I have a Firelfy 338 in purple that I bought a couple of years ago and I moded it with some overwound pickups, grover tuners, a Kaish roller bridge and .022 uf 400v capacitors and the thing rocks!
so it's worth modding if you can/want to do it, if you agree to spend more money to do it, or if you're willing to pay someone else to do it all. Doesn't really seem like such a great plan for someone who just wants an inexpensive guitar. It just seems like more work and expense. Most people aren't interested in fixing & spending more money on something they just bought and want to use
Fair enough assesment. My thought is like this. You can spend a lot more and still have to do work. This strategy is kind of like buying an 80% kit. For 300-400 you can have a very nice guitar with all the bells and whistles you want. That is hard to beat if you habe the skills.
I've owned about a dozen Firefly guitars since first seeing the Cherry Transparent 335 copies on AMZ back in late 2017 or early 2018. All of those guitars, except ONE, would have been fine straight out of the box for the type of player you're discussing. Certainly they could've been dialed in a bit better in minor ways and more time & attention could always be given to the finer details, but they were no worse and mostly better out of the box than your average Squier or Epiphone or most other guitars under ~$500. Thesdays you can buy a Firefly or Harley Benton for a total cost including shipping of $280 or less... even all the way down to ~$200 and have a perfectly acceptable, playable, functionable instrument with not a damn thing to be ashamed of. Amazing time to be a guitar or bass player!
But did you listen to it before he did anything to make it sounded absolutely amazing I don't even think he had done the setup with that now the set up at that point the elite line of fireflies are amazing for the money just a setup like any other guitar would need and you have a great guitar but for the most part these are for people who run too hotrod their guitar 🎸 .$350 worth of electronics and you have a guitar that plays like a $1500- $2000 .guitar
Excellent results! I just purchased the Strat version of the FF, fully updated the electronic, addressed a minor issue with 4 -5 frets, and just ordered a replacement bridge. RE: buying a more expensive guitar, no... with the minimum amount of work to improve the guitar it's worth it. If you can do the basic repairs i.e. setup/mod the service charges saved versus paying for the work pretty much covers the parts. The result is that you have an axe that plays as good as most $1200 guitars with better electronics in most cases. Great video!
The mod sounded better (I think!) You should of added locking tuners and a String Butler! They work wonders for tuning stability on a 3+3 head! Hope you get your intonation down!
modded has a much better resonance, it doesnt fade into a bad distortion sound as the note rings out. Much more solid, clean, and warmer sound that doesnt have that dirty fried distortion sound the original pick ups had. Nice job!
I got the 30” white jazzmaster baritone and it’s a great base for modding. Comes with rounded SS frets and the hardware and pickups aren’t bad at all especially for a $169 guitar. I ended up putting Tone Ninja locking tuners, Gotoh bridge, Fishman “Fluff” bridge pickup with their push/pot and a 3 way toggle for all 3 voicings of the pickup. I wired the push/pull for the high tilt frequency. Also a new Graphtech Tusq xl nut and graphtech string trees and is a beast of a guitar now! The original hardware was chrome and changed all to black cuz it has black block inlays on the fretboard. I highly recommend getting a Firefly and going to grab one of the 28” baritones next and probably the Buckethead style LP 28” scale baritone.
Your replacement bridge has tiny set screws front and back both ends (Tiny hex screws). These will allow you to adjust the bridge forwards or backwards on bridge posts.
Beautiful guitar and playing man! Wish I had your luthier skills too. I cannot believe what you get for $200 with these! This should just not be possible. Has anyone seen the Firefly Adam Jones LP that was available for all of 24 hrs or so? I was lucky enough to snag one and have a video on my channel if interested. It definitely needed some work and a set up but all I can say now is holy crap!!!
I'll be honest, and maybe because I'm hearing it through phone speakers, but to me the sound of the new pickups didn't sound significantly different enough for me personally to justify spending the extra money on swapping them. Just my opinion, though. I think modding guitars to your own specs is always worthwhile. It makes it more personal and fun to play knowing you put your own ideas into it. Great vid!
Nice!! I'm doing the same thing to my Buckethead Baritone Firefly. Going with the Nazgul set as well after shielding with Faraday tape. Put a set of D'Addario auto-trimming locking tuners on it and they're pretty awesome. My issue is the holes left from the kill switches... I went traditional with the wiring and moved the switch back to where it goes so I used 1 & 1/4" washers and it looks pretty good. Best mod I've done yet.
Thanks for the tip! What does looping the string over the bridge do? I’ve seen people do it but don’t know why if it’s not a “thunderbolt” style bridge.
