Metal pickup for Ibanez RGA121H

[DarthV]

Bought an absolutely mint used RGA121H last week and it definitely needs more output from the bridge pup! Actually sort of happy with the neck pup. This is one of the Ibby prestiges that doesn't have the maple cap, so it's just the arched mahogany body, maple/walnut neck, rosewood board and a fixed bridge. I had planned on going with EMG 81/60 combo, but they won't fit in the pickup cavities without some work. Some people suggested I take a look at BKPs as a better alternative to taking a dremmel to EMGs (or worse, a router to the guitar).

Looking for pups that will handle downtuned stuff well. Looking for Lamb of God, Machine Head, KSE and Metallica's Garage Inc type of tones. I'm playing through a Peavey 6505 212 combo. So what do you guys suggest? C-Pig? Nailbomb?

And on the technical side, I'll have to open up the electronics bay to see how many wires the stock V7/V8 pups are using. What about the legs? I'll break out a ruler to figure out what spacing I need.

And the last question would be, what finish for covered pups would go along with this beauty? Kind of thinking of aged or raw nickel! The camo doesn't look too bad either.



And thanks for any advice :)

[Alex]

I think you'd be ideally looking at the Nailbomb (both Alnico or Ceramic), Miracle Man and Painkiller. I think Warpig and Aftermath would take you a bit too far from the classic metal sounds such as Metallica and Lamb of God.

I think the Nailbomb would make a good fit and still be very versatile, but it isn't as hot as the others (something that never bothered me). Since you're amp is very gainy though taht shouldn't be a problem at all.

I think open coils would look best. Be aware that everything else might clash with the finish of the bridge.

[Telerocker]

I concur with the C-bomb or the Miracle Man.

[DarthV]

A lot of the clips I've heard with MMs, I found the sound too thick. Thinking that the C-bomb might be the choice for me.

[Telerocker]

The lower frequences on the MM are emphasized, the C-bomb could the better choiche, though looking at the eq-charts both have a bit a scooped midrange and quite some bass and treble. You may have a look at the more middy Aftermath too.

[Transcend]

The miracle man is only as thick as you EQ your amp too be.

you need to think more about the bigger picture when making these choices

[DarthV]

Such as?

[Transcend]

Such as?

your amp.

you can make a pickup go from absolutely think to super thick with some careful EQ.

What work would you need to do to fit EMGs btw? im quite curious as to what obstacles you have come up as ive only ever seen people having problems with going from the 7 string emgs to passives because of the physical size difference.

Personally for what you want tonally i would go for the miracle man set

the cold sweat could be too weedy and ive always found the nailbombs to sound odd for anything other than nu metal type tones

Also the miracle man is absolutely ideal for those garage inc type tones.

And the Aftermath can do KSE rather well

[DarthV]

I'll have to do some more listening before deciding, that's for sure. Lot of the clips I've heard with the MMs seemed to be fans of Zakk, so most of the stuff sounded too thick for my taste. Love his playing, but not really a fan of the tar thick and loose tone he uses. But that could just be more of an EQ choice on the amp side.

The rga121's have a very tight fit on the humbucker cavities. Just eyeballing it (don't have any calipers to do accurate measurements and don't feel like tearing everything apart to use a tape/ruler properly!), but the 'ears' (flange?) for the mounting screws/bolts seems to be a little too square to fit the rounded cavity. The body of the pickups should fit, but it would be a very tight fit. I'll see if I can find a pair of calipers at work tomorrow.

Opened up the electronics bay and see that I'll need the 4 wire version of whatever I decide on. What a mess of soldering there. Wish pickup companies would just come up with a solderless standard. Doesn't Seymour Duncan have a new wiring hardness design? Or even better, the PIN connectors that EMG uses for their newer solderless systems...it's damn awesome!

[watsonb2]

I've owned two with sets of PK's in them and I can honestly say hands down that's the way you should go. They sound nice and thick with tons of sustain and can tighten up nicely and give you essentially any tone you are looking for. I think pairing it with a VHII neck (ala Nolly's beaming recommendations) should be able to cover any musical ground you want.

And to clarify a few things:

It should have a maple cap (all of the variants of this model do IIRC)
The pups will fit in the cavities with no routing required, even with covers on

I'd also recommend the raw nickel, should look sweet with that finish.

[DarthV]

The 2007-8 rga121h did not have the maple cap.

[Transcend]

Just for a bit of reference here are some older clips of mine with a miracle man in a mahogany bodied RGA with a maple neck

http://soundcloud.com/boyes/abigail-ibanez-starfield-vpa-1
http://soundcloud.com/boyes/in-memoriam

If you require anything else i may have the time to knock some clips up more to your requirements as the guitars we use are of a similar construction

[DarthV]

Nice playing and nice tone. Loved the Ghostbusters cover too.

[Transcend]

Nice playing and nice tone. Loved the Ghostbusters cover too.

thanks and the ghostbusters one is the aftermath in basswood