help deciding pickups

[peterdavis1991]

Hey guys, i have an ibanez RG72QM, and am unhappy with the factory pickups that are in it. They give a great distortion, but the cleans get clipped when playing hard, no matter what gain or volume level i have the amp set at, which makes the cleans sound really crunchy and distorted which is annoying.

I was wondering if anyone was able to recommend a set of pickups that i can use to replace my stock ones?

Bit of info:
- current pickups are 3v actives
- hardware: 1 x volume, 1 x 2 way switch (for active EQ), 1 x volume knob, 1 x 3 way selector switch.

I really dont want to modify the body of the guitar in any way, and would prefer to not have to add on extra hardware.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Cheers,

Peter

[Edgecrusher]

What sort of music are you wanting to play and what sort of amp set up do you use? The active system in those guitars has low headroom and clips easily which is why they always seem to distort and in reality are closer to medium output than high. Just its the preamp clipping. Something like a Pearly gates in the bridge and a 59 in the neck would probably work well. But if you let me know your musical tastes etc i can give you a better recommendation.

You will wind up having to replace your pots as the active ones arent the right values but this is pretty simple and not very expensive to do.

[Aceman]

Yeah - what amp?

I have Blackouts in one guitar, and they still clean up. I am, however, often surprised at first.

[peterdavis1991]

I play more contemporary rock styles (a lot of contemporary church music aswell) than anything else, but dabble in a number of other genres - metal, jazz etc.
Basically i am after warm clean tones, but crisp yet warm distortion. I play through a boss GT-10 effects board into a marshall haze 40 amp, which has a wide variety of different tone capabilites anyways, i am mainly just chasing something that sounds nice and doesnt clip
And i only have 1 slot for a pot. Will that matter? Will i have to add in others? i guess if it comes to it i can add in another pot or two....

[detheldred]

A classic yet versatile combo is the Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge and the Seymour Duncan '59 in the neck. The JB is crisp, it's high output, and it's got some warm tones. The '59 has got those full, rich, warm clean tones you're looking for. This combo is used for metal, rock, jazz, blues, and really anything else. You will need another pot though, but it looks as if all you need to do is drill a hole in the right place. If you take it to your local luthier, show him your guitar, and show him what you want done, he will probably only charge a bit more than his rate for putting pickups in and do it for you.

[Edgecrusher]

A classic yet versatile combo is the Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge and the Seymour Duncan '59 in the neck. The JB is crisp, it's high output, and it's got some warm tones. The '59 has got those full, rich, warm clean tones you're looking for. This combo is used for metal, rock, jazz, blues, and really anything else. You will need another pot though, but it looks as if all you need to do is drill a hole in the right place. If you take it to your local luthier, show him your guitar, and show him what you want done, he will probably only charge a bit more than his rate for putting pickups in and do it for you.

He doesnt necessarily have to drill holes. First does he even want a tone pot? If not then nothing needed but if so hes got options other than drilling holes. Option 1 is since hes ditching the active system he can use the hole already in the body for that to add a 2nd pot or he can use that for a dpdt switch to give more tonal options and then use a stacked concentric pot like came on early jazz basses.

I find its easier to get vintage output pickups to do modern styles than it is to get high output pickups to do mellower styles. The pearly gates bridge is a nice vintage output pickup its not weak but not hot either. It has more midrange and a sweeter top end than a 59. Works very well in the bridge position. I dig the 59 for the neck its just a great classic PAF sound.

[peterdavis1991]

He doesnt necessarily have to drill holes. First does he even want a tone pot? If not then nothing needed but if so hes got options other than drilling holes. Option 1 is since hes ditching the active system he can use the hole already in the body for that to add a 2nd pot or he can use that for a dpdt switch to give more tonal options and then use a stacked concentric pot like came on early jazz basses.

I find its easier to get vintage output pickups to do modern styles than it is to get high output pickups to do mellower styles. The pearly gates bridge is a nice vintage output pickup its not weak but not hot either. It has more midrange and a sweeter top end than a 59. Works very well in the bridge position. I dig the 59 for the neck its just a great classic PAF sound.

