Base Pickup?

theapprentice · #1 11-22-2008, 08:51 AM

Hey people, it's me again. I recently bought an RG2550EGK with dot inlays and I absolutely love it! This was my dream guitar ever since I've found out about Ibanez guitars, and this is a dream come true for me (most people in the Philippines are poor and cannot afford to spend $995 for a guitar, so I'm pretty blessed that I was even able to buy a 350). Anyways, I was trying out the DiMarzio/Ibz pickups a minute ago, and they were ok, but they seemed to lack output. However, they were great when I tried to emulate Vai's sound for "For the Love of God" and performed just as well when I attempted to nail Petrucci's tone from the song "Forsaken". I was wondering if there was such a pickup that could provide a generic but high gain tone, which would be responsive to different amp settings so I would be able to cover a lot of genres just by turning some knobs on my amp? Please help.

_FR0D0 · #2 11-22-2008, 01:37 PM

Those Dimarzio/IBZ are as hot as a pair of Dimarizio's Super Distortion (DP100), that means around 400mv. What I mean is that they are hot, what happen is that they are very balanced, especially the bridge, which makes them to sound very even and not so focused.

Try playing with the height of them. The hex pole adjustment. Also try a boost pedal in front of tour amp. You should pick your pickups based on their "sound", their output is generally not that important now as it used to be, cos now you have a lot of hi gain stuff.

About a versatile hi output pickup combo, I recommend you Air Norton (N) / Evo2 (B).

But first play around with what you have first, I actually like those pickups a lot, especially the neck one.

Foulacy · #3 11-22-2008, 03:40 PM

dude are they seriously as hot as a SD? I'm not so sure about that. Those things aren't as hot as my duncan '59 in my schecter. The neck pickup is decent though. You could definitely buy a MUCH hotter pickup for the bridge, and a much better sounding pickup. Choose your poison!

theapprentice · #4 02-20-2009, 08:18 AM

Ok, one more consideration for my pickup combination, guys, because I might get a pair this coming month. I have a somewhat weaker picking technique due to being a lefty who plays right-handed guitars. I kinda need a pickup that would respond quickly to medium pick attack when the distortion is cranked, but would still have dynamics when played through a clean channel.

What pickups would give me versatility of tone and fairly ample response, while retaining a bit of dynamics? Thanks in advance.