oh and for amps right.. is LINE 6 Spider 3 good?
its selling for 400 only i think.

eh, how's ur so-called special deal on laney vc's huh.....
no more news geh?

I TOTALLY agree. The 5150 III is such a sexy amp. You can see it on EVH's guitars site.

Lol jk la, the pickups do matter, but as some other people(and me) have been saying, no matter what you do to the pickups, an SX is still an SX.

This post has been edited by liew90kw: Nov 3 2007, 01:34 AM

There are better choices, but they cost slightly more I guess. Its pretty hard to get good tones out of the Spider3 unless you spend hours on it. I'm no fan of it so I can't say much other than recommending you away from it.



And of what significance branding does to a guitars playability and tone? Sure, Gibson, PRS, ESP, Fender are "branded" because they produce stellar guitars, sure but for how much? You pay for what you get. Those brands use premium grade wood with strict quality control. If you're gonna recommend him to get a "better" guitar, you're probably going to tell a student who isn't making much even with part time jobs to get a probably 3000MYR and above guitar.

First thing first, are you skilled enough to own a "better" guitar, if your fingers can't keep up with your guitar, it doesn't matter if its a relic '59 Les Paul into a 87 JCM800 with a boat load of pedals, you're still gonna sound bad.

If you think installing pickups into an SX or a cheap guitar is not going to affect tone much, rest assured, many can prove you wrong easily. Cheap guitars come with poorly made pickups, meaning they either have too much or too little output, with poor to no wax potting and lousy note definition. How is that changing to better pickups will not change by a large margin?

Sure, body construction is also important for sustain, but don't forget even more expensive "budget" brands like Epiphone, LTD and etc don't utilize single piece bodies. Most of them use multiple pieces and glue them together to get a 2/3-piece body. So if thats the case, doesn't that beat the argument of "body construction?".

Woods are a different story, yes, I do agree, lower priced guitars tend to use wrong woods or very low grade woods. Thats why you test the guitar before buying. Also, doing some research before going out to spring your hard earned cash will also do you good. Its quite irrational not at least read up a little on details on something you're planning to spend a lot on.

I hate to, but I have to disagree with your statement. I do not think brand plays a very heavy role on what works.

some question here. my bro's sx lp is heavy as hell, n my epi lp is much lighter compare to his. his guitar made from mahogany, but dunno xxx or yyy mahogany.

heavy = better? or otherwise?

Stop Worrying about an amp now..... just worry about the pickups!

And I tried the Laney....... Didn't like it.....

Oh, The Spider III, haven't tried it..... but tried the Spider II........ sounds like microchips.

Quoted for truth.

Putting Seymour Duncans on my sub-RM650 guitar worked wonders.

You pay for what you get -- that's the whole main point here. If somebody can afford a premium guitar, s/he would be going for it without much qualms. The key word here is, we CAN'T.

IF the pickups on branded guitars are so good, why do we still see people changing 'em?

@sean ==> I'm not merely talking about the branding. It's true that testing a guitar before buying it is vital, but I feel the most important thing is a "connection", if you will, between the instrument and the owner. For example, when I bought my warlock, I was looking through all the other guitars at the store. All of them sounded great, but I didn't feel that "connection". They made an awesome sound, but that was about it.
Then I saw my warlock in a corner, beat up as it was, tried it, and bought it immediately. Haven't looked back since.
But it's always a matter of personal preference. I for one never really liked the tone of SX stuff. So to me, of course I would say change the guitar.

But honestly, man, active on a SX? Unless you're actively gigging I feel you should just stick with the stock pickups on the SX. han3, you already said you were gonna work part time and save up money right? Just do that, but save the money for a new guitar, just IMHO. Since you're still brushing off the dust and learning new tricks and licks, save up, and get a wicked new guitar when you get really good, and do yourself justice.

.....and I need to start making shorter posts.

FLAME ON

dude this argument has gone on since before elvis presley came along.
thats why gibson in the 50s came along to offer quality stylish instruments to the mass public

and there is no rule that says you must reach a certain skill to own a certain guitar, this is not like bloody DOTA or whatever where u must level up to earn it.
so wat? must reach level666 godmode to earn a '59 LP?
oh man, in that case the guys in avenged sevenfold or even MCR have already reached very close to that level since they obviously arent using SX...damn what is the world coming to

yes, it may be irritating to you when someone who can only play MCR owns a AAAAA Flame top Gibson LP Custom Shop '57 VOS reissue with 100yr old Brazilian Rosewood fretboard...but then its their money.

ok, this post may get too long...so at the risk of reading this for longer than it takes for an avenged sevenfold guitar solo...i'll stop here for now

Well, to me, it doesn't matter what brand the guitar is or how expensive..... a good pick-up can really change the way a guitar can sound...... believe me, I know.

I installed a pair in my crappy LP-100 and it did wonders for the sound.

To me the pickups will definitely be a great improvement.
And who cares if it's a Gibson or SX, its the playing that counts most in the end.

Well, go ahead, buy a set and install it yourself. I earned my Guitar Electronics 101 cert that way.

If you're happy then we're happy!

I know, but I'm talking about this case. Which he's just a student. So its not feasible aight?

Actives sounds similar in most guitars that is made out of the same woods. Its actives, power > tone. At least thats how I hear active pickups. I'm not a huge fan of active pickups cause to me they sound harsh and tonally dull, but thats just me.

This post has been edited by sean392: Nov 3 2007, 01:57 PM

thanks for all ur comments......
i'll just earn up that 750 first.. then only decide whether to change the pickups.
right now i'll just concentrate on improving..

go for it like i did! u will like it!
pickups are transferable! no worry dude!

Lol,I love that skull crushing tone of 5150!Playing Necrophagist with that is extreme br00tal-ness

TS: I think that's the bottomest of the bottomest bottom line: get kick-@ss pickups and load em up into your SX, coz the pickups are transferable.

Later if you save up money for a new guitar, chances are it won't be an ESP Custom Shop loaded with the dream pickups of your choice. (Unless you hit the jackpot.)

Chances are, you're next guitar will be better quality, but it may not come with the pickups that you like. So you may end up swapping pickups again then.

So if you think that EMGs are going to do it for your, get em now and when your next guitar comes along, pop em in there...

Are you sure that you want the EMG-ZW set in the first place? I bought that set pretty much on a whim but some days, that "character-less" sound kinda annoys me. The EMG-81 and EMG-85 are very high output pickups, and you may find that it makes your mistakes more apparent. That's not a bad thing overall because it'll force you to clean up your technique.. don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking your technique since I've never seen/heard you play, but it's easy to sound like a train-wreck when you're playing with high-output pickups.

For RM750, you can take your pick of any 2 Seymour Duncan or Dimarzio pickups. You might want to scout around first before buying any pickups...

if ur nex gita wud b in the range of 2-4k chances are u wil use the pups
if ur nex is a 6-10k range den they're oredi stock wit pups

like now...
im stuck wit the idea of changin pups or save up more for a better 2nd hand...
but of cz u can sell it wen u get 1 of the high range 1
but my fren is oredi stuck wit sellin his pups...

after he upgraded his JEM Jr wit 3x DiMarzios
suddenli a great deal of his dream gita appear
wit a very very gud price

now he owns the JS series
but the pups and gita stil nt yet sell out
he damn stress dy T-T

too bad he isnt selling the pups i'm aiming for. else might buy from him.
saw someone selling jb/jazz, but reserved. T_T