“Baby it’s the guitar man”

I recently switched out pickups in my Squier Vintage Modified Mustang. They weren’t the stock pickups, mind you. They were some random Seymour Duncan pickups I pulled out of my very first guitar, a 1986 Fender Squier Stratocaster I received for my 14th birthday.

Oh, what a great birthday that was. I’d been playing guitar for little over a year by December of 1987. I started lessons in August of 1986 with a guy named Jim Howie. He was an accountant at one of the big orthopedic companies in town and was heavily into bluegrass and Americana music, but also loved the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, and your typical 60s/70s classic rock. He was pretty laid back and was a good first teacher for me. He got me through the basics; chords, strumming, timing, and using my ears to figure things out. I think he knew he had his hands full with me when the first thing I brought to him to learn was David Lee Roth’s “Yankee Rose”. “Umm, well that opening chord is G.”

Anyways, that first year with Jim I learned on a nondescript large body acoustic. I don’t even think there was a name on the headstock. Maybe just “G” for guitar. It had amazingly horrible action and was really kind of bland looking, but I didn’t care. It was my bland guitar and I powered through for a full year and three months until my 14th birthday when Jim went with my parents to Paradise Music(same place we got that acoustic) and helped them pick out this beautiful blue Fender Squier Strat.

My dad says to this day that I snuck around the house and found the guitar prior to December 2nd. I told him I certainly did not(of course I did. It was under my parents bed. They didn’t even try to hide it.) Regardless, I had my axe. And the same as guys like Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, and Yngwie Malmsteen. Though, I’m sure their axes were built in California and not Japan. Didn’t matter because when I plugged it into the small practice amp that came with the guitar it buzzed to life. Glowing like Excalibur in my hands it gave me the power to, as they kids say, rock out.

That was my main guitar for years. I bought another Squier Strat in the early 90s from someone my next guitar teacher knew. It was another Fender Squier Strat made in Japan, but it was wine red color with Lace Sensor pickups. It was a hell of a guitar, but for some reason I decided to sell it to a guy I worked with. So I was back to just my Squier Strat. At one point I decided to upgrade the pickups(I upgraded the bridge/tremolo to a locking trem and regretted it so I went back to the original) with some nice Seymour Duncans. I don’t know where I learned to switch out pickups. I think I actually just popped the pickguard off and just wired them in where the others were. Regardless, I’m sure it was a shoddy job but sometimes rock n roll needs to be shoddy.

Over the years I’ve bought many guitars. Many nice guitars; Rickenbackers, American Fenders, Gibson Les Pauls, and for the most part ended up selling them all because I was an idiot. I also needed money because I went from a single guy to a married guy, to a married guy with a mortgage. Then a married guy with a mortgage and three kids and only one income. Things get tight, the extra Excaliburs gotta go.

So when I buy guitars nowadays I’m okay with Epiphones and Squiers. They just need a little more tweaking out of the case than the more expensive versions do. Upgraded pickups, set up, and maybe a nicer bridge/tremolo and they pretty much sing like the “nicer” American-made counterparts. If you have to replace tuners and nuts as well, then maybe just wait and save for something else, but pickups and a bridge won’t break the bank.

But now I prefer to have someone do the work for me. To have a guy(or gal) that does the tinkering so I don’t have to worry about doing permanent damage. Okay, okay, it’s just some soldering and time. But hey, I appreciate someone with knowledge and know how. Someone that can make an instrument soar, as opposed to just getting by. My guy over the last almost 10 years has been Jason Davis of Jason Davis Music Service and Off The Cuff Sound Studio. He installed new pickups and set up my Squier Jazzmaster, as well as my Squier Jaguar and my Rickenbacker bass. He also put those aforementioned Seymour Duncan pickups from my old Strat into the Squier Mustang for me. Jason also gave my son drum lessons for four or five months before Covid hit and we stopped.

Jason is an amazing musician/teacher/studio guru all around. But when I decided I wanted to buy proper pickups for the Mustang, I wanted to install them myself. Save the extra cash that having Jason do it would cost me. I bought Seymour Duncan Antiquity pickups for the Mustang. I have Antiquity pickups in the Jazzmaster and that made a huge difference in the sound. Figured lets get some good ones for the Mustang and see what happens.

I ran into a problem in that the stock pickup covers didn’t fit the Seymour Duncans. After struggling for a whole Saturday morning I realized it wasn’t me, it was the covers. I found some Fender brand black pickup covers on Amazon for $7. Ordered them and three days later they arrived. Fit like a glove. After some questionable soldering on my part the pickups were in and, lo and behold, they worked! I didn’t completely muck it up. The guitar sounds pretty great. A little noisy when I kick on the RAT pedal or the BOSS Distortion pedal, but it jangles beautifully when running a clean tone.

After playing it for a week I’m thinking I might have Jason do a new setup with different gage strings. And since he’s there I might have him look under the hood to make sure I didn’t muck anything up too badly. I’ve also decided that when I’ve got the money saved I’m going to upgrade the pickups, bridge, and tremolo on the Squier Jaguar. It actually sounds pretty damn good, but I bet it would sound better with some upgrades. Those upgrades will be upwards of $700, but for what I paid for the guitar it will still end up being a hell of a lot cheaper than buying and American made Jag. I’ve also got an Epiphone Les Paul that I bought at the beginning of Covid I’d like to get some upgrades on.

In due time. In due time.

Sorry. If you’re not a guitar player this may have been a less than exciting read. But occasionally I like to geek out about gear. I’m not a gear head by any means. In fact, I’m blissfully ignorant when it comes to gear. I know what I like when I see it. Or hear it. I don’t like to break things down too much on how it works, why it works, or proper building and what not. The magic slips away a bit when you know too much, at least that’s how I feel. And yeah, if I did know all that gear stuff I could probably save myself a hell of a lot of money. But then I wouldn’t be able to take a trip to Fort Wayne and tour one hell of a cool music studio and help support folks that make the magic happen for a living.

And like I said, I like the mystery of just picking up an instrument and being blown away by the sounds I get out of it. I know that what type of wood is used is important, and the pickups as well. I just don’t want to go down the rabbit hole of “how it’s made”. Let me just be enamored by the magic. I drop a needle on a record and when it slides into that groove I’m transported. I don’t need to know the science behind the polyvinyl chloride and how it’s processed or how the music ends up in a flat piece of plastic. I just want to put the needle on the record and let the music do its work. Same with guitars and amps and pedals…I want to plug in and make some noise.

Because baby, that’s how the guitar man would do it.