Pickup Upgrade suggestions

Domin0

Hey guys. I'm thinking of doing a pickup upgrade on my ibanez sa series. Now its a H-S-S setup, and I pretty much exclusively use the neck for cleans and the bridge for distortion and very occasionally cleans. any suggestions? I was looking at the Bareknuckle Nailbomb but its really pricey ☹

Warren

In my old Ibanez (an Andy Timmons sig. model) I went for a Dimarzio AT-1 in the bridge, and Dimarzio Cruisers in the middle and neck positions. It sounded great! Plenty of detail and presence in those pups, without the muddiness of a high-output pup.

The Barenuckle Nailbomb is a high-output pup, but I'd advise possibly taking a look at lower output options: let the amp do all the gain and the heavy lifting. Lower output pups sound even better than hot-wound pups with lots of gain (IMO), and you have the added advantage of much better clean/grit tones. What sort of music do you play? What amp do you use?

Dimarzio or Seymour Duncan are both decent upgrade options that are fairly widely available locally, won't break the bank and will be a significant upgrade on most stock pups.

Domin0

Well I try play progressive metal (with not much luck ?), some prog rock, and mainly metal otherwise (maiden, metallica sorta thing)
I'm running a Blackstar HT5R combo. So yeah I think from what you said, a lower output one would be a better choice since my issue with my stock ones are that they're rather muddy.

Shibbibilybob

I have a Bare Knuckles Nailbomb in the bridge of my Les Paul. I really really like it. Great high gain pickup and nice on the cleans too.
I have a Bare Knuckles War Pig in an old Cort of mine too (that sits in Jozi, and I am in cape town, hopefully my mom knows where it is ?)
And that I really liked as well. It was a little bit bass heavy at first installation, but after I switched out the capacitor, it was all lovel-lovely.

flatfourfan

Domin0 wrote: Well I try play progressive metal (with not much luck ?), some prog rock, and mainly metal otherwise (maiden, metallica sorta thing)
I'm running a Blackstar HT5R combo. So yeah I think from what you said, a lower output one would be a better choice since my issue with my stock ones are that they're rather muddy.

If you're into prog/ prog rock and metal , then don't write off a dimarizio petrucci crunchlab for the bridge.........my RG 470 has one and damn it sings.

Domin0

flatfourfan wrote: If you're into prog/ prog rock and metal , then don't write off a dimarizio petrucci crunchlab for the bridge.........my RG 470 has one and damn it sings.

Well I was considering one actually. It seemed a very safe choice if I got lost :-[
Any ideas about the single coils though?

flatfourfan

Domin0 wrote:
flatfourfan wrote: If you're into prog/ prog rock and metal , then don't write off a dimarizio petrucci crunchlab for the bridge.........my RG 470 has one and damn it sings.

Well I was considering one actually. It seemed a very safe choice if I got lost :-[
Any ideas about the single coils though?

That's a tough one because none of my guitars have singles in them. The RG has an Air Norton HB in the neck and damn it sounds sweet. Maybe look at considering something like the Air Norton S. http://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/strat/hum-canceling-strat/air-norton-s

Domin0

flatfourfan wrote:
Domin0 wrote:
flatfourfan wrote: If you're into prog/ prog rock and metal , then don't write off a dimarizio petrucci crunchlab for the bridge.........my RG 470 has one and damn it sings.

Well I was considering one actually. It seemed a very safe choice if I got lost :-[
Any ideas about the single coils though?
That's a tough one because none of my guitars have singles in them. The RG has an Air Norton HB in the neck and damn it sounds sweet. Maybe look at considering something like the Air Norton S. http://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/strat/hum-canceling-strat/air-norton-s

From your experience how does it handle cleans? I use the neck almost exclusively for cleans

flatfourfan

The only guitar that I favour more than my RG for neck cleans is my Ibanez Artist with super 58's in it.

That saying though, I rarely play cleans without some chorus or reverb, so I'm maybe not the best person to reply to this. Sustain is the first thing that i noticed, it comes close to my solid maple warlock and I've found it to have the most realistic acoustic sound out of all my guitars. I've played folk music on this thing and you have to remind yourself that you're playing an eye gouger.

Pot upgrade would be recomended though.

I have 250ks on mine as the guy tried to do a coil tap on it and failed. We've sorted everything out and I'm sure that going to 500ks on it (in none split mode) would make this really sing yet still avoid being too bright. As it is though, I'm not changing anything.

