Have you tweaked your megatar?

[Jim_D]

I am a serial tweaker of guitars and love swapping out pickups and pots and hardware and so on, but have no desire to do this on my megatar (at the moment I am keener to master the instrument in terms of playability and at the moment the "answers" lie in my motor skills).

But I have many thoughts about hot-rod megatars and I would be interested to hear from folks who have made adjustments to theirs - I've read about midi pickups and EMGs and so on. Does anyone want to post photos and discussions/experiences of this?

[lactose]

I did a couple of pickup arrangement modifications. If you are thinking about doing this, you will likely need to make a new pickguard. Also pay attention to the location and shape of the body cavities (at least that's what my girlfriend says) when mounting knobs (wow, the jokes are flowing this morning).

The relatively low price of the Megatar let me breathe a little easier when I started changing things. Not sure I would start modding a $2500-3000 instrument

http://www.think600.com/meg_p_1.jpg

http://www.think600.com/meg_p_2.jpg

http://www.think600.com/meg_p_3.jpg

[Jim_D]

Wow, are they Duncans on the bass side?

What made you choose those?

Do they give you a thinner bass sound due to the narrower magnetic window?

Jim

[TheEclectic]

Not to sure if you are tlking about mine, but I am including a link to my Ghost Hexpander installation anyway:

http://www.tappistry.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1178

I have since completly removed the magnetic pickups and now have a spruce "pickguard".

http://themusiceclectic.lifemusicart.com/Megatar/MegaPickguard.jpg

I have a MaxTapper that I will add (2) GK-3 internal kits to in the near future. I just ain't happy without access to those Roland VG sounds...

[Jim_D]

Yes, any tweaks are included in this thread, even finishes and so on. I recall a red and a black megatar for sale on the eBay store once.

That posting was very in-depth - thanks! That whole setup is pretty radical - when did you decide to go "nude" with the pickguard and drop the magnetic pickups?

[lactose]

Wow, are they Duncans on the bass side?
What made you choose those?

Those are Carvin twin blade humbuckers. I like their pickups. I chose them because I had a couple laying around, and also because you don't have to worry about string spacing. The trade off is you can't adjust the height for individual strings though. Their C22 pickups, with 22 pole pieces would solve both of these problems.

I did not compare the sound directly to the bartolinis, but they seemed to gave enough bass, and maybe a slightly brighter sound. But you make a good point, perhaps bass pickups should be used.

[Nightmare Music]

Originally posted by Jim_D
...I recall a red and a black megatar for sale on the eBay store once...


http://www.megatar.com/documents/newsletter/AUG04-v5-i1/RedStorm-160pix.jpg

http://www.megatar.com/documents/newsletter/AUG04-v5-i1/BlackMax-160pix.jpg

those pics are from the Megatapper Newsletter Archive, August 2004 Volume 5 Issue 1

[TheEclectic]

when did you decide to go "nude" with the pickguard and drop the magnetic pickups?

Three reasons:

I hoped that the soundboard would have some acoustic properties for playing unplugged - but it did not. :rolleyes:

I could not get a balanced sound, per the "Weak Sounding High Strings" thread. Even with the piezos it is still an issue.

I did not like the look of the black pickguard on the light body.

I must admit that I find the painted Megatars to be pretty cool looking. I would have put the red with the dark neck and the black with the light neck - but that is pure atristic preferance (and it might not look as good as I see it in my head).

[PhoBucket]

Or throw a white pickguard and block inlays on the black one. that would be tasty.

[Jim_D]

Thanks for posting those pics - they are indeed the ones I recalled.

...Or throw a white pickguard and block inlays on the black one. that would be tasty.[I]

[I]...I must admit that I find the painted Megatars to be pretty cool looking. I would have put the red with the dark neck and the black with the light neck

Yes, now we're talking with the custom Megatars. Traktor, now that you have gone to neck through body construction is it possible to get a custom body colour but retain, say, a maple neck and fingerboard?