@@Bruddermane They do it because they can. And because the early LPs had wrap-around bridges. The Reverend Billy Gibbons does it, Zakk Wylde does it, lots of players do. It changes the break angle over the bridge and changes the 'feel' of the strings lowering the string tension a small amount. I usually do it on my LPs & gujitars with tune-o-matics + stop-tails. One practical benefit is that if you break a string near the nut/tuner and you have it wrapped over top, there is usually enough length left that you just pull that string out and feed it thru normally and its long enough to still use. Saved yourself the cost of replacing that string. Mo' money!! Mo' money!!
The best thing I know of to clean a matte finished guitar is a 18-in-1 Hemp peppermint PURE CASTILE SOAP. It's in the hygiene isle @ walmart. It is a clear bottle with a big blue label with white writing.
You can move the rollers to where they're halfway off of the screw. I have mine tuned to drop B. My intonation from harmonic and fretted at the 12th fret is right on the money. I'm using a Wilkinson roller bridge.
I just did my first string change and mods to my example. I added Hipshot open gear locking tuners. Which are sexy af. I also hydrated the fretboard, and it is so dark it looks like ebony from across the room. I am super happy about that. I have also decided to change out all the electronics as well. I will be going old school with mine. EMG 81/85 reversed combo. I absolutely love the 85 in the bridge position. Beyond that I think the guitar is about perfect as is.
That's awesome! I've been waiting for a good price on some EMGs to play them and try them out (Specifically the 81/85s) I have heard such good things about them. What do you like about them? (are they dark, bright, warm,etc.?)
@@Bruddermane, sorry I missed this. EMG pups are pretty cool. You get your output from the preamp rather than just having super hot pickups. They have a kind of hi-fi feel/tone to them. They are also a little more compressed sounding and feeling compared to passive pickups. Which helps cover up my sloppy playing, but players wanting more dynamic pickups will probably prefer passives. The 81 is typically considered a bridge position pickup. It's a ceramic magnet pickup with a tight bottom end and crisp top end. It also has a slightly scooped mid-range. The 85 is typically used in the neck position. It is an alnico magnet pickup and is bigger in the bottom end, rounder/fuller in the mids and sweeter in the top end. I prefer them in reverse position with the 85 in the bridge and 81 in the neck. I think the 85 is too warm/boomy/muddy in the neck position but sounds super thick and chunky in the bridge. It sounds really good in the bridge position. The 82 being brighter/tighter and punchier works really well in the neck position. Giving sweet tone without getting muddy or woofy.
I fully modified my FireFly V with all TonePro's tuners bridge and tail stop (from chrome to black) Seymour Duncan Jupiter 6 hot rail pick-up's, a full complete rewire (with 5 seperate individual grounds, going to each component individually) 500k pot's, 3 way short throw toggle. Basically making a wonderful death metal machine of a guitar. Yes, I do believe they are worth the up grade.
I like the Seamore Duncans better than the original PUs. I am currently making the big jump with a Firefly FF338 and having Mojotone Pickups and wiring harness installed with a Faber drop in bridge, Switchcraft switch and input jack, and some quality tuners. I'm also having them do a whole fret leveling and crowning. It's going to be expensive, and I wish I knew how to do all of the work myself, but my skills aren't there yet. This is my first time doing anything like this. I like the idea of taking a budget guitar and having it modded to something more to my liking. If I had bought an Epiphone, I would be doing the same thing.
I've owned many Firefly models and they are excellent mod platforms. Very high bang for the buck and they continue to offer lots of variety among models as well as configurations for each model type. All things considered they have amazing features & finishes and put a high-quality instrument within nearly anyone's financial reach. I've used the same roller saddle bridge a few times and just like you mentioned, its finicky to intonate & doesn't offer as much range as I was hoping for... at least not without painstakingly adjusting the bridge as a whole using the set screws as well as the saddles. If only they didn't lock the saddles with those vertical allen screws, which is hugely limiting factor. If the saddles were made them compress against each other or have individual walled channels like some Hipshot bass bridges, then you'd have maximum flexibility of placement as well as max range. Then I stop dreaming and realize that its an inexpensive aftermarket bridge from China, so I'm not inclined to hold my breath counting on improvements being made. I'll just continue to work with & around the limitations as it pairs well with a Duesenberg Les Trem II (cool HG Wells or Steam Punk looking trem that retrofits onto stop-tail mounts). The ability to lock it onto the posts plus the brass rollers make it as close to perfect as you're likely to get for that usage case. Especially for less than $20!