Yeh, i thought about that last night actually, taking out the active eq switch and replacing with a pot. Also had a chance to listen on youtube with a few guitars that had the pearly gates, and i must say i quite liked them.

Thanks for your suggestion, i will be making a purchase in the next few weeks

Im pretty handy with a soldering iron etc as well, are these easy to wire up?

[Edgecrusher]

Yeh, i thought about that last night actually, taking out the active eq switch and replacing with a pot. Also had a chance to listen on youtube with a few guitars that had the pearly gates, and i must say i quite liked them.

Thanks for your suggestion, i will be making a purchase in the next few weeks

Im pretty handy with a soldering iron etc as well, are these easy to wire up?

Yep pretty straight foreward there are wiring diagrams available on SD's main site and if worse comes to worse just ask here again and people will help you figure it out.

[peterdavis1991]

Too easy! Thanks heaps for your help!

[peterdavis1991]

Does anyone have a cheap website or store they know of that ships to Australia that sells the pickups i'm after? and can you confirm i am after the: SH-1n and SH-PGP1b?

[peterdavis1991]

OH, and whats Pot's will i need? given that the current active one probably wont be good enough?

And you mentioned about the dpdt switch and stacked concentric pot? can you explain how that willl differ the tone over a volume and tone knob?\

Thanks for bearing with me, i am quite out of the loop when it comes to guitar electronics.

[Edgecrusher]

Your correct on the pickup numbers that your after thats the 59 neck and the pearly gates bridge.

You will need some pots they come in different values the most common are 250k and 500k though you can get them up to 1 meg. 500 is the value most people start at with humbuckers. If they are too bright they will drop down to 330 or 250 or conversely if they are too dark they will move up to 1 megs.

you will also need a capacitor doesnt need to be anything fancy a .047 ceramic disc cap will work just fine.

using a dpdt switch would allow you to split the pickups for single coil and series parallel sounds. The concentric pot is basically 2 pots stacked on top of one another and so turning the middle knob would control your volume while turning the outer ring would control the tone. This system is harder to wire up and would require 4 conductor pickups. Unless you have a specific desire for the split tones I would just wire it with the 2 pots and 3 way switch

I had a friend in AU order parts from these guys http://www.guitarparts.co.nz/cart/De...=555&category=

they did him good even though they are in NZ so you might look around and see if you can find someone closer. The link i put up is to the type of pot that you will need. CTS makes good pots.

[peterdavis1991]

Your correct on the pickup numbers that your after thats the 59 neck and the pearly gates bridge.

You will need some pots they come in different values the most common are 250k and 500k though you can get them up to 1 meg. 500 is the value most people start at with humbuckers. If they are too bright they will drop down to 330 or 250 or conversely if they are too dark they will move up to 1 megs.

you will also need a capacitor doesnt need to be anything fancy a .047 ceramic disc cap will work just fine.

using a dpdt switch would allow you to split the pickups for single coil and series parallel sounds. The concentric pot is basically 2 pots stacked on top of one another and so turning the middle knob would control your volume while turning the outer ring would control the tone. This system is harder to wire up and would require 4 conductor pickups. Unless you have a specific desire for the split tones I would just wire it with the 2 pots and 3 way switch

I had a friend in AU order parts from these guys http://www.guitarparts.co.nz/cart/De...=555&category=

they did him good even though they are in NZ so you might look around and see if you can find someone closer. The link i put up is to the type of pot that you will need. CTS makes good pots.

haha splitting the tones sounds a little complicated for the moment. I will get it all and wire up volume and tone and see how it sounds. no doubt it will sound much better than stock! And thanks for the link, will i use the same type of pots for volume and tone?

[Edgecrusher]

haha splitting the tones sounds a little complicated for the moment. I will get it all and wire up volume and tone and see how it sounds. no doubt it will sound much better than stock! And thanks for the link, will i use the same type of pots for volume and tone?

Yep same pots they just differ how they are wired and the tone pot has the capacitor wired to it.

[peterdavis1991]

Cheers! Thanks!