axe!!!
So, what is left to do on this Epi? I decided to pass on the tuner upgrade to the locking type. Once I correctly learned how to pass the string over and under the tuner post on winding, I havent had any tuning issues. Oh, I did replace the control knobs with gold speed knobs and selector switch with a Switch Craft. Ill get around to posting some pix. So, anyone got any suggestions on what else can be done to this Epi LP
I use a B52 Matrix 200 PA as my amp/PA. Am very happy with this set up for plugging in guitar on Digitech RP150 pedal, a bass guitar, my Tascam MP-GT1 MP3 guitar trainer, laptop or drum machine. I play with backup trax that I play through my Tascam MP-GT1. The PA system allows the flexibility of mixing the sound and maintaining good fidelity. With the RP150 pedal, the presets have amp modeling that sounds great through the PA system.
Back to my LP. The standard comes with Grover tuners, alnico humbucker Epi pickups, Epi stock Nashville style bridge and tail piece, plastic nut, Alpha pots with modern wiring (cap wired between pot posts).
The first thing that drove me to start thinking about tinkering was the quality of tone when using the volume knobs to control volume. I hated how I needed to turn the knob almost all the way down before any noticeable volume control took place. I also started comparing my epi to the Gibson out there and noticed that my Epi had a lot of quality workmanship in the neck, finish, binding and fret board that compared well with the real thing. With some hardware upgrades, it looked very doable for the average hobbyist and tinkerer.
Ok, first steps where to replace the stock bridge and tailpiece with something better; TonePro chrome that fasten on the pegs. These are available in metric sized from several vendors and are easy to drop in, bolt down and intonate. They are beefier than the stock Epi versions, and look very nice. Only disadvantage of the springless TonePro bridge is that the saddle adjustment screw is bolted to the securing nut and you cant flip the saddles around to give a little more tone length to the string. This only became an issue with the G string, as it intonates a little sharp using the lighter super slinky gauge strings. I also was considering replacing the saddles with the Tusq versions. Bought them, but decided to abandon this idea after sticking with the TonePro bridge. Feels good and sounds fine with my rig, so I left it alone.
After replacing the tailpiece and bridge, I spent some cycle adjusting their heights to optimize the action and height of tail piece. Too low places too much strain on the bridge and too high causes strings to pop out of the saddles on bends.
Next was the nut. I bought a Tusq nut, but noticed on its arrival that it would require significant sizing to get it to match my guitar. Seems the string spacing and nut width was a bit wider than my Epi. I then ordered a Earvana drop-in LP replacement nut. From carefully evaluating it against my stock nut, I could see that the sizing was right. I then took action of removing my stock nut and gluing in the Earvana version. That required filling/re-drilling the truss rod cover screws. After stringing, I noticed that string slot height would need to be lowered to get the action I wanted.
At the next opportunity, I took my Epi to a local guitar shop and explained what needed to be done. They adjusted the string slots in the nut, tighten my truss rod and lower the action on my axe. The result was very good, eliminating a buzz spot that I had on the high E string around the 17-20 frets and improving playability. Jury is still out on the Earvana nut replacement. I noticed that intonation is very good in the 3-12 fret range, but still believe that playing a cowboy D chord sounds no better. Strings fretted near the nut are just bent too much to be compensated for by this nut; especially the G string. This could be due to the string gauge that I use; super slinky (09s)
Ok, on to the electronics. I spent a lot of time reviewing possible PU choices. Since I am a closet rocker, I picked the Golden Age zebra humbuckers from StewMac. These are very reasonably priced and allow for coil tapping with the white wire. I read many reviews of these with folks generally in favor. I couldnt justify spending big $$$ on a home-playing guitar
I also started studying wiring options, and decided to go with a classic wiring with coil tapping. I ordered some of the Vitamin Q Sprague capacitors, picked up some standard height CTS pots, a classic volume bleed cap/resistor kit. Once I determined I had a free day without wife and kids around, I put my LP under the knife! Heres how it went:
Tear out was easy
PU placement was a snap
I did most of the soldering outside of the guitar on a cardboard template that spaced the pots correctly for later placement into the cavity.
CTS pots required some reaming of the body holes but wasnt a problem with a standard electric drill and a ½ inch bit.
The bridge volume pot was on the short side, but was able to thread it in after eliminating the washer.
I got confused with the wiring of the push-pull pot mainly due to not understanding how the Golden Age white wire functions in a coil tap set up. After re-reading all the instructions and reviewing the StewMac PU theory material on their website, I got it right!
In general, I did a neat job of soldering all the groundings and components. Things just got a bit tight around the push pull pot. In retrospect, I should have used the inside connectors of the push/pull pot for wiring as this would give me much more room to work.
So, are you dying to know how it all turned out? Well, I was very happy that everything worked almost perfectly the first time I plugged into an amp. I had one of the tone pot wires reversed on the push/pull pot that cause the knob to work in the opposite direction. After reversing those wires and figuring out the coil tap, I had a short with the grounding paint from one of my solder joints. This took some head scratching to figure out, but was easily fixed by just bending the solder point away from the paint. Ok, so I didnt accomplish all this in just an hour, but more like 6! But in the end, everything worked out and I am very happy with the results.
The volume and tone controls actually do something on my axe! I can actually lower the volume and use the tone controls to come up with some different tones and still keep everything sounding good! The Golden Age PUs with the new wiring do really sound like the classic LP sound. I get really full sounding tone from the neck PU on up-neck leads and can get that 80s growl out of the lower strings with the bridge PU. The bridge PU also delivers nice biting high note leads as well. The coil tap on the bridge PU does give you that strato sound, but a lower volume. If anything, it reminds me that I am just an LP kind of guy. I just havent spent much time futzing around with the coil tap tone, as Im still exploring all the full humbucking tone that Im getting out of this axe. This axe kicks butt on classic 70s rock, blues, heavy metal and 80s glam. I play along with backup trax ranging from ZZ Top, Bon Jovi, Santriani, Hendrix, and just heavy rock jams. Hey, Im a closet rock star now with a cheapo kick butt axe!!!
So, what is left to do on this Epi? I decided to pass on the tuner upgrade to the locking type. Once I correctly learned how to pass the string over and under the tuner post on winding, I havent had any tuning issues. Oh, I did replace the control knobs with gold speed knobs and selector switch with a Switch Craft. Ill get around to posting some pix. So, anyone got any suggestions on what else can be done to this Epi LP
