Hello everyone.
I just bought an Epiphone Embassy and love the feel, playability, weight, and looks of it, but don’t like the tuners. They feel sloppy. I want to replace them with Gotoh Compact Bass Tuners. I read a review by another Embassy owner who said the Gotoh’s were “solid, beefy, and held tune”.
My question is: How easy (hard) is it to change out the stock tuners with the Gotohs?
Thank you in advance for your input.
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Changing tuners is not really hard. That said, unless they’re drop-in tuners, i.e., they use the exact same screw holes as the ones you’re replacing, you could need to drill new screw holes.
I have some Gotohs on an acoustic guitar, but not on any basses. @howard knows about Gotohs for bass.
In the meantime, do a search for the tuners you’re thinking about and check out the screw hole patterns on their plates to see how similar/different they are to your current tuners.
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Screw holes are the most important for ease of drop in for sure.
Next is bushings, you can choose to leave the ones that are in the holes there (easy) or swap them out with the new ones that come with the new tuners if needed (color, sizing with tuning peg, etc). You will need something round that fits just in the hole that can be hammered on top pop the bushings out gently. And a rawhide/leather etc hammer to put the new ones back (again, or just leave the old ones there, I’ve don’t both).
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Screw holes would be the second most important criteria - first is shaft diameter (yes, size matters). There’s a couple standards and some oddballs.
https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/tuner-sizes/
(guitar article, same is true on bass).
Screw holes are #2 there (man this post is hard to avoid innuendo in) but yeah are a close second.
All reputable manufacturers should have specs easily available for the above. For example, with Gotoh’s page:
tap on “dimensions”.
Gotoh makes excellent hardware, MIJ quality. Hipshot makes great tuning machines as well, but only the USA domestic ones; their international ones are cast zinc, avoid.
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Thank you! Great information!I’ll compare dimensions.
I found a set for $48.
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Assuming you have the right size tuners to drop in it should be easy and can be done with a crescent wrench and a screwdriver. Just don’t overtighten anything. Everything needs to be just snug and the keys need to move smoothly and not feel too stiff. Most tuners have cheap plastic washers that can be broken if you overtighten the pegs to the tuner. The ferrule shouldn’t be over torqued either for fear of cracking the headstock around the hole or striping threads. Other than that have at it and enjoy the new tuners.
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