changing my pickups

[canuck7]

hey guys,
i've been wondering if i should change the pickups on my Ibanez RG421. i was going to change them to Seymour Duncan or EMG pickups. i'm looking for a good all-around pickup that can handle metal. i'm leaning towards EMG because Zakk Wylde uses them and i love his tone.

opinions/suggestions??

[PonyOne]

EMG's are definitely good for metal. The Seymour Duncan Buckshot is a great pickup that only costs about $40; I have one in the bridge of my SG, and it sounds great. But the two best metal pickups IMHO are the DiMarzio Tone Zone and SuperDistortion.

The Tone Zone is just a great overall pickup, and it's very responsive to your playing. Pick lightly and melodically and the pickup will sing like an angel, get a jangly, loose-wristed riff going and it gives a great vintage tone. But when you hit a really forceful power chord you get this splatter of distortion that is clear and powerful, and start picking hard and fast and you get a full-on, tear-your-face-off type sound. After I get my next guitar it's going to have a Tone Zone in the bridge and a couple Seymour Duncan bluesy singles in the mid and neck.

[canuck7]

i like Seymour Duncans and DiMarzios are good too, but i think i'm going to go with EMG pickups. of course, i'll try them out before i change the pickups. i'm more into a straightforward/heavy metal sound, so this is probably my best choice after talking to other people.
i'm just wondering which ones i should look at now. any suggestions?

[canuck7]

any suggestions?
i just need some opinions/suggestions about changing the pickups on my guitar.

[Polera]

what emg's are u looking at?

[canuck7]

i'm not sure what to get really. i'm probably going to get EMG HZ one but i don't know how general/specific that is being. i know i want two humbuckers so they will probably be the same pickups.

[janir123]

Just a notice...

You don't get Zakk Wylde sounds off the Ibanez even if you were using EMG's. I have a DiMarzio Evolution (Steve Vai) set (DP158 & DP159)in my Ibanez RG770 and boy does that SCREAM!!! Good combination in allaround use. They're really versatile though they lack a little on the bass side. In general I like more DiMarzios than SD's. I liked the SD trembucker though when I tried it on Tom Anderson but then again it was a Tom Anderson. What comes to Zakk's sound you would need a mahogany bodied guitar or at least a set-neck (preferably both) to take away the snappy sound that
a bolt-on has. Just my two cents....

[canuck7]

well,
i'd like to emulate Zakk Wylde without becoming a clone. i don't really like the Ibanez pickups i got with my RG421 anyway. they can deliver, but there are better and i'm a serious guitar player. i am a lead guitarist but i still do a lot of rhythm and stuff (probably more rhythm than lead right now but things change). so i obviously want an all-around pickup. some pickups are built for soloing and can't do any rhythm if their lives depended on it. and vice versa. i've taken advice and EMGs seem like the best choice for a powerful metal all-around pickup.
like i said, i love Zakk Wylde's sound but i don't want to become some kind of mini-Zakk or something. and i've been advised that EMGs are the best all-around powerful metal pickup there is. do you guys have any suggestions?

[janir123]

Well the EMG 81's might be a good choise for that. Maybe a bit typical but anyway... Or, if you want a bit rougher sound maybe the DiMarzio PAF pro could be a good choice.
Usually they know the different models better in the store
and they'd be able to tell you the options when you describe them the sounds you're looking for.

[canuck7]

that was helpful. but do you know the EMG website and/or the DiMarzio site too? which one would you use if you had the choice?

[janir123]

Clearly DiM 'cause I'm not really into the active stuff simply because I don't want any batteries into my guitar.
When I'm talking about EMG I'm talking about active pickups.
I've never had the need to buy passive pickups other than DiM or SD.

BTW it just crossed my mind that DiM Humbucker from hell (Paul Gilbert) and SD Screamin' Demon (George Lynch) would both be even better options...

DiMarzio: http://www.dimarzio.com
EMG: http://www.emginc.com

[PonyOne]

I've played a number of ESP's loaded w/passive EMG's, and I must say I really was not pleased with them. Even with the higher output models, they just lacked an oomph. No balls. I mean, in the bridge position, over a Mesa or at least a tube screamer pedal, and with everything cranked, they wail, but so will any pickup at that point.

I'm not a fan of active pickups either. I'm not really morally opposed to them or anything, I just haven't ever really played a magnetic active pickup system I liked, EMG or otherwise. SoundTech, GraphTech and Starrlabs all have very nice piezo and effect/EQ systems that complement good pickups, guitars and amps. EMG's are just too sterile in any trim, IMHO.... I've though about loading an SG up with them just so that I can have my tone totally at the mercy of whatever effects and amp I'm using.

