Ibanez S series + BKP experiences

[m0jo]

Hi guys!

I'm wondering, who here has an Ibanez S series with BKP's and what was the effect?

I'm asking because the S is a hard kind of guitar to pick pickups for :(, seeing as how the body is thin.. but mahogany, and some have maple tops.. hard to compare to superstrats and LP's.

I have an S470DXQM in (dark) red :) currently with a combo of Dimarzio Super Distortion and EMG H4a (had it laying around, only just started really using my neck pickup and realized .. that one sucks haha).

I'm looking at Nailbomb/Miracle man/Warpig for the bridge, but i'm concerned about the highs, that the MM could be too tight/dry, the NB too loose, and the Pig overpowered haha.

SO! how does your S like the BKP?  :)

[Jonny]

Wrong forum to post I'm afraid. dheim has a S320 with Nailbombs in it I believe.

http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=15145.0

[m0jo]

Wrong forum to post I'm afraid. dheim has a S320 with Nailbombs in it I believe.

http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=15145.0

Yeah that put me to making this thread ;) I saw 2 more S's come by in other threads, so I'm hoping there might be more.. ;)

I do realise that we are a minority around here haha, thank's anyways!

[dheim]

wrong forum in the sense that your thread should have been started in "pickups" section rather than in "players"...
but this won't save you from one of my verbose answers... ;)
S are strange beasts, at least for me... they look and feel great, they've got a very middy acoustic sound (almost SG-like but with tons less of punch and width) but they suffer from very thin and light bodies and bolt-on construction (blackmachine players - if the guy answered me i'd like to be one of them one day... :) - will certainly object, but i think that BM are built very differently...), so they tend to sound a bit "shallow", if you get my point...
i've got an S320 loaded with nailbombs and i totally love its sound... not the tightest sound on earth (but who needs it for the things i play?) but tighter than most pickups can offer, very open and organic. sustain is not that good but my experience with other pickups tells me it's entirely an S thing...
in few days i'll get my S470 with an interesting (and totally unbalanced!) setup: Painkiller set + Sultan middle single coil... so in a week or so i'll be able to tell you something about it.
I'm also waiting for a custom covered set of Nailbombs (so at least a month of wait... :() to put in an SA prestige (maybe the best feeling guitar i own), so i'll discover if Nailbombs can be even better than i already know!

one last thing... i don't think that Warpigs will be an useless overkill in an S... i have no direct experience but i bet they sound great

[m0jo]

wrong forum in the sense that your thread should have been started in "pickups" section rather than in "players"...

Erm right! My bad, I actually wanted to put it in pickups.. something went wrong there ;) maybe an admin kan move it?

I don't think comparison with an SG is quite fair though, they do have less punch and low end, but that could just be explained by the fact that the SG is full mahogany, set neck and most importantly tune-o-matic. It's a totally different species. Don't get me wrong, I'd die if I came over an SG-X somewhere and I'd take it home immediatly!

I do get what you mean about the shallow and middy thing, I am trying to get more low end and just some more punch and power out of it, which is a hard thing to do without shooting over and getting a guitar only suited for trash, which is definitly not where I want to go. :(

I play a large mix of styles (which once again makes it hard to get the right gear), but mostly it's a mix of punkrock, funk(metal), hard rock and some classic metal. It comes down to getting a nice full but strong sound, with balls, and the S has gotten rid of some balls to lose weight (no pun intended), which is unfortunate because I am addicted to the feel of the thing.. :)

Edit: dheim what kind of strings do you have on your S's by the way? I've found out that switching to 10-52 made an enormous difference in.. everything, tighter, punchyer, ballsyer etc. :) That also had some effect with the pickup choice of course. :)

[dheim]

i usually play with 10-46 in 24.75 guitars, and 9-46 in 25.5... i know, i'm a whimp... :)
i didn't mean to compare directly S and SG... SGs sound like 2 S glued together! if you love the S feel but want more body (and for the genre you play i'd say that you need it!) i can suggest you an SA... the've got the best of S models (except they're thicker and heavier, but for me this isn't a bad thing!) without their weak spots... if you need a floating bridge they won't do you any good, though...

[m0jo]

haha not a wimp at all, it's just choice you made ;) We also downtune to D in a lot of songs so that's also a factor ;)

if you love the S feel but want more body (and for the genre you play i'd say that you need it!) i can suggest you an SA... the've got the best of S models (except they're thicker and heavier, but for me this isn't a bad thing!) without their weak spots... if you need a floating bridge they won't do you any good, though...