Having done autopsies on all the Firefly humbuckers I've pulled out of my guitars I can say factoring in the cost of an upgrade set of pickups to the base FF guitar price should be in everyone's calculations when considering buying a Firefly. I say their humbuckers are junk but if I were more generous about it I'd say they're exceptionally janky. (They're junk.) Also, for LPs and 338s, add in the cost of a good bridge that comes with posts and steel bushings, like Tonepros come. It's not worth sidegrading, you'll end up where you started. I'd maybe make an exception in high gain cases like yours but clean to mid gain players shouldn't scrimp. That's $60-$80 for a bridge, pickups can run $50ish+ for a 2nd hand set of post 2013 Epi Probuckers or Alnico Classic Pros, ($8-24 for 1 to 3 sets of different magnets to swap in) or $120 for new Toneriders, various for specific 2nd hand sets, and up to one's personal limit new Lightweight tailpiece, locking steel studs and steel bushings is another $60 but you'd have the same expense on an Epi or similar so I dont calculate "same" upgrades in the FF final price. Let's say a thrifty $130 to start, bridge and pickups That's almost $350 for a full price FF to be enjoyably playable. If the sight of the headstock doesnt crush your street cred with your bandmates, and you're sufficientlY brave, do it. And like you said there's less hesitation learning tech and looth skills on a FF. Of the Epiphones that are playable out of the box, so to speak, that you wouldn't immediately think to change up you'd spend $750-1000 new, often with good bargains used. Part of that price is sidestepping the Firefly "lottery," because FF shamelessly sells dogs right along with the ones that turn out okay, just like every other budget brand but Jet does. There's a risk in not knowing what defects and deficiencies to look for so a good tech that's also a friend, who would do an assessment and make a to-do list, would be a good asset.
I modded my leo jaymz w the skull n bones graphic,new knobs strap locks and had it professionally setup,i run elixir optiweb 10 46 strings,the nut was replaced w a bone nut,what a difference in tone
Great video...btw..."Clean" means NO DISTORTION at all. :) I have one of these with a Floyd Rose. Decent out of the box BUT I notice the Matte Black finish is a fingerprint magnet.
I love the seymour duncan nazgul and sentient. They're so brutal and don't require batteries! I ended up trading out this guitar in this video for another guitar I'll be making a video about soon, but I kept the pickups and put them in my ibanez with an evertune in it. Great guitar! Thank you for the comment :)
Dude, i got my bourbon burst. Sounded great. The neck pup was muddy. Put a treble bleed kinman mod. And I lowered the neck pickup and brought the poles pieces up about 1 turn ½ each and bingo clear tone. I'll probably get some mojotone 59 clones later but its fine.
I bought graphtech ratio tuners, Seymour Duncan jb/jazz set pickups, tonepro bridge and tail piece, new jack ,cts pots, switchcraft switch and sence its the buckethead ripoff i put tesi kill switches . Probably spent more than double for parts than the guitar lol. It plays great though and it was fun doing it. I have more expensive guitars already . I had a good time working on it, though, and play it more than my other guitars. If i ever get rid of it I'll take all my parts off and put back all the crap. Nothing wrong with having a good set of tuners and pickups laying around.
They sometimes sell on Amazon, but I bought this one from Guitars Garden. The way the website works is they make batches of guitars and then sell out of them, so if you go back in 6 months, then there will be different guitars on the website.
I don't know if you still care, but they have them in stock right now. Sept 14/2024. Price is 209.96. Guitar Garden are the official North America distribution and only back the warranty if purchased from them. At least thats what I heard.
If you backed up the treble strings part of the brige from the post, you might get a few mm, or 64ths on the intonation or the bass side, not be much.. but might just be enougth to get intonated.
Nice video. Tell you what, every "made in China" type guitar I've ever owned, I've had to change those awful sounding stock pickups. It's almost as if there should be an option where you can order the guitar without any pickups, then just install your own.
It’s called the J.D. moon Roller Bridge I got on Amazon but I wouldn’t recommend it because it could get me fully intonated in drop C as well it was not easy to adjust intonation and then I had to modify so much of it by removing the paint.
We all know that the grounding issue with HB guitars is the plating on the hardware where the ground wire contacts the tailpiece or plug. Easy fix. But they shipped thousands of guitars like this. Makes you wonder who's in control of quality control or final checks. Obviously never plugged in or listened to. But they shipped thousands with grounding issues.
Suggestion: get nickel steel humbucker covers, brass is not your tonal friend. Mojotone, Philadelphia Luthier Supply, others. Tie your system ground to your control cavity shielding, solder a lead to a pot back and screw it into the side of the cavity with a small panhead and a washer. That will diminish the ground hum if not eliminate it. The Duncans are 111% better. You might get a margin of improvement on the originals pulling the brass covers and changing the brass backplates for nickel, def a cheaper option and worth exploring.
I keep seeing these videos asking of its worth modding cheap guitars. If you like the guitar, and you're confident that modding them to your taste will make them play/sound the way you want then it is absolutely worth modding it. The price of the guitar doesn't matter. Not all cheap guitars are junk, and not all expensive guitars are good.
I'm not a fan of that style of roller bridge,besides if it's not trem, I have no use for one on an LP so much easier to intonate an abr or tuneomatic bridge, I have an elite champagne pink metallic firefly with Seymore Duncans too,nice guitars once you mod them.
