BCS is proud to announce the signing of our first endorsed player Carlos Lichman. Carlos is a professional “shred” guitarist from Brazil who found us due to an incredible coincidence, the name of his debut solo album was “Firestorm”, the same as our wiring kit line designed for metal music. Carlos has been featured on multiple albums, Brazilian T.V., music festivals, and leading several workshops. Click here to check out his artist page on our website.

If you can’t find the wiring kit you need for your guitar we do make custom kits as well at reasonable prices, we will just need some information from you first and we will send you a quote. What we need are some photographs of your guitar so we can be sure to build your kit to fit.

First we will need a photo of your guitars control cavity with the original electronics in it. This will give us an idea of the amount of space in the cavity to accomodate the larger pots, caps and any specialty switches requested. If we are questioning if the parts will fit or not we will request measurements of the cavity but this is usually not required. Here is an example of the control cavity of a 1980’s SG that we did for a customer in Australia. The larger the pictures the better it is for us to see any details we may need to know in the layout or wiring.

Next we will need pictures of the front of the guitar without the knobs and a ruler next to the pot holes or pot shafts showing the distance between the pot holes, switch and jack. This will ensure a correct fit for your guitar. Here are a couple of examples from some customers.

This next example came from a customer that wanted to change his setup on his Dearmond Starfire. He wanted to switch his setup to a master volume and master tone and then move the switch toward the rear in one of his tone holes.

We will also need to know if you want this made as a Vintage series, Firestorm series or Standard series. The differences between these series is mainly the type of wiring (modern or vintage), type of wire (Shielded or cloth covered), capacitors (Vitamin T oil filled or MOJO Dijon) and whether it has a volume mod or not. Please check our different lines of kits and our components tell us which line you would like your kit built to.

We will need to know any special requests such as push pull pots for coil tapping or wiring your switch as a kill switch.

If you have a wiring diagram you wish us to follow then send that as well. Please email the desired kit type, photos and any diagrams or measurements to customerservice@bcsguitars.com and we will send you a quote.

     The Vintage and Firestorm line of Les Paul wiring kits are finally for sale and have replaced all of our previous LP kits. These lines will be the core of all of our products to come with a Vintage and/or Firestorm version available for each of our future kits.  The Next kits to be offered soon will be a Vintage kit for the ES335 and both the Vintage and Firestorm models for the SG and select ESP/LTD Models. We will also gladly custom build a kit for your guitar just contact us for details. – Bill

     Soon we will be adding the BCS Vintage and Firestorm kits to our website and ebay store for sale. These kits are designed to help reach a specific tone or feel that will better compliment your choice of pickups.

     The Vintage is designed to help get that fat, warm sound out of your pickups that is associated with the great guitars of the past. Great for blues, classic rock and hard rock. The Firestorm is built for High gain pickups used for Metal or anyone looking for a big modern sound that would be described more as bright then warm.

     The Vintage is the upgraded version of the LPK1 (the LPK1 will go away). It will still use the Shielded wiring, CTS pots, Switchcraft Switch and jack and Vitamin T capacitors but we are adding Volume Mods to it as well. A volume mod is a 220K resistor in parallel with a 470pf capacitor on the volume pots that keeps the presence of your tone as you turn your volume down or up. This will be added to both the neck and bridge volume controls. The price for the Vintage will remain at $69.95

     The Firestorm is the upgraded version of our Complete LP Kit (which will go away as well). It will still use the CTS pots, Switchcraft Switch and jack, Solid core conductor wires and 18 gauge ground wires but we are switching the Vitamin T caps with the Mojo Dijon Caps and also adding the volume mods to this as well. This configuration with the Dijon Caps and solid core conductors make the presence of the pickups a little brighter and are better for high gain pickups being used for Metal for that cutting guitar sound. The firestorm still retains the full body and added volume that the vintage does but it is just a little brighter than the Vintage. The Firestorm will sell for $64.95.

