Looking for pickup advice/suggestions

Xcaliber

Xcaliber

New member
I have an Ibanez RG1570 with the original pickups (a Vintage 8 in the bridge, Single 1 in the middle and Vintage 7 in the neck). I play metal with this guitar and want an aggressive tone, but the stock pickups are just "too hot" for me. When I use a high gain amp sim or my MXR Fullbore Metal distortion pedal with it it's just too much. I'm thinking new pickups will help cut some of the "harshness" out of the tone or just improve the tone altogether. I'm looking at the high gain pickups from Seymore Duncan, something like the Nagul, Sentinent or the Black Winter for the bridge. I'm not sure what to put in the neck position or what to replace the single coil with.

So, I'd like to hear people's thoughts on
1. The pickups I listed above (the Nazgul, Sentinent and Black Winter) from Seymore Duncan
2. Other suggestions for a bridge pickup (maybe from Dimarzio?)
3. Suggestions for the neck pickup and single coil

Thanks.
 
Mate, I also have the V8, S1, V7 set up in my Ibanez - I don't use it that much any more but used to play a lot of metal with it both recording and live.

Have you tried using a bit less gain? I find whenever things turn to mush, its usually the fault of too much gain and, often, not enough in the midrange. You should be able to get a fucking great metal tone out of that guitar with its stock pickups.

The Nazgul is also a pretty hot pick up; probably hotter than the V8.

Maybe post up a few tones and see if one of the guys who really know their shit can give you a hand dialing your tone in.

What Sim and amp are you using?
 
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I have a RG350DX (which is a much lower-end guitar than yours) that I put a Seymour Duncan Custom Custom in the bridge, & it seems to have helped it quite a bit. The stock p'ups in my guitar are (were) INF4 (bridge), INFS3 (middle), & INF3 (neck)...IMO, the stock bridge p'up was muddy & un-defined compared to the CC, but everybody's tastes/tones are different, so you may have to experiment with different p'ups, which can be not only expensive, but time-consuming too, YMMV....

The bridge p'up is the only one I've replaced, as I use it 99% of the time, but again, the CC seemed to have helped it along with my cock-rock tones that I like...

Not sure what you're calling metal, but for me, metal guitar tones are the 80's stuff, like Dokken, Van Halen, Judas Priest, etc., & the CC seems to have helped the guitar along with those types of tones...
 
Dimarzio, Gravity Storm pickups sound pretty good for a whole range of rock tones depending upon what else is done with regard to signal processing. I know they're a Vai spec pickup which might bother some, but they are a genuinely good option, I have them on one of my guitars, neck and bridge. They are not over the top while delivering really sweet mids and highs.
 
Hot pickups, hot pedals, and a lot of gain are a bad combo IMO. It's just too much. Sacrifice something. Dial it back somewhere. If you wanna use pedals and run the gain way up on the amp, go for a milder pickup. Something with clarity and not a bunch of hot mushy mess. Or lose the pedal. Or turn the gain on the amp down. I'm no metal master by any means, I despise metal, but I know a good recorded metal tone often involves less gain than you'd think. Metal gets it's goods from punch and clarity while still being aggressive. Mushy hot fizz is the opposite of that.

If you're only using sims, none of this matters at all.
 
So maybe I misstated my original goals (or yous guys helped me to understand my goal better)...could be I'm actually looking to improve the tone of the guitar. Maybe different hot pickups would be better than what I have?
 
Xcaliber said:
None of it matters because you hate amp sims or because making the suggestions you outlined won't work with an amp sim? ;) (I think I know the answer).
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None of the above. Well, maybe the second part. A sim, particularly a software sim, doesn't care what kind of pickups you use. You can adjust the input anyway with a sim. Wanna make that PAF humbucker sound like a Dirty Fingers? No problem, just jack up the input gain. A sim notices the difference between a single coil and a humbucker, but it doesn't know a Dimarzio Super Distortion from Duncan JB. The benefits of fine tuning your pickup needs are mostly lost on an amp sim. Some people might disagree with me, but I don't care. I've tried it myself with bunches of pickups and different sim programs. It doesn't matter with sims.
 
