Chris Pieterse wrote:
Hmm so I'm looking at maybe starting with a budget Ibanez rg8, so if I end up disliking it I can maybe just try and flip it on gumtree. I doubt it, but have either of you tried one? I've read decent things about it as a starter 8 and modding platform.
I've heard good things about the RG8, but if you want a guitar that you'd like to consider modding I don't think it's really the one cause even if you get a good price on them you'll most likely end up spending more than half what the guitar's worth on pickups alone - I'd say looking a little bit higher in the series would probably be your best bet, for instance the RGA8 has the locking fixed edge bridge (Which seriously kicks ass) and the Iron Label RG8 comes with EMG808s as stock, now I'm not the biggest fan of EMGs but the 808s are kinda okay and sound fairly acceptable when you 18v mod them and are definitely better than Ibanez's oem pickups.
Chris Pieterse wrote:
I also got offered a jackson JS328q off gumtree but the scale length is 26.5 which worries me a bit. Plus the pickups are that odd sized 8 pickup route. Ugly when replaced.
26.5" is not too terrible depending on the tuning you wanna go for and the string gauges you want to use, in standard tuning with the right gauges it's a non issue, if you wanna drop the F# down to E then you're gonna run into tension issues, and also having tried a JS32-8 I know that the nut and machinehead would need modification if you wanted to put any string gauge higher that .074 on it, I tried putting a .080 gauge on and it just wasn't gonna happen.
The JS32-8 and the cheaper Ibanez 8s, that have no name passive pickups in them all suffer from the same issue which is that these no name passive pickups are bigger than a passive 8 string pickup by say Dimarzio or Seymour Duncan but smaller than an 8 string pickup in a soapbar style housing like EMG. I just took the EMGs out and threw the Dimarzios in, yeah the slightly larger route doesn't look perfect but it isn't detrimental to tone or playability, you can also get unmarked EMG style housings to put normal size passives in, or pickup rings, though I hold the opinion that direct mounted pickups respond better so I'd advise against the rings. Or you could get a Seymour Duncan or Bareknuckle in a soapbar housing, cause they make passives to fill the routes, Dimarzio are either late to that game or they're just not interested in filling that niche.
Chris Pieterse wrote:
Your track is awesome by the way Chad. Very inspiring!
Thanks for giving it a listen ?
