Why Upgrade Hardware?

Written by: James Krueger On: Dec 6th, 2018

Here at Solo Guitars, we have probably the best selection of aftermarket guitar parts in the country.  It has taken us some time to get to this point….endless negotiations, last minute deals, product reviews and research….there is literally a puddle of sweat under our desks at any given time.  Ok, that might be exaggerating a bit, but the question regularly comes up…. why is there such a big market for aftermarket parts?

Obviously when you buy a guitar at a store, or a kit from Solo Guitars, it comes with all the hardware in place to make the guitar playable and/or give it the ability to be amplified.  It’s been that way since the 50’s when Fender and Gibson made the electric guitar available in mass numbers to the public.  So like anything else in the world, the hardware on a guitar is susceptible to failure or breakage.  This is the first and most obvious reason for having replacement parts.  Whether a part on your guitar stops working the way it should, or in some cases when these parts break, Solo Guitars have replacement parts either from the manufacturer or a high quality OEM company to bring your baby back to life.

Now, the second reason; and the more exciting as far as I am concerned, finds its roots back in the 60’s when aftermarket pickups became available for the first time.  Pioneers in this field like Larry Dimarzio, Seymour Duncan and Bill Lawrence felt they could exceed the abilities of the pickups supplied by the manufacturers.  This began a trend of upgrading and customizing instruments that has grown to this day.  So here at Solo, we have amassed a collection of parts that allow you to do exactly that!

There are several avenues you can take, either you want to improve the quality of your instrument, or possibly just change the cosmetics or both.  Just browse the parts catalogue on our Solo website and you will find tuners at various ratios and styles, bridges and control plates of varying colours and style, pickups and pre-wired pick-guards that allow even the novice to change or improve the sound and tone of their instrument. Depending on what parts you change, you may even improve the ability to intonate your guitars. Some of the vintage bridges and tuners are fairly crude and did not have to deal with the precision of today’s recording and playing environments, so you might change tuners or bridges to achieve better intonation.

There is a ton of information out there on the net that either describe the latest tech trend, or your favourite artist’s setups.  Having a one-stop location to research and purchase all the parts you require to achieve your dreams is our mission!  On top of that we have the blog, to which you can address questions to, or just call in and our friendly customer service people will help direct you in the right direction, for the dream setup you are searching for!