Metal Guitarist Forums banner

Wanting new pups for my RGT

4K views 32 replies 17 participants last post by  The Chojin 
#1 ·
Ok, here's the dealio.

I've been using EMG pups for YEARS now, but I'm never happy with the tone I get from my neck pickup no matter what I do. I've tried the 81, 85 and 60 in every position and both 9 and 18v, but nothing makes me happy. 85 and 81 both sound good in the bridge, but the neck is lacking. 81 in the neck is better than the 85 (for me) But I'd really like to have something that's just a little rounder than the bridge, but something that isn't just 100% flub. I just don't want "that EMG neck pickup sound"

I've always wanted to try some different pickups, since the ONLY pups I've ever used have been stock Ibanez INFs and EMGs and I've been looking around at a few of the "Tried and True" combos that people seem to swear by, and thought, "well, why not".

-JB/59'
-Crunchlab/Liquifire
-D-Activators
-Blackouts (Least appealing option, steering away form actives)

I'd be willing to try BKP's if they weren't so expensive. Same deal with Nordstrand and Lundgren. There's also the Jon Schaffer "ice buckers", but they're equally cost prohibitive, so I won't be buying any of those.

Advice and comments about these pickups is really what I'm after. Personal experience with each is a major bonus. The guitar they're gonna be going in is an Ibanez RGT42DX. Maple/Walnut Neck-thru with mahogany wings. You guys are welcome to make suggestions as well, of course. These are just a few things are are not EMG that seem to be highly praised across the board.

Thoughts?
 
See less See more
#6 · (Edited)
Wirelessly posted (G2 The Googlinator: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_5_7; en-us) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Safari/530.17 Skyfire/2.0)

Depending on what you tune to, I really like the Full Shred set from Duncan for low tunings.

Dimarzios are a whole different ballgame. The Liquifire is great, not sold on the Crunchlab yet. Never liked the D-acts much.
 
#8 ·
If you like the EMG-81 tone in the bridge, I wouldn't recommend going with a JB. I recommend either a Duncan Distortion or Custom paired with a Jazz. Personally, I think the Distortion is a little more "81-like", but that's just me. Either one sounds good. You might find that a JB gets a little wooly in the low mids compared to what you are used to.
 
#13 · (Edited)
The JB in my ESP is great for metal. It's got really great clarity when playing high-gain stuff (works great for thrash IMO). The 59' in the neck is great too.

Another neck pickup I'd check out is the Dimarzio Air Norton. It sounds awesome in my Ibanez S540LTD, and IMO has better cleans than the 59'. That might have to do with the other differences between the guitars, though (neck-through vs bolt-on, alder vs mahogany, 24 frets vs 22 etc).

Tone Zone/Air Norton is a good combo too.
 
#24 ·
The problem is I HATE not being able to try things before I buy them, and have a hard enough time pulling the trigger on anything. When I went to buy a set of darts, it took me 3 hours to pick out a set.

I'm actually a MUCH bigger fan of the EMG85 in the bridge, and the 81 in the neck. 81's thinner sounding, which is better for me in the neck position, and the 85 is less spikey in the bridge position, if that helps.

I originally started looking at the jb/59 set because until he switched to dean, Michael Amott (Arch Enemy) had used the jb/59 in most of his guitars. I dig the shit out of the tones he's getting on 90% of their music, and a lot of people highly recommend that set. I'm not sure how well I'd get along with a really fat set of pickups though, especially in a heavy as balls mahogany guitar.

This all makes me wish I was a kid again, so I could just buy whatever my favorite guitar played used, and be happy. But alas, those days are over.

@Budda: Took a look, and They're more than I wanna spend. I had my heart set on only spending $150ish.
 
#27 ·
Oh, well, if you were really interested, you could have him ship to me and i'd gladly reroute to you. Also, it said 15 for shipping but he puts it in a flat rate box, and when i mentioned to him it was a tiny pup, he ended up putting it in like an 8 or 9 dollar box.

Its all the same to me, but I just thought i'd offer.
 
#32 ·
Anyone know where I can find plugs for empty volume pot holes? I'll be getting rid of my tone pot and moving the volume down to the tone pot location, leaving an empty hole where the volume pot used to be. Anyone know of a way to fill them? I thought I saw a friend of mine with plastic dome topped thing that you just push in place.

Let me know if you have any idea where to get them.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top