Customising an acoustic guitar

We've all done it, or know someone who has done it.
At the very least we've all played a guitar that's been customized.
Most common customization on an electric guitar is the pick ups or the bridge.
Then there's the finish, the scratchplate, the nut, machine heads, you can go on and on with an electric, to the point where you have the old " this is my great granfathers original axe, my granfather replaced the handle and my father replaced the head" style of thing.
But what about acoustic guitars?
There's not really a lot you can do with an acoustic. There's no pick ups to replace, the bridge is bolted and glued onto the body, if you mess with the finish you can mess with the tone.

I've been sort of customizing my acoustic over the years without realising, and indeed without intending to.

I have a Crafter FSG 250E.

Nice little guitar and suitable for the purpose. I've had it 11 years now and have been happy with it all this time.
Not long after I got it I made the first change. Purely for aesthetic reasons I replaced the machine heads. The stock Crafter machine heads were fine, kept tune and were relativley stable, but they were chrome, I wanted gold. So I bought a set of gold grovers and fitted them, like I say it was purely aesthetic reasons.

 

I never intended to make any other changes, but circumstances sometimes take over. I mainly used the guitar for home use and home recording. Then I started going to various open mic nights with the guys I was in a band with.

This particular model came fitted with a passive pick up. This was fine in itself, but meant if I wanted to amplify the guitar it would have to through an amp. At most of the open mics I went to, although amps were provided and I could take my own if neccesary, I thought it would be better if I could just plug into the PA directly, meaning all I had to take with me would be the guitar. So a few years ago I looked for an active pick up. I trawled guitar forums to find the best one......turns out it was about £300!!, so I read up as much as I could to find a more reasonable priced one, I'm not tight, just skint, but I wasn't going to buy the cheapest one I could find, just the most expensive I could afford.

As most people are aware it's not the price that matters at the end of the day, it's all about the actual quality. Now I'm not saying a £300 Fishman won't be good, but by the same token a £10 chinese piezo might not be crap.

The eventual pick up I bought cost about £30, I got it on eBay. It's RRP was £60, but I was patient enough to trawl ebay until I found what I wanted at the price I wanted. That's the beauty of eBay, if there's something you want, as long as you're patient, you don't have to pay full price for it.

So after a while I managed to get it. Cos it was active, and had a battery compartment as well as more than just volume and tone, it was a bit bigger than the original. So I had to enlarge the hole where the control unit fitted. Not a major job and didn't cause and damage to the guitar or affect the overall tone.

The operation was a roaring success.

( there should be a photo here, but I've tried and tried but can't get any of the photos to load, sorry )

So anyway that was that.

 

Then one day I was bored and trawling through eBay...............

I was actually looking for a soundhole cover when I came across an "O" port.

What was this strange device? I googled it, read the company blurb ( obviously they said is was the greatest thing since sliced bread, so I read through a few guitar forums. To be honest they didn't help one little bit. There was a definate 50/ 50 split between it being amzing to being a waste of money. So all that was left for me to do was buy one and decide for myself. After all it wasn't expensive.

A couple of days later it was delivered. I wanted to know what sort of real difference it made, so I recorded a short piece on the guitar, then fitted the "O" port and recorded the same piece.

When I played the two pieces back.....I couldn't tell a blind bit of difference!

I've sort of convinced myself that the mid range tones are a bit better, but to be honest I'm not entirely convinced. In fairness it doesn't detract anything either, so it's a lesson learned.

 

 

The story doesn't end there either.

 

Away back in the 80's there was a device made by a company called Asprii, it was a mechanical device for producing acoustic reverb. I was intrigued, but at £80 a go it was beyond my reach ( my weekly wage at the time was £90, the Asprii's were so hard to find as well).

I always had Asprii on my saved search list on good old eBay and sure enough it popped up one day. Brand new, loads of them, around £50 each ( compared with £80 25 years ago!!)

But I still didn't pay full price, got a used one for £16!

Sure enough it's as easy to fit as the manufacturers say, only takes seconds.

And with this you can hear the difference immediatley. Has an excellent full reverb tone. Wish I had got one away back in the eighties. I would recommend them, the only downside is the reverb isn't noticable in a gigging situation, so it's really for using at home, or if you have a microphone in front of your guitar, but still a nice item to have.

 

 

 

So you can customise an acoustic guitar, even if you don't mean to.