New Pickups?

[Christoph]

I have an Ibanez S470 and was entertaining the possibility of putting some new pickups in. I play a wide range of music and would like better tone when playing both clean and with distortion. Would active, battery-powered pickups do this?

What do you guys recommend?

[loner92]

What style do you gravitate towards most? You'll have a hard time finding a pickup that can cover all bases, because a high output bridge humbucker will give you a better distortion, but your clean tone will suffer, and vise versa.


Your guitar will sound a lot better with some good pickups, those stock Ibanez ones are pretty bad.

[edited due to lack of sleep during initial post]

[Edited by loner92 on 04-06-2001 at 12:17 AM]

[Christoph]

There's no good all-around pick-up? Because I truly like to play a lot of different styles.

[loner92]

Well, you might try a Duncan JB or Duncan custom in the bridge. They're pretty balanced (mid to high output), and if you set them up for a coil tapping switch, you'll have even more versatility. A Duncan Pearly Gates is a good neck pickup, you'd be able to get a really nice clean tone out of it, especially when split.

[LEEtheV]

Ditto on the pearly gates.....

[BadHorsie]

My Ibanez came stock w/ Dimarzios' and they sound great. Find out what your Ibanez came with before you switch.

[Christoph]

BadHorsie, how do I find out which pickups it has? I think I trashed the manual that came with it.

[trendkillah]

Unless it's a second hand, or a Prestige model, you will not have anything inthere besides stock Ibanez pickups. Yes, some stock Ibanez pickups are designed in cooperation with DiMarzio, but they are not the real deal.

Since it's a S470, I assume there are IBZ V8, S1 and V7 pickups in it. Wich are those co-designed pickups.


Greetz, TK

[Christoph]

Trend - Yeah, now that I think about it, there's a little white V8 decal on the pickups.

So 'real' DiMarzio pickups sound much better? Which model?

[BadHorsie]

Just check out their website http://www.Dimarzio.com and you should be able to find something you'd like. The Dimarzio's on my Ibanez rock, though. Actually, I had to have my guitar tech adjust the volume on my guitar because the output of my pickups is so high that even with the volume turned all the way down you could vaguely hear it. I haven't heard any of the V series pickups so I couldn't tell you how they compare.

[Christoph]

Originally posted by BadHorsie
The Dimarzio's on my Ibanez rock, though.

Which ones do you have?

[trendkillah]

I can only advice you to find a shop that let's you try out different pickups. I know they don't all do that, but maybe you'll be lucky.
If not, do like BadHorsie said, have a look at the specs of the pickups on their site, that how I buy mine, hehe.


Greetz, TK

[Christoph]

Thanks TK.

Thanks for all the feedback guys.

[sixxstring54]

Hello,

I looked around at alot of pick-ups and found my dream come true. The Seymore Dunkan Screamin Demon Designed by one of my favorite guitarists, George Lynch. It is an all balls out pick up at full guitar volume. If you want a different sound just start backing off the volume control and you can get so many veriations from death metal to jazz to blues. Very cool pick up check one out, you won't be disapointed.

Sixx

[AtomicMassUnit]

My humble suggestion would be to trade the ibanez to some unsuspecting kid for a strat, and pop a JB Junior into the bridge of the strat.

Atomic

[Christoph]

Originally posted by AtomicMassUnit
My humble suggestion would be to trade the ibanez to some unsuspecting kid for a strat . . .

Trade an Ibanez S470 for a strat??? . . . what kind of crack are you smoking?

You can't be serious . . . because if you are, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

Peace out.

[BadHorsie]

Originally posted by Christoph


Originally posted by BadHorsie
The Dimarzio's on my Ibanez rock, though.

Which ones do you have?

Actually I can't remember what they're called. They only put them in the S Series 7 string model, though. My guitar tech had to adjust the volume because the output is so high on them. Sounds pretty decent on a clean channel if you know how to work 'em too.

[The Ferret]

While we're on the subject of changing pickups, I have a '78 Ibenez Les Paul copy and one of the pickups is dead.

I'm not a techy so I don't know which one it is.

It's the pickup that is active when the three position toggle switch is in the down position.

A friend gave me a Jackson humbucker from his guitar to put in, but I'm not sure how to tell which is the bad pickup.

Hey, I just play it, I haven't messed with the insides yet.:D