Your mic volume relative to your project background music is very low. I'd say the music is too loud in the mix but maybe your mic levels are low due to placement or your cold. It forces me to increase volume to hear what you're saying and the get blasted with the music. The viewer experience would benefit from mic auto-gain or level matching mic to music in the mix.
"Worth it" and guitars should be tenuously employed together. Once you get over the initial Value Proposition (may take weeks, years) and the guitar won a position on the team, juice it up with no expectation of getting your money back.
I mod expensive guitars. So the whole why mod it doesnt make sense to me. If the guitar has good bones then I mod it to fit my preference. These new inexpensive guitars have good bones and will be just as good as any expensive guitar once modded to your taste.
yeah, that's what I am hoping to help some people come to realizing. That's why I made this video to better inform people who are interested in these kind of things but are maybe nervous to try it out for themselves.
I'm not sure they work like that. By my understanding, they make large batches of a guitar or guitars and then sell out and that's it. That's why scalpers loved these guitars.
Sweet. Yeah, there are much better beginner guitars out there. The problem with "beginner" guitars is that people cheap out. One of the worst things you can do is try to learn on a problematic guitar.
You messed up, you didn't put shielding in your pickup cavities. You probably also missed the three way switch cavity. You can not intonate a guitar until it is strung and tuned. This is done by checking the tuning open, then at one octave. And.... your first guitar tone needs to be a clean one, not a distorted one. PERIOD. Distortion will negate anything you did, you can have the cheapest hardware and it not make a bit of difference with high gain distortion. The only thing that will be the type of magnets in the pickup, which effects how the signal compresses.
Ok, I walked away and decided I needed to come back and say more. 1. Your method is unscientific in it's approach. We the viewers have no idea what this guitar sounds like prior to your modifications, whether you did this in a previous video or not, sampling the tonal qualities of the guitar prior to altering it gives someone who just stumbles across this video something to go from. 2. anything in your signal path could be the culprit for your "grounding issues". From your amplification, to your power, to the cables, your guitar or even your lighting. 3.I have friends who fall victim to the same mentality of I need expensive name brand components... Well no, once you understand how potentiometers work, you would probably rather buy an inexpensive quality pot, than one that just has a flashy name brand on it. 4. Again this will reference those same friends mentality. Changing components inside a guitar makes no sense if you are playing through a cheap amp like a Crate GX-15. The quality of the amplification matters as much or MORE than your guitars guts. I can tell this is an area you have not realized by your here, this is how the guitar sounds after all this work demonstration. Yeah, starting off with a high gain distortion sound tells me a lot. 5. Why clean? If a guitar doesn't sound good clean, then it won't sound good distorted. If a guitar and amp sound good clean, then if the amps distorted tones don't cut it, you can certainly find any number of effects that will get you where you want to be. Now does any of that mean that there may have been issues with the guitar itself? I dunno
"We the viewers?" Who exactly are you talking about? I think you sound a little insane. So don't speak for me. It's just a video on how he modded his guitar. It's just entertainment. It's not science.
This is probably the most scientific guitar breakdown I've ever seen. Proud of you, bruddermane guitars.
I have a Firelfy 338 in purple that I bought a couple of years ago and I moded it with some overwound pickups, grover tuners, a Kaish roller bridge and .022 uf 400v capacitors and the thing rocks!
so it's worth modding if you can/want to do it, if you agree to spend more money to do it, or if you're willing to pay someone else to do it all. Doesn't really seem like such a great plan for someone who just wants an inexpensive guitar. It just seems like more work and expense. Most people aren't interested in fixing & spending more money on something they just bought and want to use
Fair enough assesment. My thought is like this. You can spend a lot more and still have to do work. This strategy is kind of like buying an 80% kit. For 300-400 you can have a very nice guitar with all the bells and whistles you want. That is hard to beat if you habe the skills.
@@jerbear7952 but your thoughts don't respond to my comment. Just open a new thread and you can babble about whatever you like
I've owned about a dozen Firefly guitars since first seeing the Cherry Transparent 335 copies on AMZ back in late 2017 or early 2018. All of those guitars, except ONE, would have been fine straight out of the box for the type of player you're discussing. Certainly they could've been dialed in a bit better in minor ways and more time & attention could always be given to the finer details, but they were no worse and mostly better out of the box than your average Squier or Epiphone or most other guitars under ~$500. Thesdays you can buy a Firefly or Harley Benton for a total cost including shipping of $280 or less... even all the way down to ~$200 and have a perfectly acceptable, playable, functionable instrument with not a damn thing to be ashamed of. Amazing time to be a guitar or bass player!
