Tonefiend Forum

I just got one of these for free from a contest:
https://www.espguitars.com/guitars/ltd-standard-deluxe/ec-401fm.html (black aqua sunburst)

It's waiting for me back home, but since I won't be able to pick it up for a couple months, I have some time to strategize about the mod. These are sweet guitars - great looking, great neck, mahogany/flamed maple and mahogany neck with rosewood and I love the dark sustain. But I'm not a shred/metal guy and I don't really care for the emg (EMG 81/60 Active) sound so I'm going to completely redo the pickup/wiring. The fact that it's got a battery compartment and 3 knobs mean that it is primed for adding some onboard effects. It appears that there is enough space in the compartment for adding a circuit or two (here's a pic of someone else's with the plates off: https://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/macock/112_0104.jpg.

I'll open it up to the group for suggestions of what to put in this. Since it has a solid mahogany frame, I want to make this into a dark roots/blues machine. I'm usually more of a single coil guy so I'd welcome some suggestions for humbuckers or p90s that would react well to the mahogany and provide some growl without getting muddy. I'm thinking maybe a combination of P90 and Humbucker might cover some good ground. Joe's germanium boost seems like a natural complement, but again, any other suggestions would be welcome. This might be a good frame for trying a diy sustainer as well.

so, at the moment, I'm thinking of maybe humbucker neck, p90 bridge. The pots would be 1. volume/hbsplitter 2. OD-Booster 3. Bill Lawrence Q Filter.

Any ideas?

I can wholeheartedly get behind all of those suggestions. I forgot about the Pagey project. Earlier I was watching Joe's PRails demo because it was the only vid I could find of someone using fingerstyle with them.
If I go with HBs, then I'll definitely go whole hog with the wiring. I'm kinda leaning towards a P90/tron combo though at the moment. Although, Joe did pull out those sounds pretty well in the Pagey vid. It's just that I really don't care much for the core HB/PAF sound. So I'd be doing 90% of my playing in altered configurations which feels wrong somehow. Triple shots would make that easier though. Onboard distortion/boost and compression are probably my two top desired effects, but I'm open to anything.

Dual humbucker sound like any guitar depends on what you are plugging it into and through what kind of chain. I have a couple with 3 way mini switches in series/split/parallel and you would be hard put to tell me my RR V isn't a Les paul or Strat or a Tele when I so decide it should sound like one.