Swapping the pickups in your guitar can dramatically affect its tone; you can transform a student model guitar into tone machine that nails your favorite sound simply by installing the right combination of pickups and tone/volume potentiometers, and it’s surprisingly easy to do.
(Note: It’s best if you already have experience with a soldering iron.)
First things first: you’ll need wire cutters (preferably needlenose), new strings, a Phillips head screwdriver, solder, and a soldering station or iron. Every electric guitarist should invest in a good soldering iron, because almost all the electronic repairs you’ll ever need to do require one.
Remove your guitar strings to make things easier on yourself. On a rear-routed guitar you’ll remove the plastic plate on the back of the guitar or, if you have a Fender-style guitar, you’ll remove the entire pickguard to which the pickups are attached. Be sure to keep the screws organized according to where they came from, i.e., keep pickups screws, screws from the pickguard or backplate, etc. in separate piles.
Next you should orient yourself by identifying where the jack is, which potentiometer is which, where the selector is at, and how the wires connect the various parts. Use your needlenose pliers to pull out and separate the wires to make things easier, but don’t pull any wires out completely, as this will damage both the wires and components.
Take your new pickup and pull each colored wire out. Strip an inch or so of the black wire coming out of the pickup. After that pull each of your new pickup’s wires out and apart from each other. On rear-mounted guitars you’ll then feed the new pickup’s wires into the cavity making sure there is enough space in the cavity for the new pickup’s wiring.
Let your soldering iron warm up for five to ten minutes. Examine where the guitar’s current pickup’s wires solder to the jack, pots, etc. while you wait. Desolder one by putting the soldering iron’s tip to the solder point. Be sure that you’re desoldering the wires for the pickup you’re replacing, which can be accomplished by pulling on that pickup’s wire.
Break out the needlenose pliers again and pull the wire from the liquified solder. If you have a desoldering bulb you can suck up the excess solder — otherwise take the correspondingly colored wire from your new pickup and solder it where the old one was. If the point where you’re soldering has a hole, loop the wire through first. Hold your solder to this point and touch it with the soldering iron to get just enough solder to secure the wire. Do this for each wire and solder point.
Take the old pickup out, plug your guitar into your amp, and turn it up. Touch the new pickup’s screws and magnets with a screwdriver and, if you hear a popping noise each time you tap the screws or pole pieces, you’ve successfully soldered your new pickup in place.
Screw the pickup in position — with the wire facing down, i.e., toward the bridge — replace the backplate or pickguard, and restring your guitar. That’s all there is to it.
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