@@z-9693 never said I had anything against Benton, Firefly, or any legit budget guitar makers. I don't see your point
But did you listen to it before he did anything to make it sounded absolutely amazing I don't even think he had done the setup with that now the set up at that point the elite line of fireflies are amazing for the money just a setup like any other guitar would need and you have a great guitar but for the most part these are for people who run too hotrod their guitar 🎸 .$350 worth of electronics and you have a guitar that plays like a $1500- $2000 .guitar
You did a nice job on that guitar. i enjoy your vids bud, cheers! Len , South Carolina
Excellent results! I just purchased the Strat version of the FF, fully updated the electronic, addressed a minor issue with 4 -5 frets, and just ordered a replacement bridge. RE: buying a more expensive guitar, no... with the minimum amount of work to improve the guitar it's worth it. If you can do the basic repairs i.e. setup/mod the service charges saved versus paying for the work pretty much covers the parts. The result is that you have an axe that plays as good as most $1200 guitars with better electronics in most cases. Great video!
The mod sounded better (I think!) You should of added locking tuners and a String Butler! They work wonders for tuning stability on a 3+3 head! Hope you get your intonation down!
modded has a much better resonance, it doesnt fade into a bad distortion sound as the note rings out. Much more solid, clean, and warmer sound that doesnt have that dirty fried distortion sound the original pick ups had. Nice job!
Thank you!
I got the 30” white jazzmaster baritone and it’s a great base for modding. Comes with rounded SS frets and the hardware and pickups aren’t bad at all especially for a $169 guitar. I ended up putting Tone Ninja locking tuners, Gotoh bridge, Fishman “Fluff” bridge pickup with their push/pot and a 3 way toggle for all 3 voicings of the pickup. I wired the push/pull for the high tilt frequency. Also a new Graphtech Tusq xl nut and graphtech string trees and is a beast of a guitar now! The original hardware was chrome and changed all to black cuz it has black block inlays on the fretboard. I highly recommend getting a Firefly and going to grab one of the 28” baritones next and probably the Buckethead style LP 28” scale baritone.
Your replacement bridge has tiny set screws front and back both ends (Tiny hex screws). These will allow you to adjust the bridge forwards or backwards on bridge posts.
I vote yes on the pickguard. Thx for the vid. You are very talented.
Thank you :)
Beautiful guitar and playing man! Wish I had your luthier skills too. I cannot believe what you get for $200 with these! This should just not be possible. Has anyone seen the Firefly Adam Jones LP that was available for all of 24 hrs or so? I was lucky enough to snag one and have a video on my channel if interested. It definitely needed some work and a set up but all I can say now is holy crap!!!
I'll be honest, and maybe because I'm hearing it through phone speakers, but to me the sound of the new pickups didn't sound significantly different enough for me personally to justify spending the extra money on swapping them. Just my opinion, though. I think modding guitars to your own specs is always worthwhile. It makes it more personal and fun to play knowing you put your own ideas into it. Great vid!
Nice!!
I'm doing the same thing to my Buckethead Baritone Firefly.
Going with the Nazgul set as well after shielding with Faraday tape.
Put a set of D'Addario auto-trimming locking tuners on it and they're pretty awesome.
My issue is the holes left from the kill switches...
I went traditional with the wiring and moved the switch back to where it goes so I used 1 & 1/4" washers and it looks pretty good.
Best mod I've done yet.
Ah I know, that's why it's tough to justify putting in holes for a killswitch permanently on a guitar body.
Grate work! Try adding some copper shielding in the pick up cavity and loop the string over the bridge!
Thanks for the tip! What does looping the string over the bridge do? I’ve seen people do it but don’t know why if it’s not a “thunderbolt” style bridge.
@@Bruddermane They do it because they can. And because the early LPs had wrap-around bridges. The Reverend Billy Gibbons does it, Zakk Wylde does it, lots of players do. It changes the break angle over the bridge and changes the 'feel' of the strings lowering the string tension a small amount. I usually do it on my LPs & gujitars with tune-o-matics + stop-tails. One practical benefit is that if you break a string near the nut/tuner and you have it wrapped over top, there is usually enough length left that you just pull that string out and feed it thru normally and its long enough to still use. Saved yourself the cost of replacing that string. Mo' money!! Mo' money!!
@@Bruddermane it helps keeping the guitar more in tune and better intonation.
The best thing I know of to clean a matte finished guitar is a 18-in-1 Hemp peppermint PURE CASTILE SOAP. It's in the hygiene isle @ walmart. It is a clear bottle with a big blue label with white writing.
You can move the rollers to where they're halfway off of the screw. I have mine tuned to drop B. My intonation from harmonic and fretted at the 12th fret is right on the money. I'm using a Wilkinson roller bridge.
Maybe I'll try a Wilkinson next. Thanks for that
I just did my first string change and mods to my example. I added Hipshot open gear locking tuners. Which are sexy af. I also hydrated the fretboard, and it is so dark it looks like ebony from across the room. I am super happy about that. I have also decided to change out all the electronics as well. I will be going old school with mine. EMG 81/85 reversed combo. I absolutely love the 85 in the bridge position. Beyond that I think the guitar is about perfect as is.
