I am the Dad of a 7 year old guitarist (he's getting pretty good) and His first electric guitar was a mini squire. I have changed out the bridge and tuning keys and now I want to give it the ability to become a 'shredding" machine.
I would like to start with a humbucker and go from there but since I do not have a clue as to what I am doing I need you guy's to help me. What can I do to this thing so my son has a very cool guitar. I would like to know everything from pick guards to pickups. I have searched the net and come up pretty much empty. I don't trust the local big city guitar shop. Some body out there must have a idea or two. Thanks guys

POoutlaw, if the guitar is comfortable for him to play I would just stick with it for now as his hands are small. You could swap out the pickups for a set of Dimarzio FAST TRACKS that are stacked hummbuckers which would give him the power you need and could also have the action lowered.You seem to be grooming a lil shredder just some advice let the kid be a kid and dont force the guitar on him. I did this with my youngest son when he was 8 and he was not ready and I would get a lil mad but I waited till he came to me at 11 and said he wanted to play and 8 months later he is doing great. I wish him the best.

Thanks straycat113, I started him out on Guitar because has has pretty severe ADHD and was having a really hard time reading in school. Music seems to be helping him find focus but we go slow and we always have fun. I do not put any pressure on him and we use practice more as a bonding experience than anything. I never tell him you have to learn this by such and such time. Usually it's the other way around, he will get stuck on something and start to get frustrated and I will tell him to take a break. He also has one of the mellowest teachers I have ever seen. A very cool teacher and nice guy. In fact if you are starting out and live in Houston you should look him up. He only has a little stuff on the net but you can find him here
http://instrumentalcase.com/jasonblack.aspx
Anyway I will encourage my kid all I can as long as he is into it and if he wants the baddest guitar in the second grade then I will do what I can to give it to him. He is a really great kid and try's really hard. I think he will stay with this and if not I guess we will have to try out those darn Drums.

Great to hear outlaw, kind of the situation I am having with my lil guy not doing good in school compared to his brother who just got elected president of his high school.But talents lie in differant areas and it is cool both our kids are interested in music. I tell my older son who is hard on him because of school that if your brother ever makes it in music with one hit song you would have to work 10 years with a great job to see money like that.lol

Hi POoutlaw, welcome to the Forum.

Whether single-coils, single-coil-sized stacked humbuckers, full-sized humbuckers, high output Lace Sensors or similarly high output EMGs - for shredding you need pickups with high output. You're looking for something over 10k, I guess - and I've just given you a list to get Googling with.

Though there's shredders that use low output pickups too, probably not a million miles from what you have in there already. Yngwie Malmsteen's guitars have relatively low output single-coil pickups in them, if memory serves.

So I wouldn't get too obsessed with changing the pickups unless you have a particular flavor in mind.

At least as important is what this guitar is getting plugged into, which you haven't told us. You need gain and distortion. Thousands of options to choose from, but something like a Boss distortion pedal would get the lad started. Even here there's choices, but something with the word "Distortion" on it from this page would be a great next step:

http://www.bossus.com/gear/productlist.php?ParentId=90

Or for a few bucks more the DigiTech Distortion Factory pedal gives a whole range of drive to distortion sounds to play with - and learn from:

http://www.digitech.com/products/Pedals/DF7.php

That one's lots of fun, I happen to know...

Any use?

Cheers - C

OK when I got the guitar I bought him a little Fender 15G amp which is OK for learning chords and scales on but we will be changing that very soon. I would like something small that will fit in his room but with a big kick. I really have not looked into that too much yet because I'm still working on the guitar. As for distortion pedals. I like the looks of that Digitech. (I just convinced my wife the other day that he needed one) so that has now been put n the list. Straycat, this is what I think so far
Bridge Fast track 2
Middle Fast Track 1
Neck The Chopper
All are from Dimarzio. Do you see any problems that I may have with this combo? Thanks guys