Sad Steinberger

I bought this modified Steinberger Spirit GT-Pro from a Facebook advert in a fit of enthusiasm. It was slightly cheap and fitted with a single EMG 81TW pickup.

From the photos I saw it wasn't clear how bad the paint job was, it's got that 'rattle can from Halfords' thing going on really badly and it's been covered too heavily.

The infill of the pickup cavities is not good, being slightly below the paint surface so you can still see the outline. This is something that takes care to get right, so I'm not surprised.

Also, the EMG has been miswired in some way so that the 9V battery flattens over time despite using their quick connect pot and looking to be connected up with the battery wired to a stereo jack socket. Even with a new battery the output seemed weak.

As a whole I was deeply disappointed with the guitar. It doesn't even play that nicely and desperately needs a setup. So I put it in storage and ignored it for a year.

Yesterday I got a burst of enthusiasm to start looking at some of my guitar projects again and pulled it out. After a little messing around I swapped in a Kent Armstrong MB215K, new pot and jack socket.

The pickup is nominally a neck pickup but it's an absurdly overwound high output thing I picked up in a job lot. This has made the guitar serviceable again but it now desperately needs that setup. If I like it after this I may tidy up the nasty refinish, but to be honest its role is to be a travel guitar so there's no need for it to be perfect.

The reason I bought this in the first place is I had a half formed plan to use the filled in space to fit the internals of a Zoom G1on and make it a self contained practice tool. At one point I was travelling a lot and this would be a crossover with my electronics hobby work. First I need to make it work nicely as a guitar though.