That's awesome! I've been waiting for a good price on some EMGs to play them and try them out (Specifically the 81/85s) I have heard such good things about them. What do you like about them? (are they dark, bright, warm,etc.?)
@@Bruddermane, sorry I missed this. EMG pups are pretty cool. You get your output from the preamp rather than just having super hot pickups. They have a kind of hi-fi feel/tone to them. They are also a little more compressed sounding and feeling compared to passive pickups. Which helps cover up my sloppy playing, but players wanting more dynamic pickups will probably prefer passives. The 81 is typically considered a bridge position pickup. It's a ceramic magnet pickup with a tight bottom end and crisp top end. It also has a slightly scooped mid-range. The 85 is typically used in the neck position. It is an alnico magnet pickup and is bigger in the bottom end, rounder/fuller in the mids and sweeter in the top end.
I prefer them in reverse position with the 85 in the bridge and 81 in the neck. I think the 85 is too warm/boomy/muddy in the neck position but sounds super thick and chunky in the bridge. It sounds really good in the bridge position. The 82 being brighter/tighter and punchier works really well in the neck position. Giving sweet tone without getting muddy or woofy.
I don't know if you installed EMGs but did you have any issues with post from the volume and tone fitting into the old holes?
@joshkeisling , I have not changed the pups in this guitar yet. I would imagine that the factory pots have the import diameter pot shafts, though.
Awesome video! Well done! Just subscribed to your channel
Thank you!
I fully modified my FireFly V with all TonePro's tuners bridge and tail stop (from chrome to black) Seymour Duncan Jupiter 6 hot rail pick-up's, a full complete rewire (with 5 seperate individual grounds, going to each component individually) 500k pot's, 3 way short throw toggle. Basically making a wonderful death metal machine of a guitar. Yes, I do believe they are worth the up grade.
I like the Seamore Duncans better than the original PUs. I am currently making the big jump with a Firefly FF338 and having Mojotone Pickups and wiring harness installed with a Faber drop in bridge, Switchcraft switch and input jack, and some quality tuners. I'm also having them do a whole fret leveling and crowning. It's going to be expensive, and I wish I knew how to do all of the work myself, but my skills aren't there yet. This is my first time doing anything like this. I like the idea of taking a budget guitar and having it modded to something more to my liking. If I had bought an Epiphone, I would be doing the same thing.
I've owned many Firefly models and they are excellent mod platforms. Very high bang for the buck and they continue to offer lots of variety among models as well as configurations for each model type. All things considered they have amazing features & finishes and put a high-quality instrument within nearly anyone's financial reach. I've used the same roller saddle bridge a few times and just like you mentioned, its finicky to intonate & doesn't offer as much range as I was hoping for... at least not without painstakingly adjusting the bridge as a whole using the set screws as well as the saddles. If only they didn't lock the saddles with those vertical allen screws, which is hugely limiting factor. If the saddles were made them compress against each other or have individual walled channels like some Hipshot bass bridges, then you'd have maximum flexibility of placement as well as max range. Then I stop dreaming and realize that its an inexpensive aftermarket bridge from China, so I'm not inclined to hold my breath counting on improvements being made. I'll just continue to work with & around the limitations as it pairs well with a Duesenberg Les Trem II (cool HG Wells or Steam Punk looking trem that retrofits onto stop-tail mounts). The ability to lock it onto the posts plus the brass rollers make it as close to perfect as you're likely to get for that usage case. Especially for less than $20!
What a fantastic video have a wonderful day also stay safe ❤😊
Having done autopsies on all the Firefly humbuckers I've pulled out of my guitars I can say factoring in the cost of an upgrade set of pickups to the base FF guitar price should be in everyone's calculations when considering buying a Firefly.
I say their humbuckers are junk but if I were more generous about it I'd say they're exceptionally janky. (They're junk.)
Also, for LPs and 338s, add in the cost of a good bridge that comes with posts and steel bushings, like Tonepros come. It's not worth sidegrading, you'll end up where you started. I'd maybe make an exception in high gain cases like yours but clean to mid gain players shouldn't scrimp.
That's $60-$80 for a bridge, pickups can run $50ish+ for a 2nd hand set of post 2013 Epi Probuckers or Alnico Classic Pros, ($8-24 for 1 to 3 sets of different magnets to swap in) or $120 for new Toneriders, various for specific 2nd hand sets, and up to one's personal limit new
Lightweight tailpiece, locking steel studs and steel bushings is another $60 but you'd have the same expense on an Epi or similar so I dont calculate "same" upgrades in the FF final price.