You kind of hit the nail in the face with a jackhammer there, I do love my floyd and it's a big part of my style, on top of that the looks of the Sa's somehow don't look right (although that might just be the fact that it's lacking the floyd ;) ).

I'm also at the moment kind of stuck with this guitar, I'm 18 and attend university .. so I can't easily buy a new guitar. I'm looking to save up money for a Ran Guitars custom sometime in the future, but first I'll want a new amp (probably a Randall RM-4 + RT-2/50) so I just want the best sound possible with this guitar. :)

[dheim]

eheheh... got it! anyway if what you look for is versatility you can stick to the nailbombs and be happy! but i suggest you a balanced set... you'll be surprised of how great a neck NB can sound...

[m0jo]

Yes I had already figured out that if the bridge Nb would suit me I'd get the matched neck as well, it's funny that you should comfirm that :)

Is your S470 in yet? I'd love to hear how a painkiller would sound in that, I kind of took it out of the selection straight away because it is the most middy pickup in the world ..  in a middy guitar,  :P and I like mid ..  but not that much :lol:

[dheim]

no, WE have to wait some day yet...  :P

[reguv760]

got a C-pig in a '95 S540FM [see avatar pic :P]... mahogany with flame maple top + back... not necessarily overkill to the C-pig's "brightness" but it actually enhanced the highs. I upgraded the bridge from the stock QM and at first impression, i thought the C-pig didn't sound any different until I raised it up and like magic, found the sweet spot [it wasn't instant though]. Very tight bass response with a presence that's just undeniably "breathing".

Through my Engl and Mesa preamps, the C-pig's grunt and squeels definitely shines through. Tuned to C standard with some thick odd gauges (.056 - .011), I did notice the "tightness" improved from the .054's that was there before...

Now here was the fun experiment I did for the past few months since I got the C-pig: I brought my axe over to my "guitar buddies" to hear how the pup reacted through their amps. I've plugged it in through a VHT Sig-X, Mesa Dual Rectifier Rackmount, Orange Microcrush, Peavey XXX, and even a Fender M-80 and the axe sounded very consistent wherever I plugged it in; meaning the cr@ppy Fender M-80 sounded brutal, the Orange sounded very lush, the Recto was destructive, the XXX sounded mean but not destructive while the VHT definitely brought out the "most organic and metal sounding pup". The trick with the C-pig however is not the have gain at full blast, if anything, the gain was set @2 - 3 o'clock. Otherwise, my consensus of the C-pig in my S: definitely a punchy pup with enough mids and presence to cut through :)

So ya, the C-pig is definitely a "metal pup" but i dig how the cleans are and the "quack-like" coil-split is pretty suitable for some funk. As for clips, I've been trying to make some with a Line6 spyder III 15w direct to PC but not sure what to record :P

I'm definitely considering getting a BKP neck soon and i've been impressed with the dheim's nailbomb and cold sweat clips.

Reg

[m0jo]

Wow that's great, but maple back too? so there's like 2mm of mahogany in the middle?  :lol:

Funny you noticed the difference with the different strings :) I guess it comes out well on these guitars.

But there's a real problem with the Pigs :( everybody who has them insists on recording in C or C# tuning, I play in E and drop-D (trying to nudge the band slowly into D# :)). So I can't really assess how that would sound in any guitar, nevermind an S :(

There should be a rule for pigs: first record in E, *then* tune down.

[Jonny]

Well I have a ceramic Warpig and use it in tunings from standard (Satriani, Gilbert, Metallica) to as far as Drop A (In Flames) so what I can vouch for is versatility amongst tunings.

[reguv760]

Wow that's great, but maple back too? so there's like 2mm of mahogany in the middle?  :lol:

well the front + back tops are like 1mm! i'm not sure if it adds THAT much of a tone difference but i know it's much lighter than my S5470 [no BKP's there :P], which is all mahogany and slightly thinner on the sides. I've been playing the S540 much more cause of the C-pig :)


Reg

[m0jo]

Holy mother of the ...               *runs for a hose*

How's the X2N in the 5470?
I've played it in the store, but with the standard pickups and the 09 strings it is seriously schmuffy (yeah! inventing words rocks!)

@Jonny: That might be true, but still there are barely clips of it. And that makes it very hard to judge how it'd be on my S ;)