Oh crap, I just noticed that I do have a single on 1 of my guitars............my bad.......I never play it though.

IceCreamMan

I had a SA 160 way back when and it was a good guitar but the pickups were crappy. The biggest difference you will find is just putting in new pickups.i replaced mine withtoneriders and it was a like a rand new guitar, u are right the standard ones are muddy.

Tone riders not high gain but if you going to use yr amp for that then I think the tone riders would work well and save u coin. Or wait for something second hand to come up on the classifieds.

Cheers

Love the black star HT range....great amps don't ever sell it

Attila

Ok, chaps I think its time i shared another little something with ya all.

I came across another British brand called IronGear http://www.irongear.co.uk/irongear_032.htm you might be surprised at the price for what you get. I've got a set of Tesla Sharks at the post office waiting to be collected.... after getting a reality klap from Joel

Another British pickup is from Gemini Pickups http://www.geminipickups.co.uk/standard_hb_12.html quite like these

Whats quite cool about them is that they have coil taps, not a HB coil split, what this really comes down to is that they wind symmetrical coils ( balanced coils) then on one coil they have a tap which makes that the HB asymmetrical ( unbalanced) ... have a listen to their sound samples

just saying boss ...... just saying

Domin0

Thanks for the suggestions ? Atilla, I'm keen to hear how those Tesla Sharks sound ?
I haven't heard much of Toneriders, but if anyone can vouch for them for high gain stuff and/or cleans I'll try check them out.

There's just so much choice :-\

Chocklit_Thunda

In terms of versatility I'd suggest going for something with A2 magnets for your neck position and something with A5 for the middle position. For metal a nice high output ceramic pickup like an invader or Duncan Distortion would be cool otherwise a custom 8. With these 3 magnet options in that order you have varying intensities of output as you switch up from the A2 mag for the glassy warm cleans to the Ceramic or A8 for the high gain clarity. The A5 in the middle is kinda your halfway point that bridges the gap between both extremities and leads to a very versatile setup in 1 guitar.

Domin0

Chocklit_Thunda wrote: In terms of versatility I'd suggest going for something with A2 magnets for your neck position and something with A5 for the middle position. For metal a nice high output ceramic pickup like an invader or Duncan Distortion would be cool otherwise a custom 8. With these 3 magnet options in that order you have varying intensities of output as you switch up from the A2 mag for the glassy warm cleans to the Ceramic or A8 for the high gain clarity. The A5 in the middle is kinda your halfway point that bridges the gap between both extremities and leads to a very versatile setup in 1 guitar.

A lot of that went straight over my head unfortunately ???

I think I've decided I'm gonna try a Crunchlab for the bridge since I'm a huge fan of Petrucci's tone. However the single coil still eludes me

flatfourfan

If you're local to me, you're more than welcome to try out my RG with the crunchlab in the bridge and air norton in the neck.

Malkav

Domin0 wrote:
Chocklit_Thunda wrote: In terms of versatility I'd suggest going for something with A2 magnets for your neck position and something with A5 for the middle position. For metal a nice high output ceramic pickup like an invader or Duncan Distortion would be cool otherwise a custom 8. With these 3 magnet options in that order you have varying intensities of output as you switch up from the A2 mag for the glassy warm cleans to the Ceramic or A8 for the high gain clarity. The A5 in the middle is kinda your halfway point that bridges the gap between both extremities and leads to a very versatile setup in 1 guitar.
A lot of that went straight over my head unfortunately ???

I think I've decided I'm gonna try a Crunchlab for the bridge since I'm a huge fan of Petrucci's tone. However the single coil still eludes me

Regarding Chocklit's post: I think with that kind of split the tone would be very unbalanced, especially when you consider the physical properties of each location.

The crunchlab will be weird to balance with two singles as it's actually a fairly high/medium high gain pickup, off the top of my head I think the Chopper from Dimarzio would be the best balance in both positions. As a side point regarding the Andy Timmons and his HSS setup, the two cruisers he uses are bridge models as the neck version wouldn't balance with his AT-1 humbucker, there's a lot to consider.

Domin0

wow I didn't realise how much detail went into this ???

Thanks for the offer flatfourfan but pretoria is a drive and a half for me. Much appreciated though