I bought a set of Ibanez Blazer PUPs from Mr. M. In another lifetime, when I'd played mostly electric guitar, I'd had a Blazer. In fact two. The first was a sunburst and quite low down the Blazer foodchain. That was followed by a top of the line 500. These PUPs came out of a 500.
The guitar is not the worst instrument ever made, and it has a solid wood body. Not sure WHAT wood, but solid, not chip board or anything like that. It seems that a bit of hotrodding would not be a total waste of money.
So what was done?
The PUPs were installed. These are actually physically fatter than Strat PUPs so some cutting of the scratch plate was required. The work, as usual, was done by Mark at McGibbon's. Mark and I discussed wiring options. What we decided to try involved replacing the tone pots with push-pulls.
Tonepot for the middle PUP now doubles as a phase switch. I am not sure this is that useful actually because of the volume drop. I am much happier with the other mod. This uses the tone pot for the neck PUP. When I activate the feature the neck PUP becomes "live" no matter what the setting of the 5-way selector switch, and the pot becomes a blend control. So I can not only have bridge and neck active at the same time, but blend in as much of the neck as I want. Mostly so far I am not using the blend - just using 100% of the PUP, but the combination is a useful one for me, adding some warmth in the low end.
Also a graphtec nut replacing the el cheapo Cort original part. So it's staying in tune better, although my uneducated caveman used-to-13s hands can still push the 11s around a fair bit and, I think, are mashing the poor thing out of tune. But bending is fun.
Here it is
And here's a close up of the PUPs
The PUPs are a distinct improvement - though more so with a better amp than I have. A nice sparkle to them, but also a bit more meat to the tone without getting into seriously hot territory.
