One of the key differences between a 200 dollar guitar and a 800 dollar guitar is the quality of their pickups. There are other differences, such as body material, tunning peg quality, and overall craftsmanship, but none of those has as big of effect on your sounds as your pickups.

When you buy a low end bass guitar or electric guitar the stock pickups are going to be noisy and unclean sounding. Kind of like a low bit rate mp3. Swapping those pickups out for a quality set will make the world of a difference. A set of pickups can cost between 70 and 240 dollars, but luckily the low end pickups are acutall as good as quality as a 600 dollar guitars pickups. Still quite the upgrade.

The basic steps to replacing pickups are

1. Unscrew the old pickups
2. Unsolder the pickup wires from the guitar
3. Screw in the new pickups
4. Solder the new pickup wires in(follow your pickups instructions)
5. Done!

Not the hardest thing to do in the world, but the soldering can be a bit tricky. If you have trouble, there are plenty of guitar shops that will install your pickups for a reasonable price.

Another suggestions with low end guitars and bass guitars is to replace the tunning pegs. Inexpensive tunning pegs are sticky and have a tendency to come out of tune fast. Replacing them with a new set cost next to nothing and will make tunning your guitar a lot easier.

Remember most guitars and bass guitars under 600 dollars are made out of the same body material. That means replacing the pickups and tuners on your guitar can have it competing with a guitar twice it’s price overnight.

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