'83 Ibanez AS-50 Question

[dartis]

So as a longtime lurker I have finally decided to begin investing in my guitar setup and start practicing again.  I currently have as '83 AS-50 stock in pretty good shape and a Mexi-strat.  I want to sell one and upgrade the other.  I feel like the Ibanez has the foundation I need for some pretty good tone, but need advise on new pickups, HW, etc. 

Since I have no pedals, what should I invest in first? 

Any advice helps.

[Poster]

id say keep both the guitars, you can do a million mods to them, and turn them into real quality players.

the second most important thing is going to be a decent little amp. get a low watt tube amp combo they are great for home practice, and wont break the bank!

if youd like me to breakdown a list of upgrades for those guitars Id have to know what electronics are in them already, and what wood they are made of, also whats the shape of the guitars?

are they damaged? youll probably need to order a case of cheap strings, say .11's (sound, tune, play the best ;0), and 4 dollar tube of Dunlop #02 Conditioner Oil and start oiling those fretboard every 3 days for a couple months to get um back from the depths.

stay away from pedals (short of a decent tuner, like a boss), until will get your guitars back into tip top shape, and they got a little amp to blast out of. building a first guitar rig is like learning drums! you gotta just work that snare alone until you earn the right to have hi hat!!!

cheers and welcome to the greatest gear site on the planet earth! dont hesitate to PM me if you need anything at any time.

[HunSanity]

i would go to www.analogman.com and buy a silver modded tube screamer (or 2 if you can swing it).. if you HAVE a Ts9'er, you can mail it to him and he will mod it.  the mod turns it from a piece of crap to a piece of gold (or silver)

honestly, toys are great but with that as the foundation, you can do some damage...good luck dude!!

[HunSanity]

and i agree with the post above mine.. so let me say IF you were to get a pedal, that would be the one IMO to start with.  reason being, it COMPLIMENTS your amps tone.  its hard for me to explain, but pretty much in a nutshell you can turn the drive all the way down on the pedal and all it will do it "brighten" your sound.. OR you can add some fuzz and turn the crunch up.  its a really great pedal. okay ill shut up now.

[dartis]

What I did find out about the AS-50 (since it was a gift and I don't own any specs):  Everything I have is stock so body is lam. maple, set-neck is birch with rosewood fret board.  Comes with two Super '58 humbuckers; a Quik-Change tailpiece; Gibsonesque control layout with four goldish 50s-style knobs and unbranded Schaller-style tuners (that blow).  Here is a photo (not mine):



Fender is stock except a long time ago I put in Lace pickups.

My little amp is a fender vibro-champ XD i got for xmas from pops. 

[HunSanity]

thats a nice geetar.  i would love the scofield but its too pricey

[Poster]

What I did find out about the AS-50 (since it was a gift and I don't own any specs):  Everything I have is stock so body is lam. maple, set-neck is birch with rosewood fret board.  Comes with two Super '58 humbuckers; a Quik-Change tailpiece; Gibsonesque control layout with four goldish 50s-style knobs and unbranded Schaller-style tuners (that blow).  Here is a photo (not mine):



Fender is stock except a long time ago I put in Lace pickups.

My little amp is a fender vibro-champ XD i got for xmas from pops.  

How much do you want to spend?

For the strat, youll need a 10$ graphtech nut, some locking tuners $80, some cts pots 25$, a sozo cap for the tone pot 12$, graphtech saddles 120$, of course lots of oil on the neck, a decent switchcraft jack couldnt hurt.

ibanez: id say if you hate the pups, carefully remove them and reinstall if you resell it. duncan makes a decent humbucker in the 59' jazz bucker that would probably sound great in that guitar. of course more money you want to spend there are tons of options. How does it stay in tune? Id again carefully, remove stock hardware one at a time with performance hardware. reinstall if you resell it. cts pots are the way to go so pop out those old funky pieces of shit that are in there and set them aside with all the other ole guts.

re: the advice to buying a tube screamer from analogman, id say there are plenty of other places to buy a boutique stompbox at the same quality for a lesser price, and its more important to focus on getting your instruments into a decent condition first, then quality cables,  moving to the amp, and last/least extra effects.

our good friend Andrew Olsen makes some of the finest quality boutique guitar cables you can get, mention strangedesign.org and get a great discount the very best cables! http://www.aoguitars.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=1&meid=-1        they will make everything sound better night and day from a regular instrument cable you get at the store

[dartis]

So I took my guitar to a great tech in town, and since this guitar was a gift for me I didn't know what was going on under the hood.  Things were so bad that apparently someone wrapped the pots in foil to shield them!  Anyway, it made their blog post (see below) of what not to do with your electronics.  Look for my foiled pots half way down the post.  That said, my guitar is singing like an angel.  Now I notice weaknesses in my other gear because of it.  My cable sucks bad, so I will be hitting up AO ASAP.

http://sfguitarworks.com/blog/?p=445

[raisingfreen]

Ok, do what you want however, in my opinion don't mess with that guitar too much. It's a very nice example of an early ibanez 335 style. Get a setup, new strings, , pickup hight adjustment etc...have a tech look at the connections, try some Deoxit 5 in the pots and plug insert. That is a nice guitar that is almost really considered vintage. Super 58's are really, really great. I gave my old set to AO after a modification and always kinda regretted it. They are really nice pickups. I go so far as to say I will buy that guitar if your going to f*with it and mod it up. If you have the cash maybe send it to AO guitars and have him go over everything and set it up real nice. Or try a nice local tech you trust. Please sleep on this before you do anything. Its probably closer than you think to being a really great player.

If you want to sell it please contact me in a PM. I have soft spot for those and this one looks pretty nice and just needs some TLC.