Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: crumpy on April 02, 2009, 06:00:40 PM
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Hey, I'm a bit of a noob in every respect so bare with me here,
I've recently picked up a used Ibanez Iceman IC300. I love the way it feels and plays but I'm thinking of upgrading the pickups. BKP's are recomended by everyone i know so thats why i'm here.
To be honest I havent been playing too long and i have no idea were to start in regards to what pickups i should be looking at. A lot of what i read doesn't mean a lot to me yet..
I mainly (attempt to) play The Black Keys, Jimmi Hendrix, Rage Against The Machine and a little bit of System of a down (when i can be botherd to tune to drop c) and use a marshal mg30dfx amp
also, the little plastic bracket around one of the pickups is broken and will need replacing, any idea were i can get something like that?
thanks for any help
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I'm not 100% familiar with your amp, but if it's the one I *think* it is, then you could certainly do a lot better there before leaping in to the world of BKPs. BKPs are fantastic, but they won't make a cheap-sounding amp sound expensive-sounding, if you get my drift!
With that caveat aside, I should imagine that a holy diver or possibly a cold sweat in there might be the ticket. A Nailmbomb would probably also do a fine job... There are others better equipped to advise than me (not least of whom is Tim at Bareknuckle - drop him an e-mail (see front page of website)).
Last, but not least, welcome to the forum!
Roo
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Thanks for the welcome. I guess I'll drop tim a messege then.
I take your point about the amp situation. This is the one I'm using at the moment.
http://www.marshallamps.com/product.asp?productCode=MG30DFX&pageType=SPECS (http://www.marshallamps.com/product.asp?productCode=MG30DFX&pageType=SPECS)
230V - 50Hz, 80Watts with 10" speaker
sticker on the back of the speaker says g10-30mg, custom voiced. dunno if that means anything to you, because it doesn't to me :)
could i aslo ask what sort of level of amp you think i'd need to be using in order to really justify BKP's?
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if you're fresh to electric guitar maybe you haven't got the clearest ideas about the sound you'd like to achieve... your musical range is quite wide and doesn't stretch too far in metal territories, so my best advice is to use an all-rounder pickup... a vintage hot (roo does hi-gain wonders with a set of black dogs) or some "mild" contemporary. i don't know yet if i really like my holy divers, but they could fit your needs effortlessly. nailbombs are very versatile too, and (in my opinion, but i'm one of the few to think so) more aggressive. for sure they've got a wild midrange that could make your iceman scream (it's a set-neck mahogany, isn't it?). i haven't got any first hand experience with crawlers but they're usually reccomended for medium/high gain versatility...
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and roo's right. maybe BKPs at this point of your tonal evolution could be a waste... they can bring to life a boring guitar and for sure are a step over any commercial brand (stock pickups are in another league so i don't even compare them), but you need a tone of your own. if you're still looking for it don't expect wonders from a pickup change.
keep in mind that BKPs are very tight, very responsive and very articulated, so they help to perfect technique but underline mercilessly eventual playing errors!
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For a friends strat with BKPs a Marshall MG100DFX was worlds ahead of a Marshall AVT50 usually with quality source you need quality amplification but sometimes you will find synergy at with cheap kit that outperforms expectation
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Hey dude, welcome to the forum.
Speaking from personal experience, which incidentally seems to be following a similar path to yours, you seem to have the right ideas about nailing your tone.
When i started, i had a jackson guitar, and an MG30 too. one regret i had at the time was rushing and buying an amp i could afford rather than buying the amp that i wanted. This will only mean that you will need to buy another amp later. Any valve/tube amp will help you get the best out of your sound, even something as small as an orange tiny terror or any sub 15watt tube amp will deliver the goods and power any speakers you hook up to it.
This is the first step i would take. Once you have done this i would definitely look at a crawler, rebel yell, a riff raff or an emerald as all the arists you mention don't use crushing gain, just varying degrees of crunch, even system of a down don't use thick 'metal' dist, but punkier crunch gain. This is why i feel that the progressive high gainer might bee too much for you. I have a crawler and it meets all the metal needs i have, and my taste seems similar to yours. I also have a nailbomb and i think it might be too much for what you need it for.
However, go to a guitar shop, and get someone to crank some cheap tube amps for you, you'll need it one day, and you'll never regret it.
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cool, thanks for all the response.
I'm defo gona upgrade the pickups as one of them is damaged and if I'm going to replace it i might aswell do a good job of it. Specially considering I managed to get this guitar for £50. I figure with a little bit of money spent I'll have a pretty decent guitar when compared to the overal price. And I'll start looking into tube amplifiers aswell then.
