3120 pickup choice!!

[Fornicatron]

Looking to suit my 3120 (mahogany with a maple top and rosewood fretboard) with some passive fever since ill be moving my actives to a lesser quality ibanez..

i like rock and metal,blues and so ......loved the Wolfgang sound (peavey) also a ibanez S i used to have with JB/Jazz..

looking for some dimarzios in that range....

any advice??

[TheToneZone]

I always swap between The Tone Zone and The Breed in the bridge position of my 3120, depending on my mood... The Paf Pro stays in the neck.

They both sound very good in the guitar and TTZ spends most of it's time there, I can honestly say that the guitar is more suited toward that pickup. However, some folks complain about the bottom end muddiness of TTZ in mohagany, which IS there.

The Breed is probably a little too middy and warm for most folks in a mohagany body. I really dig it, the overall EQ (which is much more subtle than the Dimarzio description depicts) works well with the 3120 but the draw back is the warmth makes it tough to get edgy. It's always a friendly sounding pickup.

I also tried the Norton out for awhile. Something with that pickups low end didn't work with 3120.

If you wind up trying out a JB/Jazz combo in it, let us know. I'm thinking the JB is a more edgy and sinister version of the Breed. I'm tempted to use that combo myself.

Mike

[Sabre]

As always, EMG's sound great in mahogany bodied guitars but there are other good brands out there, theres Genesis Pick-ups and Bare Knuckle Pick-ups to check out, they've grown in popularity lately.

[jb4674]

What about Evolutions?

[SpikeSocietySucks]

I recomend the JB in the bridge. The pickup has a realy anoying mid/trebble spike in basswood, but in a mahogany axe that spike lends to a very ballanced sound for both rhythm playing and lead. The only thing to be concerned about could be some thinness or single notes up the neck.

For the neck I'd recomend the Paf Pro, or for more top end, the PAF Joe. The air norton could work, but it's a rather compressed pickup and might yield muddy cleans, HOWEVER, coil tap it and you have one of the best single coil type sounds in the dimarzio catalogue.

for the middle, any dimarzio single will do, you really can't go wrong there. Red/Blue velvet are good the noiseless singles are good too

Some of my fav tones come from the single coil combined with an inner coil from the neck or the bridge with the tone slightly rolled back. It's like a killer strat sound, but with a little more compression, aggression, and general balls.

[buddroyce]

Bridge pickup wise I've always liked the Duncan JB, Distortion or custom custom, but if you're looking at the Dimarzio bandcamp there's always the Tone Zone, Air zone, Steve's Special, D-Sonic, Evo and Breed pickups.

Neck pickup wise it depends on the sound you want. The Humbucker from hell or Duncan Phat Cat will give you a very different sound than most humbuckers, but otherwise the Dimarzio Paf Pro, Air Norton, Tone Zone(yes the same as the bridge), and Duncan '59, Jazz, Alnico II Pro are all good options.

[rummy]

PAF Pro/PAF Pro
Air Norton/Tone Zone
Jazz/JB