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I have a AR810CE.
I know upgrading the pickup to a handwound KA and changing the tone/volume is common.
What about the bridge to something a bit more substantial. Add or subtract tone?
Or the tailpiece? It's a wee but cheesy with the ebony tail glommed onto a metal tailpiece in order to imitate a Benedetto. But it is functional. Anyone changed to a real Benedetto or other wood tailpiece?
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03-25-2014 03:45 PM
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I put a bound tortoise pickguard on my 805 (courtesy of archtop.com), and got rid of the pickup.
I had another Eastman, an early 2003 810CE, a while back and put a DeArmond Guitar Mic on it, as well as a bound tortoise guard. At one point I also had a K&K pure archtop transducer installed under the top, and ran a stereo output - electric on one side, acoustic on the other. The neck went south after 5 or so years, and they replaced it. The replacement 810CE is still in factory condition. For a while, they had a much more traditional shaped bound, ebony pickguard, and although they have moved back to Chuck-Wayne style guard, I had them put one of the old ones on there.
For the new 810, I've thought about swapping the pickup for a KA adjustable single coil, and if I were going to do that, I'd definitely get a bound tortoise guard made as well.
As for the tailpieces, my understanding was they liked the look of the Benedetto tailpiece, but couldn't get the cello-style guard to sound good. Plus, I think it suits the acoustic projection better to have a metal based tailpiece.
I'm not a Benedetto-style guy, so I've been thinking about replacing the tailpiece on my 805 for probably 10 years now, and I've just never gotten around to it. My particular 805 was cherry-picked at the warehouse by the rep at the time, and it's something truly special. If anything, I'd put a standard gold "trapezoid" tailpiece, like an L-50 pr ES-150.
Perhaps the thing that would be most useful, though, is to replace these goddam imperial tuners. It would be so much easier to have a peg that would actually fit a string winder.
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Interesting.
I like the bound ebony(?) pickguard it came with so I'll leave it alone.
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The only thing I did was replace the amber knobs with ebony ones, which suit my guitar's looks much better. I'm leaving everything else stock, everything feels solid and I like how the KA pickup sounds.
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Professor, Wow! What a difference just changing the knob color made. Those black knobs really do make your guitar look much better. Just goes to show, sometimes the most inexpensive customization has the biggest bang.
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Like the Professor, I did the knob replacement thing too on my AR403 to rosewood knobs to match the pickguard and tailpiece. I did also replace the electronics though...pickup to a Classic 57 and new pots, jack, wiring, etc. In hindsight, the electronics switch was only a minor improvement to me but at least I now know it's higher quality parts, wiring, etc.
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I put TI GB114s on my AR371--does that count?
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Hey Prof, the blue Eastman looks great. What model is that ?. I don't see any venetians with split parallelogram inlays on their website.
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It was meant to be a Norman Brown signature, but in the end the idea was cancelled for reasons I ignore. The model was released anyway and became the AR580CE. I don't know why it is not advertised on the Eastman site though, that is strange. They are not very common it seems, as few stores sell it and the blue model seems even less common than the honey colored one.
Originally Posted by pubylakeg
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+1 for the change of knobs. I got some fantastic hand turned exotic ebony ones on mine.
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Dan,
What brand are those pickups?
Thanks,
Jerome
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Here's an El Rey 2 I purchased that had suffered a shipping accident. It had a broken headstock, crack around the neck block, lots of scuffs, and had been stripped of all electronics and hardware, except for the tail piece. A luthier friend of mine brought it back to playing condition. I wanted to try Seymour Duncan PRails, and I really dig them. This is a great bebop guitar.
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Lace Alumitones, really digging them. I prefer them to the slightly middly Armstrongs. It's an open sounding guitar as it's all solid wood so the Alumitones bring a little more bass and a beautiful transparent treble. I'm going to fit them to my Ibanez AS153 soon too. Originally Posted by monk
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the eastman tailpiece is superior to the benedetto (held on to tailpin by a string) tailpiece. Originally Posted by DRS
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Thanks. Originally Posted by Foulds Jazz Guitars
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They sound good on your video, it would be great to hear them live at Trefor's Guitar Club. Originally Posted by Foulds Jazz Guitars
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someone said you had clips of these? Originally Posted by Foulds Jazz Guitars
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Bear in mind this is a very acoustic sounding guitar (and you're not hearing 100% amp sound on the vid)
The difference will be greater on my Ibanez when I upgrade those to Alumitones soon.
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thanks dan, sounds middy / nasally to my ear. But then again, if that's an x-braced eastman, they sound that with with the stock pickups but I hear a predominance of midrange that to my ear is not pleasing.
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Yeah it's not a thick laminate sound for sure. I'm going to put one in a laminate archtop one day soon, that should be interesting.
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that would be a good test. Is it a standard humbucker mount?
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Yes, it's a weird looking design as there's virtually nothing under the cover but they fit in standard HB mountings
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...and lastly I couldn't resist the decal as I am a mod at heart!
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I've been very interested in low impedance designs (Low Z), they seem to have a very distinctive acoustic quality, there's been a lot of information on the building of these Low Z pickups on the music electronics forum, there's was also a nice looking one built in the UK. Originally Posted by Foulds Jazz Guitars
Low Impedance Pickup Research - Page 4
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I put a Pete Biltoft Vintage Vibe 'bucker sized P90 in my AR371. And changed the knobs to a less reddish hue.
nice.
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