In regards to the style i play, I don't really see myslef playing loads of metal. I'll definatly dable more than a bit, but its not my main focus. I don't write songs yet or anything but, I do make up riffs and mess around a bit and if i had to give some artists to discribe what it sounds like (This is harder than it sounds) I'd go with the Black Keys, radio moscow, seasick steve and maybe the white stripes. Sort of bluesy rock/psychadelic rock stuff i guess. but as i say, you guys are right in that I wan't to dable in a bit off everything because I'm still way down on the bottom of the learning curve.
I think I'm leaning towards a set of crawlers at this point.
what about having a Mississippi Queen on the neck? what effect d'you think this would have?
p.s Actually dheim its a bolt on neck un-fortunatly :( . probably the one thing that I'm not happy about. That and its very neck heavy because of the strap bolt positioning, so when you let go it immediately swings down. but I'm sure I'll just get used to that. eventualy.
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this is a common problem with rear bolts, even on much more expehensive guitars! try fitting an heavy strap... something with a bit of grip and some mass of its own, it should help!
a MQ in neck position should give you very nice clean and crunchy tones for the styles you play, i think it's definitely an option.
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Ulitmate threadnomancy!
Life happened, other hobbies took priority, nothing has happened with the Iceman. But that's about to change.
My aims have developed and are pretty set but I'm still completely clueless regarding the terms everyone uses to describe sound, so the best I can do is list artists and genres that fit.
Whilst perhaps it seems at odds with what the Iceman was intended for, I'm looking for a clean sound for playing funk, Jamiroquai, and Nile Rogers, through to more gritty slow blues, John Mayer, Stevie Ray Vaughan, then cranking up for some Hendrix type stuff. The capability to pull off some Matt Bellamy craziness would be nice, but is not a priority, I certainly don't want to sacrifice the cleaner tone.
I'm struggling to get my head around the different options and understand the differences. Stormy Mondays are leading in my head right now, but will the hollow mids be at odds with everything but blues? The P90s all sound great, how would the supermassive 90 perform clean compared to Stormy Mondays? I'm attracted to the Emerald, but will it break up and give me the more gritty blues sound that I'm after as well?
So much choice, too much for me to comprehend.
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Well, no matter. Good things take time, don´t they. ;)
For what you describe I would most certainly stay on the vintage to vintage-hot side of things. That means the Supermassive and Stockholm are out. For maximum sounds you would probably go with a hotter bridge and a more vintage neck. Thus a Stormy neck is not out of the question at all imho. If you are looking for that absolute classic blues PAF sound it does that.
Then again, you cite a good bit of single coil sounds. Especially the Mayer reference, which I am rather familiar with by now, calls for a Blue-note neck in a humbucker format imho. Talking cleans and the perfect cross between vintage sincle coil response and humbucker fatness that is a bloody good ticket.
For the bridge then I´d be inclined to pick something really versatile, which can keep up with the Blue Note neck and bring it. If you feel comfortable with the idea of a P90 bridge I would say the MQ is a great option here. Bellamy crazyness is easy, it works with the wood, and it can still do all the other stuff you cite, as it is the classic gold standard P90 sound.
So Bluenote neck, MQ bridge does sound like one of the great options to me.
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What Kiichi says, but beware that P90's will hum a bit.
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Thanks Kiichi. A BlueNote/MQ set up is sounding great.
I'm happy to shut the volume off whenever I'm not playing to cancel out the P90 hum.
anyone else have other ideas before I buy them?
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I'm not that familiar with P90 pups so I'll stay away from that for now but I will comment on other things in your thread.
1) Change the amp first! A small valve amp like a Tiny Terror or, even better, a Dual Terror would be ideal. Don't worry about the low wattage at all as it's completely different with valve amps. I couldn't play a gig with your 30w Marshall but with my Orange TH30 I swear I could play a gig with it set to only 7w! A better amp will do far more for your tone than any BKP.
2) If you do change pickups and want some singlecoil options, try looking at humbuckers that split well or maybe try a humbucker/P90 set. As far as humbuckers are concerned, I would agree that vintage or vintage hot would be best. From the vintage selection, I'd look at Mules. They're the perfect PAF pickup and extremely versatile though may not be ideal for split tones. In the vintage hot section I think you have a few options. The Abraxas is basically just a hotter Mule so will do similar things but give you better split tones. The Emearld is really good but also really bright in the bridge position so your guitar would have to sound quite dark on its own. For some reason, I really think you'd like Black Dogs.
