Melody Maker Upgrades

[SamKS]

Anyone know some good upgrades I can do for a Gibson Melody Maker? I'm looking for things like...

-Pickups
-Tuners
-Bridge
-Etc...

I might just totally strip it down and paint it too. Not to sure yet.

[patrickhowell]

Do you have the dual or single pickup version ?

What do you not like about it as it is ?

What amp do you have, and what tones are you going for ?

[SamKS]

Single. I'd like to get more of a thick / full sound playing out of a Mesa Triple Rectifier. I play a lot of Rock / Pop Punk so decently heavy distortion.

[TheSkyline]

To be honest the cost of getting good pickups and new hardware and paint, would probably be more than just getting a better guitar.

[patrickhowell]

If you want that tone, you need a humbucker. There are some available for single-coil routings, but generally only in Fender string spacings. Also, humbuckers built in the single coil size are generally meant for a strat, which has a slanted bridge pickup for even wider pole piece spacing.

If you're willing to route the body to fit a humbucker, then you could just cut the pickguard and use the usual gibson pickup mounts, like the guitar in this pic (http://www.qballsguitars.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/zGibsonMelodyMakerclose.jpg). I'd recommend a Seymour Duncan JB. High output, but the AlNiCo V magnet smoothes out the tone a little. If you get a pickup like this, you could also add a switch to use it as a single coil, or in parallel. This would allow you to get the heavy humbucker tone as well as tones close to positions 1 and 2 on a strat.

Why do you want to replace the tuners ? Does it go out of tune easily ? Why do you want to replace the bridge ? Is the intonation bad ?

Also, if you haven't already bought a triple rec, I would absolutely hands down buy a Single Rectifier instead. Sounds much better, and way less tubes to replace down the road.