Again, my vote for metal, hard rock, hardcore, etc would be DiMarzio, with a special emphasis on the Tone Zone, which Vai uses in one of his many Ibanez guitars. If you want a less responsive, more metal pickup, then a Super Distortion would do a-okay. A little scratchy when clean, but probably closer to the Wylde sound than the EMG's just because of the guitar you're using.

[robbo97]

speaking of pickups, I am looking at getting a new guitar on the cheap, and I read a review on the Ashton 282 model, it says its a great guitar but the pickups are a bit cheap, one of my mates has tried one and they reckon it sounds just like a telecaster(which is what I'm looking for).
you can have a look at it at: http://www.australismusic.com.au/ashton/512812.html



also (as you can probably tell I don't know much bout the insides of guitars), another of my mates has a really old (50's) maton hollow body, and the pickups seemed to have dulled in it, what are the life spans of pickups???.

[janir123]

I don't actually believe that pickups have a lifespan. My opinion is that they just get better with the age. There must be another reason....

What comes to your personal question... I don't know how much you are ready to pay for pickups but you would definitely want a pair of Lindy Fralins loaded into it. They're expensive but worth every penny. Also Rio's are very good.

[PonyOne]

It looks like a pretty nice axe, but I don't know how Tele it will sound. Telecasters tend to have a slanted single coil in the bridge and another single in the neck, though there are plenty of variations. You might get a '72 Tele Custom sound out of it (those are 2-humbucker models). You'll probably get a more Les Paul/SG/Gretsch tone out of it, which isn't all that bad.

The closest thing to a Tele sound you could probably get would be if you installed some Gretsch pickups in it. I have a Gretsch Bo Diddley and it sounds pretty close, just w/more output and more low end. It'd probably be easier to find a set of Duncan Antiquities (though certainly not cheaper), and they'd sound very very nice.... good cheap alternative would be some Golden Age humbuckers from http://www.stewmac.com. They do actually sound very nice and warm.

Pickups can die, actually. Sometimes when you go online, you'll see a '55 Tele or LP, and it's over 15 g's. And then later on that page you'll see one of the same year for $3500. Cosmetics aside, one of the big problems w/vintage guitars can be pickups. Magnets can actually become weaker with age, especially in the 50's to early 60's, when it was harder to ge ta good mixture. Too much nickle, too much aluminum, and they quality ten years down the line can falter badly. Also, if magnets recieve too much of a beating, they can go dead. A buddy of mine thoguht he was getting a killer deal when he found a real '52 nocaster pickup on ebay for $750, and then he installed it in his tele, only to discover that three of the magnets were totally dead. He got a live neck pickup from a trashed '64 tele, and i installed three of the magnets from that into his Nocaster p/u, and it sounded cool after that, the aged copper wire added a world of difference. But I've got a '67 Aria Diamond 12-string, and though the magnets are 100% super-nice, the winding is nearly shot to hell, because the guy that had it before me treated the thing so terribly... so i'm going to try and find some older P90's and transplant the magnets.

[Dr_simon]

Have you thaught about PRS pickups ?
Im using stock humbuckers (HFS bridge pickup and Vintage Bass neck pickup) in my CE24 and they are fantastic !

[Lordathestrings]

My own preference is to DiMarzio pickups, but I've heard good things about Seymour Duncan as well.

Something to bear in mind is the way the pickups are wired when they are installed. I suggest you stay away from setups that simply short out one of the humbucker coils to get a single-coil sound.

If the coils are connected in parallel, you keep the hum-rejection ability of the pickup while getting a nice, clear, sound. Series connection of the coils will produce the full, chunky, 'humbucker' sound. Stewmac (http://www.stewmac.com/cgi-bin/hazel.cgi?action=SERVE&sku=1215&ITEM=catalog/sku.html), and others, sell control pots with push-pull switches built into them, so you don't have to make additional holes in your guitar body to install series/parallel coil switches.

[canuck7]

i'm going to try a lot of pickups i guess. i'm looking at Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio, and EMG right now. i'll make my decision based on my preference after i test them or something.
thanks for your help guys.

[PonyOne]

BTW, I chcked the specs for the Gibson Zakk Wylde Les Paul, and it says they have EMG H4's. They've got those on Stewmac.com.