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Ha ... kind of weird, an Iceman should really have a Cold Sweat or Rebel Yell shoved into it ... such an '80s hard rock and metal guitar in my book ... the bolt-on neck Iceman has a different sound to the set neck and neck-through ones, and some people like it better. Just depends on what you are looking for.
What are the materials that this model is made from? That would be a good starting point in terms of advice that people can give you. From what I can see online these tend to be a mahogany body with a maple neck
I am assuming that despite the fact that you say the pickup is 'damaged' it still played. What is damaged about it and what do you like about the sound? What is it about the sound that you'd like to change?
I tend to think the VHII might be a good option. With the maple neck there's a chance that the Emerald might be too bright
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Thank you all for sharing your thoughts.
I now use a Mooer Little Monster AC 5w Tube amp. I'd like something bigger at some point, but I'm not going to be gigging anytime soon, if ever, and this suits my 'bedroom amp' needs for the moment. It's a significant improvement over the Marshall amp I had. I 'get' the tube amp thing now.
The IC300 is indeed a mahogany body with bolt on maple neck, AH1 and AH2 humbuckers. It may not be the perfect base for the direction I'm going in, but I really like the way it looks and feels.
Currently it definitely sounds strongest smashing out power chords with the gain cranked up or using a distortion pedal, I suspect that it could be made into a formidable metal axe. It's got weight or power, but perhaps lacks crispness particularly when played clean, like it could be brighter and more sparkly for the stuff I like to play. I could just be talking out of my *** though.
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I think you might not go far wrong with Stormy Mondays.
I'm a strat-man really, but I have a bunch of other guitars. Recently I got a Les Paul Traditional and thought I'd try out the Stormy Mondays (I have Mules and Riff Raffs in other humbucker guitars). I have to say - this guitar has completely stopped me playing the strats for the moment. It does the cleans, it does the rocking. It's fast turning into my favourite go-to guitar.
If you want to go P90, I have Mississippi Queens. They were in an SG for a long time, they're now in another Les Paul but I haven't used it much yet (all the pickups got switched round at the same time, and apart from a little run-through and adjustment for the others, I haven't put the Trad with it's Stormies down). The SG with the MQs definitely produced the sounds you're talking about when I rolled off the volume - nice cleans that encouraged funky blues playing. But I find them slightly harsher and more punchy than the Stormy Mondays.
The SMs have been a bit of an eye-opener for me - I use a single channel valve amp, no pedals, I control it all from the guitar, and prior to this, if I wanted a "versatile" sound, cleans and dirties etc, the whole thing, mellow, funky, raunchy, I'd always pick up a strat or a tele. The guitars with humbuckers or, indeed, the MQs always suggest dirtier blues/rock etc to me. But I'm now using a Les Paul with humbuckers (Stormy Mondays) for everything. It doesn't sound like a strat, but it gives me the same vibe.
How things will work with a mahogany body and bolt on maple, I don't know, though...
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Crumpy has brought the Iceman in to us to bring back to life after taking a backseat to other hobbies.
We intend to make a lovely job of tidying up the fretboard and electrics too.
We have a lovely Mississippi queen ready to go and Chris at BKP is speeding a blue note through so we can get the guitar done in record time so Crumpy can have it back before he goes on his travels.
We'll put some nice pots and a Jensen cap in too, and the guitar will have a lot of usable range
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Hah! I wondered if you'd be on here.
Really looking forward the changes.
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Here is how the beast looks now:
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/t31.0-8/10996980_811436145570138_8937303552965714732_o.jpg)
We were looking forward to putting the HSPs in and first revamped the cavities - screening them with nickel paint.
With Ed's permission we addedan extra control - because Icaman guitars look so much better with 3 controls like the classic PS10, and it would also allow individual control of each pickup.
We chose to use 500k pots as they would allo the full top end spectrum to shine through and make the guitar more versatile .
But we paired it up with a BKP/Jensen 0.022uF cap , so there is a nice smooth treble roll off available.
A replacement switch as the old one was troublesome and the frets given a little fret dressing and the guitar is a joy to play.
The choice of MQ and Blue Note is superb and will cover rock and blues nicely.
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/t31.0-8/10830639_811436168903469_5596285555086208313_o.jpg)
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Beautiful job!
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:grin: Phwoar! That third pot really does make a big difference to the way it looks.
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Nice!
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I agree that three controls just looks 'right'. I can't think how anyone would prefer it any other way.