The Electra Forums

Hello everyone
I came across a Electra MPC set neck Les Paul, with electronics removed at a pawn shop for $699, but they had it on sale for $450. It looks like a standard set neck Les Paul, except it has an added two chrome toggle switches, which I'm sure must activate the modules.(at this point i didn't know the electronics were removed) So, I plug it in to a amp, the pick ups work fine, but when I switched the toggles, I noticed no change. I then ask the sales person for a small Phillips and loosen the screw to remove the back cover. When i opened it, to my surprise, I saw, working from left to right, a small cavity to hold a 9 volt battery, a center larger cavity, and on the right, another small cavity to hold another 9 volt. All three cavities were empty.
Does this guitar have any value with the circuit board and modules removed, and can I buy those after market?
is it a lost cause?
All opinions welcome. Thanks, Ken

The available 12 Electra MPC modules are removable and interchangeable -

The 9V battery used in the left cavity drives both inserted MPC’s –

The 9V battery cavity on the right is for a spare battery –

Find some MPC – modular power circuit – units to see if they work in the guitar – hopefully they do –

Electra MPC guitars will work in a normal mode without utilizing the MPC units -

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RCSBlues

You can get a fully working one for around the $500 mark, sometimes less, sometimes more depending on commonality and condition. Yeah, you get people on ebay asking $1500 but you see the same ones listed on there for a year too (they don't sell at those optimistic prices).

The hard parts to find are the two 150K pots for the MPC controls and the two module sockets. If you search you *might* find replacement parts that will work, but it is difficult. It also isn't an easy wiring job. So it is not for the faint-hearted individual. You might be better looking for someone selling the parts on ebay that they ripped out of one (it happens). But even better, offer them substantially less for the guitar. It isn't worth nearly as much when the MPC electronics have been ripped out of them. But they STILL are very decent quality LP copies (with a hollow area you can put things in or some other FX). Just don't spend too much for one missing all that.

Good luck.

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Thorny

Thank you both for the info.