getting best tone out of a shite guitar

[Sage]

Go a guage heavier with your strings...

Yep. Use as thick as you can possibly can, the sound really improves and fiddle with pickup heights, plenty of variation to be found there.

Taking the guitar to a pro won't necessarily improve the sound, just how it plays unless you know what you are after.

And the single most important thing about guitar sounds and somehow not been mentioned is the amps, any pedals you use have more impact on your overall sound than the guitar itself!

[ghostly]

why not use the acoustic?

just because its acoustic doesn't mean you can not add what ever effects you want

Yeah, I've used my acoustic in the past with all sorts of effects but my home studio is next to the nursery and I work mainly with cans well into the night so gotta be shhhhhhhhhhh.

As for all the other comments, I put in heavier gauge strings and that has made an enormous difference as has optimising the input levels, tone wise all the strings are there or thereabouts and to be honest the tone is pretty nice (never gonna be gorgeous). The guitar is still prone to going out of tune pretty easily though and the high E is a few dB lower than the other strongs which I hope I can sort by continuing to mess with the pickups or if the worst comes to the worse I can try and sort with EQ. I don't use the vibrato bar so will try and lock that if I can work out how.

Thanks to everyone for all the comments so far...

[Tone Deft]

Taking the guitar to a pro won't necessarily improve the sound, just how it plays unless you know what you are after.

I'd disagree with this. spend $100 at a shop to get the intonation right and it will inherently sound better and stay in tune more consistently. they should also set it up so you get the most out of the pickups. style-wise you'd pick out new pickups but it doesn't seem like you want to get that into it.

[Sage]

Taking the guitar to a pro won't necessarily improve the sound, just how it plays unless you know what you are after.

I'd disagree with this. spend $100 at a shop to get the intonation right and it will inherently sound better and stay in tune more consistently. they should also set it up so you get the most out of the pickups. style-wise you'd pick out new pickups but it doesn't seem like you want to get that into it.

Pickups don't have a specific sweet spot that work everywhere, so getting the best out of them only makes sense when adjusting them in your set up.

You aren't wrong, but a pro set up doesn't solve everything.

[Tone Deft]

interesting, what do you mean by 'everywhere'? all amp/pickup combinations??

I've known people that have taken cheap guitars to get setup and they loved the difference. I need to take in my decent guitar in but always fail at finding a luthier and I don't want to be without it for a period of time. so, my experience with all this is pretty sparse.

I have tweaked on my older electric and made some improvements to it but it's still not right.

btw this is what's amazing about midi guitar. play into a piano VST and you're playing a PERFECTLY intonated instrument, it feels wonderful.

[Sage]

interesting, what do you mean by 'everywhere'? all amp/pickup combinations??

I've known people that have taken cheap guitars to get setup and they loved the difference. I need to take in my decent guitar in but always fail at finding a luthier and I don't want to be without it for a period of time. so, my experience with all this is pretty sparse.

Yeah, if you have a guitar setup a certain way, it could sound amazing with one amp or a mess with something else.

With the bands I've been in, there has always been a strong ethnic on getting the sound exactly how we wanted it. How my Telecaster sounds doesn't fit the stereotypical sound of a Telecaster some people want, but works for what me and my bandmates wanted

[porfiry]

One thing that can really deaden the sound is having the pickup too close to the string, contrary to what a person might expect. The magnetic pull keeps the string from vibrating freely.

It's pretty easy to intonate a guitar yourself...it revolves around the 12th fret versus the open note. Play the full on 12th fret note, tap the 12th fret harmonic, if they're flat in relation to the open note just shorten the scale length by screwing the string saddle toward the neck, and vice versa if it's sharp. You need relative quiet, because you're listening for those out-of-tune vibrations like when you tune the guitar to itself without a tuner.

Locking down the tremolo is good advice as well...those things are fruity anyway. If it's spring-loaded like a strat, just putting all five springs in can help a lot too. Music stores always have them laying around, because all the drips who actually Wham always take out two.