Let's say a thrifty $130 to start, bridge and pickups
That's almost $350 for a full price FF to be enjoyably playable. If the sight of the headstock doesnt crush your street cred with your bandmates, and you're sufficientlY brave, do it.
And like you said there's less hesitation learning tech and looth skills on a FF.
Of the Epiphones that are playable out of the box, so to speak, that you wouldn't immediately think to change up you'd spend $750-1000 new, often with good bargains used. Part of that price is sidestepping the Firefly "lottery," because FF shamelessly sells dogs right along with the ones that turn out okay, just like every other budget brand but Jet does.
There's a risk in not knowing what defects and deficiencies to look for so a good tech that's also a friend, who would do an assessment and make a to-do list, would be a good asset.
I modded my leo jaymz w the skull n bones graphic,new knobs strap locks and had it professionally setup,i run elixir optiweb 10 46 strings,the nut was replaced w a bone nut,what a difference in tone
Great video...btw..."Clean" means NO DISTORTION at all. :) I have one of these with a Floyd Rose. Decent out of the box BUT I notice the Matte Black finish is a fingerprint magnet.
I probably should have clarified that the clean is “as clean as this metal machine will go” hahaha
Dying to know what you used for clean and hydrate the neck. Could you put what you used in the description please
Nice video. The mods and new pickups sound really "tight".
Thanks! I agree. They can definitely help me get my guitar sitting in the mix better with less work in Post, which is always good.
Nice detailed video man.. How you like the pickups after having them in for a while? Would it be worth it to throw some EMG's in a firefly?
I love the seymour duncan nazgul and sentient. They're so brutal and don't require batteries! I ended up trading out this guitar in this video for another guitar I'll be making a video about soon, but I kept the pickups and put them in my ibanez with an evertune in it. Great guitar! Thank you for the comment :)
Dude, i got my bourbon burst. Sounded great. The neck pup was muddy. Put a treble bleed kinman mod. And I lowered the neck pickup and brought the poles pieces up about 1 turn ½ each and bingo clear tone. I'll probably get some mojotone 59 clones later but its fine.
Nice!
Considering that an equivalent Gibson would be at minimum 2 to 3 k, I'd say," YES" it is worth it!!!!!
I bought graphtech ratio tuners, Seymour Duncan jb/jazz set pickups, tonepro bridge and tail piece, new jack ,cts pots, switchcraft switch and sence its the buckethead ripoff i put tesi kill switches . Probably spent more than double for parts than the guitar lol. It plays great though and it was fun doing it.
I have more expensive guitars already . I had a good time working on it, though, and play it more than my other guitars. If i ever get rid of it I'll take all my parts off and put back all the crap. Nothing wrong with having a good set of tuners and pickups laying around.
What were the parts you replaced ? Especially the bridge piece!
great job bro
Gorgeous guitar. I find the Neck Seymour sounds better but I like the stock bridge instead.
The only place I’ve found to buy these are at Guitar Garden, but I don’t see any like this one. Anywhere else?
They sometimes sell on Amazon, but I bought this one from Guitars Garden. The way the website works is they make batches of guitars and then sell out of them, so if you go back in 6 months, then there will be different guitars on the website.
I don't know if you still care, but they have them in stock right now. Sept 14/2024. Price is 209.96. Guitar Garden are the official North America distribution and only back the warranty if purchased from them. At least thats what I heard.
If you backed up the treble strings part of the brige from the post, you might get a few mm, or 64ths on the intonation or the bass side, not be much.. but might just be enougth to get intonated.
Nice video.
Tell you what, every "made in China" type guitar I've ever owned, I've had to change those awful sounding stock pickups. It's almost as if there should be an option where you can order the guitar without any pickups, then just install your own.
What's the name of the bridge you put on there? I have a project guitar I'd love to try that on. Great video. Cheers!
It’s called the J.D. moon Roller Bridge I got on Amazon but I wouldn’t recommend it because it could get me fully intonated in drop C as well it was not easy to adjust intonation and then I had to modify so much of it by removing the paint.
@@Bruddermane Thanks for the heads up!
That's a nice damn guitar.
Why didn’t you ever do the sound off Between them?
You and I have very different definitions of "clean."
Yes,yes it is!!!😮
We all know that the grounding issue with HB guitars is the plating on the hardware where the ground wire contacts the tailpiece or plug. Easy fix. But they shipped thousands of guitars like this. Makes you wonder who's in control of quality control or final checks. Obviously never plugged in or listened to. But they shipped thousands with grounding issues.
I just got the bullseye lp. It's decent as is but I put some locking tuners on and emg81/85 pickups. Pickups are the worst part of these cheap guitars
Strike 2 on the intonation! Don’t settle ! Fix it !
Hahaha I definitely plan to 😉
You should shield the pickup areas
Suggestion: get nickel steel humbucker covers, brass is not your tonal friend. Mojotone, Philadelphia Luthier Supply, others.
