Hey there you lovely people. I have an Ibanez USA Custom RG which i adore however i am not satisfied with my neck pickup sound. The unique features on this guitar that i would like to mention for tonal purposes are it's mahogany body, maple top that is 15-17mm thick and Bill Lawrence L500XL which for my needs and purposes sounds SICK. Another RG'esque guitar i have with a Basswood body sounds awesome with the same BL pup in there but this is just........ YUM YUM, OH MY, YUM.
Anyways! The guitar is HSH with the middle pickup disconnected, (i just don't like those sounds, plus the middle pup is lowered as far as possible because it also gets in the way of my technique), and the selector switch has been replaced with a 5 way stew mac E-megaswitch.
The neck pickup in the guitar at the moment is a Seymour Duncan 59, which sounds quite articulate with picking and has textures in it that i like however it doesn't quite fit my needs. A friend of mine has a gorgeous framus, (also mahogany body/maple top) with a JB/59 combo in there, the inbetween sound on the three way had me fall over myself but so far nothing with the 59 on clean does anything special for me. At the moment i am studying jazz so i love my clean sounds/sweeping but also dabbling with high gain situations. The 59 in there currently is only two conductor and the person i bought the guitar off wired it in there, neither him nor i know how the two humbuckers are wired up concerning positions 2-4 but apparently because the 59 is two conductor no coil splitting can be going on.
I do apologise, i have really rambled on so far so i will try and wrap this up. Basically the 59's clean isn't all that, the rolled down neck sound doesn't hit it for me, and the in between sounds just aren't up my street. The in-between settings i appreciate much more are like on a PRS 5 way HH guitar. The Stew Mac site says that the E-mega switch goes like this with positions 1-5: bridge, bridge split for outer coil, outer coils of both humbuckers, neck split for inner coil and neck pup.
1. What pickups would people suggest for my type of guitar for excellent cleans and good clear articulation for high gain sweeping? (so far i am considering a Air Norton or some kinda PRS neck pickup or bareknuckle)
2. Can i wire my pups using this switch for PRS middle sounds? According to the stew mac site their P-model switch does this.......... does that mean i have to go and buy another switch?
3. One of the in between sounds i want to guarantee is Petrucci's middle position which is apparently the two middle coils (series or parallel i don't know). According to the Stew Mac site their P-model megaswitch's positions 1-5 go: Bridge, Inner pickup coils parallel, Outer coils series, Outer coils parallel, Neck Pickup. Is position two on this right for that Petrucci middle position?
Again sorry for the extensive writting at the beginning of this thread, this is something that is really important for me and i want to get sorted. I would be so grateful if you guys could help me out.
Ian.
