Crisp
Hi Guys,
I want to ask all of your expert opinions as I am looking at upgrading the pickups in by Ibanez.
Stock pickups in there currently, HSS configuration. Looking at swapping out for a full set of active pickups. I don't have the biggest budget out to do the upgrade so I have been looking around at some of the more affordable options:
GFS Redactive
Dragonfire active - cant find much on these and not the keenest on what I have found.
Entwistle X3, Nemisis, Darkstar (Darkstar sound the best)
So far the Redactive have me the keenest of the sounds. I know that actives can be a little washed out sounding at times, don't respond quite as well as passives in my opinion, but it depends on what you are playing and how you are using them. Considering I have a Jackson with Dimarzio passives and a Yamaha Pacifica with the sweetest stock pickups I am happy with that and want to mess with actives for the ibby.
Have you guys worked with any of these pickups and what are your opinions?
I don't play metal, more like normal rock, bit of jazz, rhythm guitarist sort of stuff.
Malkav
I only have experience with older generation EMGs and Seymour Duncan Blackouts and I really dislike them, I can't help but feel that if you're not playing metal then a lot of the selling points of active pickups are kinda redundant for you and instead you should rather try out something like Lace Alumitones which are just weird enough to wonder about and may yield some useable tones for what you play.
Crisp
Hi Chad,
Thanks for the reply and I have never heard of the alumitone pickups. Looks way interesting and I love the concept but wow, what a price. The pickups themselves sound very interesting, love the tone, and certainly the idea of it all. Took a look at their website and listened to a couple of clips of them being played. They really do have a very good sound, a lot like what I am after, and the sustain is crazy. I think I might have to save for a long time before I will be buying a full set of those sadly.
Been doing a lot of research into pickups, what makes them good, what makes them tick, and going to be tinkering with making a few myself. Got some concepts that I want to try so always good to see other concepts out there. These alumitones are really think outside the box.
Malkav
Yeah, they're quite interesting and weigh almost nothing so depending on the guitar they can make quite a difference to overall balance ?
There are some other interesting things like Q-Tuners, and I think Entwistle pickups which are made with Neodymium (SP?) magnets and those also sound a bit like the Alumitones, could be an interesting field to try ?
I just think active pickups won't really get you the results you're after so it just may be better to save up and grab something else ?
Gearhead
Agreed, don't buy actives to get cleans - the cleans are so pristine, there's no liveliness to it. Kinda why Metallica do their clean parts with so much chorus, I guess.
Keep looking for second hand aftermarket pups, your Duncans and Kinmans and Dimarzios and Knuckles and those. They go at nice prices second hand, usually. You don't want to wait for an HSS set, since chances of en entire set popping up are far smaller than the ones and the twos making up a set. It enables you to mix and match and find out what you prefer - exactly the reason why they move around regularly.
Chocklit_Thunda
Well if you want actives, the guys on the Seymour Duncan forum.actually say good things about the GFS redactives. From what ive heard they say that theyre much more organic sounding and even have a vintage sound to them
Crisp
Thanks guys, I am always on the lookout for second hand pickups....just very picky about the sound.
There are a lot of them that sound dead, muffled and worse than what the guys originally had in. I don't know if these people are tone deaf or what. Sorry to those people who thought it was better....just my opinion. lol
Btw Organic sounding? I see a lot of times this term has been used to describe the sound...makes me think of a crop of lettuce. How can it be organic sounding?
Yes, I am just ripping on the term. lol
I am looking for something that bright and clean, but does not look the bottom end and sound too twangy you know. Something that responds well to all the tones, but does not have to be perfect at everything. Just not bridging to the point where I cant get the cleans I am after.
Actives make sense to me because they can be quite clean indeed, and still get the job done of the more dirty stuff.
Crisp
Just stumbled onto these pups and like the sound of them....also the design idea is what I was leaning toward. You cant have the pickup doing the same job for all the different strings, you will have either too much or too little or interference...in my opinion that is. Still messing with pickup design ideas and will start real experimenting as soon as I get all the parts together to start building.
Take a look and listen if you guys get time and let me know
http://www.railhammer.com/
