Seriously, what's it been? 2... 3 weeks since a drop? I remember when they were monthly but they been spoiling us this summer.

Great guitar. Did a basic set up on it and changed the bridge.

Haven’t plugged in yet but it plays well out of the box and has a certain charm to it.

Hey folks! Wanted to share my modded FFDB as well as some thoughts on the stock instrument. I’ve been wanting to mod a firebird-style guitar for a while now, and decided to pull the trigger on an FFDB since the price is relatively low compared to an Epiphone or Gibson. The guitar came in earlier this week, and I’ve been having a blast putting everything together.

Stock

I messed around with the guitar a little bit before pulling it apart. I noticed a few things off the bat:

1. It is the incredibly lightweight. The guy at the FedEx store who grabbed the box commented that it weighed a lot less than he expected, and there was a part of me that was wondering if they forgot to pack the guitar in the box while I was driving home. Nope, it just doesn’t weigh a lot. It’s probably the lightest guitar I own. Nevertheless, it feels durable.
2. Firefly must have changed the pickups they’re using in these. In the pics on the website and in posts I’ve seen about the guitar, it seems like they have used mini-humbuckers in the past. The pickups in mine don’t have visible pole pieces, which makes me wonder if they might be actual firebird pickups. I haven’t bothered to open them up yet, and they don’t have any markers on the back indicating what they could be, so I don’t know for sure. They are very low output and don’t sound particularly good, but that could be a byproduct of the wiring, which I’ll touch on later.
3. Fit and finish is fantastic. Very impressed with the fretwork, and the guitar itself looks great. I’m always a little wary of burst finishes on cheaper guitars since they have a tendency to look not-so-great, but I really like this one. The guitar was very playable after tuning.
4. The stock wiring was not great. There was at least one joint that had come undone while shipping, maybe more (didn’t bother to check). Interestingly, Firefly used linear taper pots for the volume pots and audio taper for the tones. I think this was also the case on an FFSP I got a few years ago. The pots themselves feel cheap. Definitely worth upgrading if you buy one of these.
5. When I ordered the FFDB, I had planned on putting a Firebird pickguard on it. I saw people talking about how they weren’t quite the same size but assumed that they’d be close enough that I could make minor alterations to it to get it to fit. Nope. The FFDB pickguard is tiny compared to the Firebird, and the holes don’t line up at all. You’d be better off getting a blank and working with that.

Mods

1. Swapped out the bridge, stoptail, strap buttons, and tuners for gold ones. I grabbed all of these used, so they were pretty cheap. The stock bridge and tuners were fine, and I would have kept them if I hadn’t wanted the aesthetic change. The Gotoh lefty tuners dropped right in.
2. Routed the body for P90s. I wanted a P90 in the bridge, so I had to do that route. I decided to do the neck as well for aesthetic reasons (minihumbucker rings look cool). Not my best routing, but it’s whatever. I 3D printed the template and stuck it to the body with double sided tape. My first go, I didn’t use enough tape, so it shifted a bit. I ended up 3D printing pickup mounts to screw into the cavities to make it easier to attach the pickups. Firefly’s routes were super deep and messy (bridge was like 35mm), so the mounts helped deal with that.
3. Swapped out the pickups. I used a Mojotone hot quiet coils in the bridge and an Epiphone firebird pickup I got off EBay in the neck.
4. Cut a new pickguard. My original plan was to use an anodized Firebird pickguard I got, but as previously mentioned, the size was way off. I thought I could cut it down, but that wound up being a huge pain I didn’t want to deal with. I ended up cutting an old scratched up record I had lying around. I used a heat gun yo soften it followed by scissors and a utility knife to cut it. Finally I sanded down the edges. Vinyl is super prone to warping when cutting it that way, so it was hard to get it super clean. I’m mildly happy with the results. Having “temple of doom” written on a guitar seems rad to me though, so I’m going to ignore the imperfections.
5. Swapped out the wiring. I used 500k volume pots (with push pull on one for series/parallel switching) and Tbx pots for tone. I reused the toggle switch that came with the guitar and swapped the jack for a puretone.

Verdict

This thing rips. This is my second Firefly, and I’m once again blown away by the playability. The Epiphone Firebird pickup sounds great in the neck, especially with the volume lowered and the tone pot cranked up. Very clear and articulate. The P90 sounds fantastic as well. I had heard good things about the non-hot version of the pickup, and only went with this one because I found a good deal on it used. I’m glad I got this version though, it really sounds fantastic.

I'm liking it so far. Real nice guitar. The neck pickup is slightly meh in my tastes. What pickups have you folks used for upgrades?

PRS burst

Just received my PRS burst 🤩
initial impressions are very good 👍
I love the neck and the pickups are just fine. Just wanted to post a few pics because on the online site it’s more of a darker berry burst. The abalone dots are very nicely done. The tuner’s are the only thing I will replace.
Pleased 👍👍

I mainly play bass and never owned b it have played many SGs. So had to give it a go and man those pearl inlays are pretty rad.

It's kinda stupid nice for $226 shipped. And uhh the Set up is fret buzz free. 🤯

On weekends, first thing I do when I wake up is hop on FB Marketplace for a quick look. I saw this FFTL Ghost posted only an hour prior. Seller only wanted $100. Got there in about an hour. Guitar looked brand new. I'm very happy with it!