[traktor]

It's funny you should mention it.

Here's a MaxTapper Quad that we completed this week.

It is shipping out today. ...

http://www.megatar.com/ebay/inst/mt/MT-Quad-Black-032376/MT-Quad-Black-032-376-400.jpg

I think it looks great.

As you see, it has four Bartolini pickups, and the selector switches are on your left as you view it. The wood is warm-sounding African Mahogany with a wenge fretboard, which has a lovely grain, although my photography doesn't bring it out. Straplocks and the usual accessories (MegStrap, stereo output cable, two method books) are included of course.

The charcoal-colored custom Graph Tech StringSaver nut and saddles and the black finish look very sharp with the chrome hardware, I think.

In the past, as an experiment, I contracted a friend who does auto-body painting, and he sprayed the red and black instruments whose photos appeared earlier in this thread.

However, although this little test was too small to tell for sure, it appeared that the natural-finish instruments were way more popular, so I set this idea on the back-burner for a while, although in my opinion, they were very sharp looking.

In our new factory shop, however, we have our own spraybooth. At first we concentrated on improving our existing finishes (which used to be contracted out). After several weeks we found a non-toxic finishing process that produced much more transparent finishes and still protected the wood very well, so that was just great.

And now, since we have our own spraybooth, we can now offer custom colors. We started with black, because black shows any imperfection readily, and ... well, because black is really cool.

This is something new for us. We don't really have a palette of colors all laid out as an offering, but if you want one painted a particular color, you can have it.

Please remember, Mobius Megatar specializes in giving you the ability to choose from a wide selection of options so that you can have a custom-assembled instrument built to your spec, but still quite affordable. So it's natural for us to gravitate toward custom colors.

What color(s) would you like?

-- Traktor

[GaryOpenhill]

I almost tweaked it to pieces, but it survived.

I'd like a black one for sure. Maybe with gold pickups and gold hardware?

[jamsire]

Originally posted by GaryOpenhill
I almost tweaked it to pieces, but it survived.

I'd like a black one for sure. Maybe with gold pickups and gold hardware?

I'm thinking more Hello Kitty.

[Jim_D]

What color(s) would you like?

In a retro-fantasy, sea-foam green body, black 3 ply pickguard, four Gretsch filtertron pickups and a maple neck and fretboard. Fancy leather megstrap.

Optional extras would be 501's, lumberjack shirt with sleeves rolled up, converse baseball boots and two fender bassman amps with (deaf) field-mice living in the speaker cabs.

:p

[Jim_D]

GaryOpenhill : I almost tweaked it to pieces, but it survived.

Got any photos?

[PhoBucket]

How about a Megatar with a black and white Waylon Jennings style leather finish.

[traktor]

Originally posted by PhoBucket
How about a Megatar with a black and white Waylon Jennings leather finish. Well, I suppose ...

If you can catch him and skin him, I'll see what we can do.

(But maybe we shouldn't discuss this in public, you know?)

[matrix]

I have contacted several Luthiers and am looking into the possibility of having an older Megatar Neck installed on
a custom Acoustic Body.

[secondfiddle]

The black Megatar looks awesome! Nice work Traktor.

Fiddle.

[Tom Drinkwater]

Kind of like the AcouStick. That would be really cool. I have heard of issues because of string tension but that could be solved with the correct bracing and string tension. Are you thinking of a flat top or arch top? Will it be electric? Are you going to keep it a 12 string?

[matrix]

Originally posted by Tom Drinkwater
I have heard of issues because of string tension but that could be solved with the correct bracing and string tension. Are you thinking of a flat top or arch top? Will it be electric? Are you going to keep it a 12 string?

It would be a Flattop and would utilize Carbon Graphite Bracing
to support 12 strings.

It would have a combination of piezo transducers and
Acoustic Soundhole Microphone.

[Try'n2Tap]

That Red Megatar looks sweet!!! It reminds me of the RG 550's. Road Flare Red. The only way to go.

JC