The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

Being that we have alot of guitar techs in the forum, that like to work on their own guitars, I'd like to know what is the best modification or change you've ever made to an Uncle Matt guitar?

Did the mod make the guitar a better guitar?

Was it worth the cost?

Would you do it again?

Did you do the work yourself?

OK, so let's hear about it!

Well, in most cases almost anything you do to a Matsumoku guitar makes it worse, not better! This goes for pickups, tuners, electronice, etc, etc- most of the things you's normally consider upgrading. So my first preference if possible is to go original! If you want a guitar that's got some other feature it doesn't already have, why not get another guitar? :)

Having said that, I really do like replacing a 3-way with a blend pot, but dual volumes will get you the same results, so I suppose it's just a UI change :) On guitars without phase reverse, I like to hardwire the bridge pup out of phase. Ditto coil tap- that's a must-have, but almost all my Matt guitars have that already.

On my first Electra Phoenix the intonation drove me crazy- if I even touched the Tek-glide bridge it went out of tune, so i finally installed a locking nut- just as was done on later models come 85. Now I can live without it, but at the time it seemed vital.

Wow, I'm thinking hard and there's very little I can think of that isn't already there! OK, the strap. On my primary players I often replace the strap buttons with a screwed-onDimarzio strap, so there's zero chance of slipping and 100% chance that there'll be a strap on when I pick it up!

So OK, my vote is for the strap upgrade, no question.

I guess I have been lucky in that any of the modifications I have made to any of mine nearly always resulted in improvement.

I will say seldom have I modified anything until I was absolutely positive I planned to keep it or it was damaged necessitating some kind of modification.

Pickups are a matter of taste. I've had in the neighborhood of 60-70 Westones over the years and prefer the pickups in the very early and later Aria Pro II. Part of this may be due to my preference in tone and genre. I'm not one to play clean very often.

The saddles on some of the Westone and Aria Pro II guitars such as trem saddles and those awful cast things on the CS series have been something that over the years has been routinely replaced.

Some time ago (10-15 years) I played around with blend pot configurations and for me this was more useful on a guitar equipped with less than independent volume and tone for each pickup. The blend pot gave the guitar a whole new range of voices that just a switch could not.

The dual V and dual T on an HH guitar when wired opposite a Gibson (truly independent volume settings) is far more flexible though and the loss of output at center is a con. I will say the blend post back then were nothing like they are today and much harder to find.

Many of my guitars I have converted to series/parallel as this is better suited to my rig and style. Coil cut for me was better for clean or slightly dirty and this a far cry from my norm.

As far as permanent changes or modifications go I've done only a few, and these were unaviodable.

Pickups and wiring are by far the most frequent modifications I have made. When I was positive I was happy with the change on the confirmed keeper I let the old pickups go to someone else.

On my Cardinals I replace the bridge with an aftermarket and used the old bride in the neck position.

The Vantage VSH-455 lost it's stock pickups and a set of Protomatic IIIs from a CS-350 went ito it with fantastic improvement.

Other modifications include different tone capacitors or dual capacitors.

Funny, I'd have to say the strap pegs, too! Some kind of strap locks on each, possibly even differing strap locks on each of my Uncle Mats come to think of it.

Tuners on the Vantage Avengers seem cheap, but still work after ~20 years of ownership, so they're fine I guess...toggle switch on the 12-string busted...pickups on the Cat Bass are now EMGs, but only 'cause the old ones crapped out...I've gone through maybe 5 OEM bridges on the Avengers, but only 'cause I'm brutal to them...they really just seem to work for me as is.

One old Avenger was hot rodded, gave it to a friend: blue mirrored pickguard, Duncan humbucker at the neck, Fat Strat pickup at the bridge, gloss black finish, Schaller tuners I think. Interesting, cool looking.

Put a Kahler on a 2-p'up Avenger once, bad move. Sorry, that statement probably made at least one member here cringe. Worked OK overall, sounded a bit hollow & tinny after, though.

Mostly the Uncle Mats have taught me what mods to make to my OTHER guitars- coil taps!

Oh, yeah, this'll REALLY make members here cringe- a friend of mine had picked up a very vandalized Vantage (I'd guess a VS600 maybe?)- he ended up sawing off the body's "wings" to make like a Steinberger body, modded the headstock like a banana shape, re-configured the tuners so they came out the back like a banjo. He'd carve styrofoam "wings" to different shapes & paint it all different colors for each gig, then either bust off/chew off/cut off parts of the body during the show. He played it in a music video that hit TV, though...not sure if I have any good pics of it.

je

My 83 Casino had many changes made to it when I bought it: new Gotoh nylon saddle bridge, new bone nut, old Grover 108C tuners, and a Gibson ES-345 trapeze tailpiece. I have no idea what is was like before, but it plays very nice now. The only mistake made is that the nut was uncut and whoever installed it cut the high E too close to the neck edge. I've already got a new one on the way.

BTW, P-90s are original and just beautiful sounding. And man, do I love running them through a Boss OD-3 overdrive. I can cut through anything.

I have a les paul uncle matt
I changed all the electrics with dimarzio switch pots and musicap caps semore duncan pickups and a better toggle switch.
Im going to replace the bridge
Sadly Im going to have to replace the neck too.