Dude, from everything you've said, it doesn't sound like the problem is with your pickups, it sounds like you're going about dialing in your tone the wrong way.
 
Greg_L said:
None of the above. Well, maybe the second part. A sim, particularly a software sim, doesn't care what kind of pickups you use. You can adjust the input anyway with a sim. Wanna make that PAF humbucker sound like a Dirty Fingers? No problem, just jack up the input gain. A sim notices the difference between a single coil and a humbucker, but it doesn't know a Dimarzio Super Distortion from Duncan JB. The benefits of fine tuning your pickup needs are mostly lost on an amp sim. Some people might disagree with me, but I don't care. I've tried it myself with bunches of pickups and different sim programs. It doesn't matter with sims.
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Thanks, that helps a lot. I guess I never really thought about it that way. Does the same thing apply to using a "direct out" to my interface from a real amp? Bypassing the speaker.

I'm not disputing what you say about the amp sim, but I do notice a difference when playing this guitar vs. another guitar that I have with "mild" pickups through the exact same amp sim. Same settings, same preset in the sim. Do you think that has to do with just the input gain being higher? I could dial that down.
 
JDOD said:
Have a listen to this
How Not To Dial In A Metal Sound - YouTube
It's only five minutes or so but its pretty funny and the guy also talks some sense whether you're into metal, hard rock, punk or whatever.
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Thanks. I watched the video, it was entertaining and informative as you said. I also appreciate your perspective on dialing in my tone, I'm going to play with the settings and see if I can't dial in a tone I like with the stock pickups.
 
Xcaliber said:
Thanks. I watched the video, it was entertaining and informative as you said. I also appreciate your perspective on dialing in my tone, I'm going to play with the settings and see if I can't dial in a tone I like with the stock pickups.
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You should be able to get a wicked metal tone with the guitar provided you have the right combination of amp or sim and pedal. As Colin says in the video, try using a crunched amp setting in your sim and boosting it with a virtual TubeScreamer which is also at a pretty mild setting.

When going for a heavy tone using a sim, I use a crunched marshall setting with a everything set to about 40% on the virtual TubeScreamer. I also often run a guitar through a real pedal into a sim.

One thing I would avoid though is trying to get ALL of your distorted tone from a pedal if you're going for metal - in my experience it just turns to mush. Although using a pedal for a more classic rock/punk tone whether going into a clean amp or a sim seems to work fine for me.
 
Xcaliber said:
Thanks, that helps a lot. I guess I never really thought about it that way. Does the same thing apply to using a "direct out" to my interface from a real amp? Bypassing the speaker.
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That's a different can of worms. The direct out really depends on how it's configured. Some have a speaker emulation built in, some are just direct from the preamp section of the amp. The direct-from-preamp version really needs a cab emulator or if used live it has to go to some kind of powered speakers or the main board. Otherwise it's just fizz.

I'm not disputing what you say about the amp sim, but I do notice a difference when playing this guitar vs. another guitar that I have with "mild" pickups through the exact same amp sim. Same settings, same preset in the sim. Do you think that has to do with just the input gain being higher? I could dial that down.
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The hotter pickups will put out a hotter signal, and if the sim is anything worth a damn, it will react like an amp and drive harder. That can be fine tuned with the input gain on your interface or in the sim itself. If you want to clean up your pickups signal, you can cut the input back and not hit the sim as hard. It would be like rolling the guitar vol back in the real world. On the flip side, you can jack up the input level on your interface or in the sim if you're using milder pickups.
 
Thanks guys. This helps me a lot. I'm going to spend some time dialing in my tone over the next few days. This gives me a great place to start and some settings to tweak along the way.
 
Cool, post some tones and explain how you've got them in the New Tone Thread and we'll give you a hand tarting them up.
 
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