Difference in guitars or pickups

[BluesGuyJ]

Hey all, so I have had my Mike Lipe Virtuoso Custom in for a few weeks now, and I have been going back forth between that and my customized Ibanez RG1570.

The Mike Lipe has a pickup in the bridge that is Alnico 2 and is roughly 9.7k. The Ibanez has a Dimarzio Norton, which is Alnico 5 and is roughly 14k.

I feel that the Lipe bridge sound is fuller, beefier and more present over all. While I am not the biggest fan of it for articulated chords under high gain and don't feel it is the best for muted work, it presents more than the Norton in the Ibanez. I just find it funny that the Norton is a hotter pickup, but less gain seems present when using the same amp settings and I go back and forth between guitars.

Am I wrong in thinking that the Alnico 2 would push the amp less than the Norton? Or do you think this difference is simply due to natural qualities of the acoustic spectrum being amplified, i.e., the Lipe is just a better sounding axe than the Ibanez an no matter what the pickup currently is, that axe will translate more of everything compared to a more dead sounding axe with a more prefered pickup?

[dominus]

Resistance isn't always indicative of output.

Norton - 12.62 resistance, 352mv output.
Steve Morse - 9.94 resistance, 450mv output.

[blueman335]

Different pieces of wood, different hardware. That's part of it. To get the tones you want, you have a mix of a lot of variables. Sometimes a low output PU will give you that, sometimes you need something hotter. It's hard to predict what's going to do it. Your Lipe may just work so well with just that particular PU, and not be quite as impressive with something different. When you hit that magic combination, stop, you're done. Move on to the next guitar. Also, there's very good reasons for not having your guitars all sound the same. Like you said, articulated chords, or maybe soloing, or certain styles of music, whatever. One guitar won't do everything perfectly. Viva la difference.

[BluesGuyJ]

I know that the Lipe is also Alder with a maple top and has chambers and uses a hip shot trem versus the Ibanez which is basswood and has an Edge Pro, which requires more removal of wood to house the trem system versus the hip shot. The Lipe does have more mass overall. I do like the tone of the custom pickups in the Lipe, but don't feel the bridge pickup really grapples high gain as much as I'd like for it to. I am thinking about putting a DMZ Mo'Joe in the bridge and a DMZ Virtual Vintage Heavey Blues in the neck and DMZ Virtual VIntage Blues in the middle. The current bridge pickup is also extremely noisey due to the fact it has 2 very missmatched coils, but it does this so the bridge coil at 6.5k is lined up with the middle single coil to nail that true Strat tone. Do you think the chambering may have alot to do with this difference? I have never owned a chamberd guitar until now.

[BluesGuyJ]

An element I never thought of... pickup height!

When I had my custom Ibanez assembled, the guy who did it kind of did a ****ty job... He drilled a hole through the back and did not properly setup the edge pro. I just used my fingers to feel where the bridge pickups are on each guitar in relation to distance from the strings and the Mike Lipe Virtuoso has the bridge pickup much closer to the strings than the Ibanez I have... I used my fingers to feel for the difference in distance because I can not see well enough to percieve this. Perhaps raising the Dimarzio Norton will bring back a little more umph and let the output shine a little more and will hopefully make up for some of the difference in volume when switching back and forth from the Air Norton to the Norton bridge model.

[blueman335]

An element I never thought of... pickup height!
...Perhaps raising the Dimarzio Norton will bring back a little more umph and let the output shine a little more and will hopefully make up for some of the difference in volume when switching back and forth from the Air Norton to the Norton bridge model.

Yes, that makes a difference in volume & tone.

[BluesGuyJ]

I definitely think that is where the issue lies with my Ibanez. The custom neck I had made for it is actually slightly thicker at the heel and elevates the fretboard slightly higher than most Ibanez necks... That coupled with a crappy tech who butcherd this thing from the get-go, I think that is where my issues lies for the Ibanez. I am glad this all just added up in my head and I didn't make the conclusion that purchasing a new pickup for the Ibanez would solve my issue... However, I still think I am going to swap out the bridge pickup in the Lipe at this point.