     The Vintage and Firestorm will become the two lines for which we will build all of our kits for (i.e. Vintage LP, Firestorm SG, Ibanez Firestorm etc…).  We will also be offering unassembled versions of all of these kits as well for about $10.00 less than their assembled versions.

     The LP, SG, ES335 and ESP/LTD for specific models are ready to go at this time and can be ordered on special request. We will be putting up the LP versions for sale in the next week followed by the others in the following weeks with versions for the Strat, Tele, and specific models of Jackson and Ibanez already in the works.

     If you are interested in any of these just email us at customerservice@bcsguitars.com with any orders, questions or requests for audio clips or pictures. Click on the pictures and then zoom in to get a good look at the new kits.

Cheers,

Bill

    

     If you’re new to the world of Do-It-Yourself guitar repair and upgrading then you may be wondering why you should buy a wiring kit for your guitar when your guitar already works. If you just want a guitar that works and makes sound, then by all means leave the stock electronics in your guitar, but if you want something that sounds great, a tone that will bring you inspiration and release your inner muse, then you need to know that your stock electronics simply will not do. Replacing cheap factory wiring with choice high grade electronics will make your guitar sound bigger, more detailed and give it more bite and soul. Import guitars have gotten much better over the years, they play very well and look great but they still use sub standard electronics which leave the guitars sounding weak and thin. This is not just an import issue though, most guitar companies use cheap electronics in their guitars to cut production costs (we have opened up $1,500.00 guitars that had about $3.50 worth of electronics inside). If you want to breathe new life and attitude into your guitar and give your pickups what they need to perform their best, then installing a high quality guitar kit is your first/best step to optimal guitar tone.

     That’s right, for your pickups to perform their best then they need the best to feed them. You can change out your stock pickups with a $200.00 set up pickups and even though they will sound better, they won’t sound as good as they could. It’s all about the transfer of electricity in your guitar. Pickups create an electromagnetic field that picks up the vibration of your strings and the resonations of the wood of your guitar and sends it through your guitars controls and out the jack as an electronic signal. Cheap electrical components do not allow for a very good flow of electricity and as a result you end up with a thin, weak signal that does not read the full strength of the notes or all the subtle vibrations from the strings or the body of the guitar.

     Higher quality components that allow for better electrical transfer can change even crummy sounding stock pickups into something that’s not half bad. Using solid core wiring instead of hair thing braided wiring will help tremendously in your electrical transfer. Even an 18 gauge stranded wire with thick strands is far better than the hair thin stranded wire that is standard in most guitars. Changing out your ceramic disk “pancake” or “chicklet” looking capacitors with Oil Filled dielectric or other higher quality capacitors will help shape your tone and make it sound bigger. Plus changing your volume and tone pots with a heavier duty pot will make your controls last a lot longer and help your tone sound fuller and more detailed. (Keep checking back in our Guitar Guts section for better explanations of each of these components, how they work and how they will help improve your guitar.)

      At BCS our goal is to provide our customers with high quality guitar kits to help them get the maximum tone out of their guitar without breaking the bank. We have designed our kits to give you the most bang for your buck without compromising the tone and dependability of your guitar. You can find several “kits” on ebay that are cheaper than ours but the components are nowhere near as dependable or will offer as much tone enhancement. Some will have some good components like a Switchraft jack or CTS pots but the rest of the components are sub quality parts. Other brand name kits cost more than ours with the same components or lower quality parts. Here our prices are lower because as a family owned and operated business we have less overhead and our profits are our wages, so we do not need to pay additional staff and ourselves. This allows us to charge our customers less and still make a profit that keeps our family fed.  Win/Win. 

     Some kits cost A LOT of money for either truly vintage parts or repro parts. Some people feel that this is the only way to get the best tone (hey, to each their own) and if they have the money and the means to justify it, then more power to them. In our opinion the difference in cost is not justified by the difference in tone. Each person must decide for themselves how much they want to pay for how much of improvement in tone. We believe that our kits offer the best option available, the most amount of tone for a reasonable amount of money.

-Bill-