Michael Romeo

[Purple Getar]

Hey Guys!! What's up?..Quick question...do you know how MJR keeps his tone so clean with his new guitars?..I mean they're mahogany bodies and I thought that pickups like the X2N and Tone Zone got muddy with woods like mahogany....If by chance everything I know about tone wood, would their be any benefits to having such PU/body combo...Thanks all!...

[buddroyce]

Michael has two setups, the X2N/TZ and the EMG 81/81. The trick to cleaning up the sound on high ouput pickups is to roll back on the volume.

[lyconxero]

Yeah that is a handy trick, although I find that the EMG 81 pickup is just a really clean pickup in general despite being really high output (the advantage of being active). But yeah, you also just roll back your volume a bit, roll it up on your amp to compensate, and there you have it.

[Epicus Furor]

Personally I find rolling back the volume on high output pickups such as the Dimarzio X2N just makes the sound extremley weak and thin sounding. They don't clean up that well imo

[buddroyce]

Rolling back on the volume generally attenuates the treble, but you can get around that to some extent by installing a treble bleed circuit on your volume(I think Ibanez puts that it in all thier upper end models now).

[Purple Getar]

so you guys are saying that the only way to clean it up is to roll back on the volume??...I think that thins out your sound alot, but I guess if their isn't any other way...guess I won't be buying one of his guitars any time soon..thanks alot everyone!!

[lyconxero]

Yeah, an easier way to get a tone like that would be to just get a mid output pickup like the Air Zone and just tweak from your amp.

[buddroyce]

Originally Posted by Purple Getar

so you guys are saying that the only way to clean it up is to roll back on the volume??...I think that thins out your sound alot, but I guess if their isn't any other way...guess I won't be buying one of his guitars any time soon..thanks alot everyone!!

I don't recall Michael Romeo having a signature model(he never had a signature model from ESP and his current Caparison model is really just a Dellinger II in a different color). None the less, an ESP MII-Deluxe or Caparison Dellinger II are both kick-@$$ guitars with or without MR's pickup combo.

[Shredcows]

Hmmm... why would an X2N mud up in mahogany? Its not an overly mids emphasized pup... neither is it overly bassy.

As for the Tonezone in the neck, I didn't experience mud when it was in my mahogany S520EX, namely because, its in the neck position, so you don't need to jam it as close as the bridge (which was a tonezone too, about 2 mm from the strings). We all know the further the pup, the less bass, less thick it becomes.... for the tonezone in neck, despite lowering it, it has loads of mids and bass, so the tone is RIDICULOUSLY THICK. Majority of my friends thought it was too thick in the neck of a Saber, which isn't a thick sounding axe.