Here's my 2 cents...
I'm one of those "I don't tinker with them" kind of guys. I never swap out pickups, I don't try to "re-engineer" something that was designed a certain way by experts. I try to test drive (play through an amp) in-person any guitar I buy. I have however (over time) bought about a dozen guitars over the Internet, but none of them are in my current stash. The dozen or more keepers I have are the result of sitting down with each one before purchase and seeing if they have the kind of soul inside that I am looking for.
I think I have some excellent instruments accumulated and I would not want to sell or lose any of my current harem. This confidence in owenrship came from careful selection and test drive prior to final sale. Anymore, and after ample experience buying sound-unheard-neck-unplayed prior to sale, today I swear by the test drive. I find more personal satisfaction and owner confidence by playing them first. If the guitar doesn't have the tone or (I like to call it) "soul" I'm looking for, there are always thousands more to choose from on planet Earth.
No sense in hacking up a perfectly good guitar just becuse my ears don't like what it is doing. If my ears had been used to help choose the thing in the first place, they would need to be pleased first before handing out the big bucks of my hard-earned cash. It also does not make any sense to me to carve up, re-solder, or tinker away (meanwhile dumping even more money down the tube) into a guitar I don't like.
Its much easier to sell it and resort to being more careful on the next purchase. In that way you assume responsibility for allowing guitars with or without preferred tones into your livingroom.
Perhaps the guitar is out of tolerance in some way. Since its a used instrument, who knows where she has been and in who's arms she's been entrusted for service until today. Best tip here would be to get it into the hands of a MusicMan professional, and have them do a little "doctor's appointment" with her (so to speak). Let them give her a check-up and see if someone has twiddled or tinkered with her perfection after the factory.
Then, if she isn't twiddled... kindly set her back into the used market and look for something else that will make your ears happy.
I may be a purest, but please don't hack her up with new pickups. That's not the answer you're looking for. Its a great way to waste even more money on something you already don't like. And it does not gaurentee results. And you may just be screwing up a tone someone else's ear would love to own...
It may be that we are all as individual as fingerprints, and I could testify that every guitar I have ever played in my 33 years of guitaring, has had its own unique soul and sonic personality, regardless of make or model or manufacturer. No two guitars are the same. We find consumer confidence in excellent, beyond freaking great builders like Ernie Ball MusicMan, but it doesn't mean every single guitar they make fits every single human being on Earth equally.
Perhaps that was 5 cents..................
I'm one of those "I don't tinker with them" kind of guys. I never swap out pickups, I don't try to "re-engineer" something that was designed a certain way by experts. I try to test drive (play through an amp) in-person any guitar I buy. I have however (over time) bought about a dozen guitars over the Internet, but none of them are in my current stash. The dozen or more keepers I have are the result of sitting down with each one before purchase and seeing if they have the kind of soul inside that I am looking for.
I think I have some excellent instruments accumulated and I would not want to sell or lose any of my current harem. This confidence in owenrship came from careful selection and test drive prior to final sale. Anymore, and after ample experience buying sound-unheard-neck-unplayed prior to sale, today I swear by the test drive. I find more personal satisfaction and owner confidence by playing them first. If the guitar doesn't have the tone or (I like to call it) "soul" I'm looking for, there are always thousands more to choose from on planet Earth.
No sense in hacking up a perfectly good guitar just becuse my ears don't like what it is doing. If my ears had been used to help choose the thing in the first place, they would need to be pleased first before handing out the big bucks of my hard-earned cash. It also does not make any sense to me to carve up, re-solder, or tinker away (meanwhile dumping even more money down the tube) into a guitar I don't like.
Its much easier to sell it and resort to being more careful on the next purchase. In that way you assume responsibility for allowing guitars with or without preferred tones into your livingroom.
Perhaps the guitar is out of tolerance in some way. Since its a used instrument, who knows where she has been and in who's arms she's been entrusted for service until today. Best tip here would be to get it into the hands of a MusicMan professional, and have them do a little "doctor's appointment" with her (so to speak). Let them give her a check-up and see if someone has twiddled or tinkered with her perfection after the factory.
Then, if she isn't twiddled... kindly set her back into the used market and look for something else that will make your ears happy.
I may be a purest, but please don't hack her up with new pickups. That's not the answer you're looking for. Its a great way to waste even more money on something you already don't like. And it does not gaurentee results. And you may just be screwing up a tone someone else's ear would love to own...
It may be that we are all as individual as fingerprints, and I could testify that every guitar I have ever played in my 33 years of guitaring, has had its own unique soul and sonic personality, regardless of make or model or manufacturer. No two guitars are the same. We find consumer confidence in excellent, beyond freaking great builders like Ernie Ball MusicMan, but it doesn't mean every single guitar they make fits every single human being on Earth equally.
Perhaps that was 5 cents..................
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