Cheap guitar, expensive pickups, can it work?
It depends what you call expensive, but pickup changes can definitely help.
Pickups will change the tone of your guitar, but they won’t on their own turn you into the next Tony Iommi. That takes practice, practice, and even more practice. And a shedload of raw talent.
I’ve got a Squier Affinity Strat, definitely a cheap guitar at two hundred quid. I quickly realised that the music I like to play, stoner rock and metal, isn’t really suited to single coil pickups, unless you’re a Hendrix or a Blackmore, which I’m not.
There was no way I could change my guitar, as it was a present from the Mrs, so as well as changing the pickguard to a more scary black one, I changed (well, paid someone to do it for me) the pickups for a three piece strat set of hot rails, which cost me about the same as guitar did.
So for just under five hundred quid (two hundred from the Mrs for the guitar, and two fifty from me for the pickups) I’ve got the sound and the tone that I want, thanks to the pickups and lots of jiggery-pokery with my Hotone Ampero. However, my playing itself will be all down to me and how much practice I can put in when I’m not at work.
But let’s face it, I’m still a long way from ever making it as third guitarist in Saxon.
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