Tie your system ground to your control cavity shielding, solder a lead to a pot back and screw it into the side of the cavity with a small panhead and a washer. That will diminish the ground hum if not eliminate it.
The Duncans are 111% better. You might get a margin of improvement on the originals pulling the brass covers and changing the brass backplates for nickel, def a cheaper option and worth exploring.
I'll try this out. Thanks!
Do you think a bigsby would fit in one of these?
I would assume so, you could always get the vibramate bigsby that doesn’t require you to drill into your guitar to test fit it first
I keep seeing these videos asking of its worth modding cheap guitars. If you like the guitar, and you're confident that modding them to your taste will make them play/sound the way you want then it is absolutely worth modding it. The price of the guitar doesn't matter. Not all cheap guitars are junk, and not all expensive guitars are good.
I'm not a fan of that style of roller bridge,besides if it's not trem, I have no use for one on an LP so much easier to intonate an abr or tuneomatic bridge, I have an elite champagne pink metallic firefly with Seymore Duncans too,nice guitars once you mod them.
Your mic volume relative to your project background music is very low. I'd say the music is too loud in the mix but maybe your mic levels are low due to placement or your cold. It forces me to increase volume to hear what you're saying and the get blasted with the music. The viewer experience would benefit from mic auto-gain or level matching mic to music in the mix.
I’ll keep that in mind as I keep making videos. Thanks for the input!
To answer the question in the title... Hell yes it is.
Any uneven frets or buzzin??
No, not that I have noticed! It's been sweet!
Yes. Ut's worth it.
"Worth it" and guitars should be tenuously employed together. Once you get over the initial Value Proposition (may take weeks, years) and the guitar won a position on the team, juice it up with no expectation of getting your money back.
The new Pickups sounds better
Thanks!
I mod expensive guitars. So the whole why mod it doesnt make sense to me. If the guitar has good bones then I mod it to fit my preference. These new inexpensive guitars have good bones and will be just as good as any expensive guitar once modded to your taste.
yeah, that's what I am hoping to help some people come to realizing. That's why I made this video to better inform people who are interested in these kind of things but are maybe nervous to try it out for themselves.
you should fix the intonation.... that is a big issue
Where are the clean demo sounds? All I hear is distortion and modulation.
Can you send me the serial number for that guitar for that I could send it to the to the company for them for they could send me the same one
I'm not sure they work like that. By my understanding, they make large batches of a guitar or guitars and then sell out and that's it. That's why scalpers loved these guitars.
Once they sell out its gone bro.
Flip your bridge around. It’s backwards
Full size pots does not equal quality pots.
Sweet. Yeah, there are much better beginner guitars out there. The problem with "beginner" guitars is that people cheap out. One of the worst things you can do is try to learn on a problematic guitar.
No ! None of you are good enough to max out that guitar ! Stop lying to yourself.
You messed up, you didn't put shielding in your pickup cavities. You probably also missed the three way switch cavity. You can not intonate a guitar until it is strung and tuned. This is done by checking the tuning open, then at one octave. And.... your first guitar tone needs to be a clean one, not a distorted one. PERIOD. Distortion will negate anything you did, you can have the cheapest hardware and it not make a bit of difference with high gain distortion. The only thing that will be the type of magnets in the pickup, which effects how the signal compresses.
Ok, I walked away and decided I needed to come back and say more.
1. Your method is unscientific in it's approach. We the viewers have no idea what this guitar sounds like prior to your modifications, whether you did this in a previous video or not, sampling the tonal qualities of the guitar prior to altering it gives someone who just stumbles across this video something to go from.
2. anything in your signal path could be the culprit for your "grounding issues". From your amplification, to your power, to the cables, your guitar or even your lighting.
3.I have friends who fall victim to the same mentality of I need expensive name brand components... Well no, once you understand how potentiometers work, you would probably rather buy an inexpensive quality pot, than one that just has a flashy name brand on it.
4. Again this will reference those same friends mentality. Changing components inside a guitar makes no sense if you are playing through a cheap amp like a Crate GX-15. The quality of the amplification matters as much or MORE than your guitars guts. I can tell this is an area you have not realized by your here, this is how the guitar sounds after all this work demonstration. Yeah, starting off with a high gain distortion sound tells me a lot.
5. Why clean? If a guitar doesn't sound good clean, then it won't sound good distorted. If a guitar and amp sound good clean, then if the amps distorted tones don't cut it, you can certainly find any number of effects that will get you where you want to be.
Now does any of that mean that there may have been issues with the guitar itself? I dunno
"We the viewers?" Who exactly are you talking about? I think you sound a little insane. So don't speak for me. It's just a video on how he modded his guitar. It's just entertainment. It's not science.
@@BazonBlades A bit touchy about things meant for the creator NOT you.
@@timcobb1752, yep. ..Absolutely insane.