Having a new guitar built! Suggestions welcome.

[Jovianknight]

Well, sort of. Awhile back, I went to Toronto to visit a friend who goes to school there. He lives in student housing, and many people move in and out there. One guy who lived there and had since moved on left behind a left-handed electric guitar with case. As luck would have it, I happen to play left-handed guitar. So anyway, I have the guitar, which is in pretty bad shape... It's chipped down to the actual wood at one point, and definitely need a new paint job. It has new pickups though. I'm bringing it to the store soon to see what they can do for it (I'd never be able to fix it myself, so don't bother suggesting that... haha), and to see how much it will cost.

Are there any cool switches/ideas/really odd suggestions that I can have done? So far all I've decided is that I want to paint it a shiny metallic green type color.

I know Matt Bellamy of Muse actually has a pedal built into his guitar, so crazy things of that sort can be done. If anyone has anything to say, I'd really love to hear. If this actually goes through, I will post before and after pictures.

Edit - I hope this is in the right forum... I have The Jam Session bookmarked and have never actually ventures outside of this forum.

[cgecko1219]

Goes more in the guitar forum, but I dont really care.

As for ideas, you should try a killswitch or phase switching or something like that. Also built in effects would be cool, kinda like clapton's mid boost or brian may's treble boost. As an added punch, you could also get a piezo installed for versatility. As for Matt Bellamy, I am pretty sure that the pedal you speak of is a MIDI setup, which are cool, but I dont really like using them.

These modifications will run you a good couple hundred, however...about 70% of that cost will be the piezo though.

[Jovianknight]

Bellamy has a Fuzz Factory built into his guitar. Maybe his pedal-board has some midi stuff on it, but I dunno. It's used for stuff like the intro to Plug-in Baby.

Anyway, what exactly is a kill-switch? And a piezo? I'm intrigued!

[airborne50caliber]

a piezoelectric pickup uses properties of certain crystals (They generate tiny voltages when oscillating under sound)

[moaner]

I'd give you all the ideas i had for mione but then mine won't be special when i build it :D

pedals in guitars are fun, but be prepared to add extra knobs in, the scratchplate can get cluttered.

[cgecko1219]

Piezo pickup systems dectect the vibration from your strings to and simulate an acoustic gutiar from your electric, almost always better than any modeler pedal or anything like that. You need a preamp and usually an extra input jack for your guitar...I dont know how to setup a piezo while utilizing one jack for both the piezo and magnetic pickups...

A killswitch does what it says...it disconnects the signal and cuts off all noise by flipping a switch or pushing a button...probably the easiest mod to make, not costly either. Check out Tom Morello and Buckethead for some exapmles. Also works with a les paul type setup, where you set one pickup to max vol. and the other volume you roll all the way back, so that one switch pos. is silent. Nikki Syxx has a killswitch on his bass too, I think.

Ebay usually has some great things for onboard effects and stuff

[moaner]

Piezo pickup systems dectect the vibration from your strings to and simulate an acoustic gutiar from your electric, almost always better than any modeler pedal or anything like that. You need a preamp and usually an extra input jack for your guitar...I dont know how to setup a piezo while utilizing one jack for both the piezo and magnetic pickups...

it'd be an easy job with a toggle switch.

or, you could take the ott slash approach, and have a double neck electro acoustic/electric.

that'd be so **** useful.

[cgecko1219]

I guess, but itd be hell to play that all the time