Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: LoyK on June 27, 2009, 12:33:31 PM
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Hi!
I´ve just bought a like-new Ibanez RG550 20th in roadflare red (awesome!) but I´m not to happy with the pickups.
Which bareknuckles would you recommend for neck and bridge position in that guitar? It´s basswood body with maple neck/fretboard. Neck should be good for singing lead tones and bridge for tight metal riffing. I thought about cold sweat neck and nailbomb or miracle man bridge, but really don´t know what fits the guitar well.
thanks!
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MM
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I've put a Miracle Man set (plus Slowhand SC) in my 20th.
The bridge is very powerful and tight compared to the stock pickups, which are weak in the bass and more high mid focused. The you'll get a big but punchy bass from the MM and clear treble. Some might say the mids are scooped but I a disagree, I just think they're less prominent than in other BKPs.
I have also tried a Nailbomb in the bridge. It was good but a bit too honky in the mids for me, so I put it back in my Charvel where it's better balanced.
The neck MM balances perfectly with the bridge in terms of output but is very fat sounding. Played clean it actually sounds very jazzy. I haven't tried the Cold Sweat neck, I'm sure it would be great and perhaps a bit less full on than the MM.
FWIW the Slowhand single coil in the centre is stunning, and positions 2 and 4 split are very strat-like.
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Take a listen to the Nailbomb clip (http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=247.0) and if you like it, then go for Nailbombs but if you don't, tell us what you don't like about it.
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The soundclip sounds pretty nice:) But after gingataff´s desription the miracle man would be my #1 right now, together with the cold sweat neck.
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MMs are not my favourite BKPs, but i would have suggested you the same thing... ah, MM neck is awesome and complements wery well the bridge unit. i wouldn't say the same thing about the CS neck. awesome too (even MORE awesome, probably...) but i don't see them very well together.
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Hmm, then a MM set would be awesome I think. I need the short leg and the trem spacing, am I right?
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every pickup i took out of my ibbies had, strangely, long legs!
anyway i always bought short legged replacements and they fit perfectly. spacing is 53 mm.
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I need the short leg and the trem spacing, am I right?
Yes, although I found it quite a tight fit in the cavity, you might want to ask Tim if he can grind the corners off tabs of the legs to help them fit better.
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OK, thanks for the advice! If anyone else got experience with BKPs in Ibanez RGs, feel free to share it;)
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OK, thanks for the advice! If anyone else got experience with BKPs in Ibanez RGs, feel free to share it;)
i've got a couple of warpigs in an RGR, with pickups rings, and i had no issue...
trouble came when i installed miracle men in an RGA, with direct mount... my luthier had to adjust slightly the cavity and shaped the leg bases... yours should have a pickguard, if i remember the model, so in theory everything should be at least as easy as with pickup rings...
twinfan has got exactly the same ibanez as yours, i think... if you see him around message him directly!
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I have a CS neck and MM Bridge in an RG, which is also basswood, and the MM is awesome for tight riffing, and I find harmonics just fly out of it. CS neck is a nice pup, nice cleans, and has nice leads, but I like the MM more for leads personally, a lot of people may well disagree, but I love my MM. I'd be interested in an MM set, would probably be awesome... :)
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Hey dude, I'm using an RG 470 (stock PUPs - V7, S1 and V8) with the MM set and a suhr FL mid single coil PUP. And I concur with Gingataff, for the bridge the mids are less pronounced making it perfect for riffing and the neck pickup is very fat. However, imho these pickups dont sound too good clean. Paired with the mid single coil however, they sound too sweet.
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I ran a RG470F/TBL with miracle man in the bridge. Perfect for that downtuned goodness. Well, nearly perfect, but that soon got fixed ;)
Go for the MM and don't look back!
Roo
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Yeah guys, I´ve just ordered 2 MMs :) The single coil sounds pretty good Imo, so I´m not going to switch it at the moment; maybe later.
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Yeah guys, I´ve just ordered 2 MMs :)
Congratulations!
I restrung my RG back to concert pitch today (it was in drop C and sounded incredible in that tuning but the Edge trem couldn't really handle the intonation) and I've had loads of fun playing Steve Morse, Satriani and Andy Timmons. A bit high gain for those styles maybe but still great, great tone.
The single coil sounds pretty good Imo, so I´m not going to switch it at the moment; maybe later.
Take it from me that the Slowhand I replaced the stock SC with made a huge improvement, it's a real Strat sound but still manages to balance well with the MMs and the inbetween settings are so nice.
Go on. You know you want to.
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If I like the MMs, I am going to upgrade my ESP Horizon II (´59/JB) in the near future, which would be a good chance to order a slowhand SC ;)
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Hi guys, the MMs have arrived:)
But after removing the pickguard, it seems that the 2 humbuckers of my Ibanez have 2 connectors only (+ ground), red and white cables. These 2 cables are connected to the 5-way switch. How can the humbuckers be splitted then?! My BKPs are 4 conductor now; I need help how to connect them properly. Thanks in advance!
Edit: White and green cables of the BKPs are connected already; so can I use the remaining 3 cables similar to the Ibanez pickups? Red to red, ground to ground and white to black(BKP) or do I have to solder other cables of the BKPs together?
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The BKP cable has separate wires for the end of each coil, plus a bare ground/shield wire. The Ibanez cable just has hot (red), ground and a coil split wire (white).
So this (I think!) is how the wiring should go:
Ibanez...................................BKP
Red........................................Red
White.....................................Green & White
Bare (ground)........................Black & Bare
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OK, that sounds good. Can any Ibanez-User approve that?
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I replaced the Ibanez 5-way switch (=rubbish) with a CRL one (=good) and wired it as PhillyQ says.
Black and bare to ground, red to the 'hot' tabs on the switch and green&white to the 'split/ground' tabs.
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Thank you!
I´ll leave the Ibz switch in there for the moment; maybe I´ll replace it soon, bypass the tonepot (don´t need it) and replace the vol pot and the condensator :)
I hope everything works in a few hours.
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Thanks for your help guys, everything works fine now!
And the Miracle Men(!) are kicking major ass with my VHT Sig:X (now Fryette); everything sounds so powerful and clear...it´s a dream:)