Pickup advice from anyone who is familiar with Marco Sfogli's solo work?

[IbbySabre]

I'll give that combo a try then. I'll prob get lost down the rabbit hole otherwise.

[Marco78]

However, if I remember correctly, BK give the possility to return the pickup if you don't like. But ask to Tim directly.

;)

['Ash' J. Williams]

Here's what i would do : Take the HD/IT/EM, take a good week to try them and, if you do not find the HD bridge suit your needs (I think it will) ask to swap it for an Abraxas.
But again, the HD is incredible in an Ibby S.

Also, don't forget to ask for a reversed magnet in the neck pickup if you plan to use the original Ibanez switch/wiring.

[darkbluemurder]

Here's what i would do : Take the HD/IT/EM, take a good week to try them and, if you do not find the HD bridge suit your needs (I think it will) ask to swap it for an Abraxas.
But again, the HD is incredible in an Ibby S.

Also, don't forget to ask for a reversed magnet in the neck pickup if you plan to use the original Ibanez switch/wiring.

Very good suggestions. I have been thinking about a similar set up for my ash strat with the HD in the bridge but using the Guthrie Govan wiring. For that wiring a reversed magnet in the neck pickup is also recommended.

Cheers Stephan

[Marco78]

For that wiring a reversed magnet in the neck pickup is also recommended.

Why?

[darkbluemurder]

To have all the five positions of the 5-way-switch humcancelling.

Cheers Stephan

[IbbySabre]

Well just ordered from a local dealer (cheaper prices, a mate did it for me) a Holy Diver for bridge, an Irish Tour for the middle single-coil, and an Emerald for the neck. I've took your advice an requested for the neck to be reverse polarity. I would actually have never known you had to do that for Ibanez wiring. I'm not the biggest expert in this department lol.

['Ash' J. Williams]

I have been thinking about a similar set up for my ash strat with the HD in the bridge but using the Guthrie Govan wiring.

/Out of topic

I don't know if you'll actually be going for Guthrie's sound but i can tell you that i could get a fantastic Waves tone out of the Emerald neck !

Interestingly enough, the other pickups that did a great Guthrie sound where the Nailbombs (And i later read an advice from Nolly suggesting the Nailbomb set for someone looking for something in the SSH+/SSV style)

/Back to thread

[darkbluemurder]

I read the same advice. I am not really going for the GG sound but I like the switching set up - while it does not offer too many sounds it offers the most important ones readily available on tap.

I will set up a pickguard with the spare pickups I have (an A-Bomb bridge, a non-BKP single coil in the middle and a Crawler neck that have all the correct magnet polarity) just to see how the switching works and whether I prefer a single coil or a humbucker in the neck position. If I like the arrangement I will probably replace the A-Bomb with the Holydiver which has already proven itself.

Cheers Stephan 

[IbbySabre]

Just had a chat with my guitar tech today. He says with the original Ibanez Wiring it should be the middle single-coil that should have the polarity reversed, not the neck. I kinda feel I've been given a batch of VERY BAD advice off someone here (If Ash J Williams could let me know what influenced him to advice this to me.). I've looked at BKP wiring as well, and it's the middle that is reverse polarity. I have no idea what was meant by having all 5 ways humcancelling, as the middle on it's own wouldn't be humcancelling anyways. I have no idea why someone would tell me this bit of advice, but it's naffed me off a bit as I've bought the p/us now. I was hoping to get good advice here.

EDIT: Just had a look back at my original post incase you mightve thought I meant something else. But nope, clearly stated it was a HSH Ibanez S. So adding new pickups with the original wiring and switch would NOT require reversed polarity neck in this case. My tech is just laughing his head off at me. Is there anything I can do due to it being a custom order and not direct from BKP?

['Ash' J. Williams]

How about simply asking to change your order ? I've done it quite a lot of time.

For the record, you'll just need to switch the hot and ground wire for it to work as non-reversed.
Also, i've always though the HSH setup in an Ibanez would need the reversed magnet in the neck pickup as in the HH Ibanez setup and i've read some people talking about it here. But i may have misunderstood some of those discussions apparently.
If so, I apologize for that.

Now to the important part : you come here asking for free advice from people willing to help you (again freely) by giving you their though on a product they are not officially affiliated with.
Then you're upset because your tech is 'laughing at you' (seems like a nice professional guy) for making an apparently unjustified choice.


-Did you call your tech to hear his though before placing your order ?
-Have you tried contacting BKP staff before buying to - okay this get crazy - maybe CONFIRM what you read from both Stephan and me ?
-Why did you only looked at the schematics after this ?


You want to know why did i give you this piece of advice ? 2 Possibilities here :

1: I'm just a regular passionate folk who is happy to share is experience with BKPs since i've owned quite a lot of them since 2005 and know the frustration of having to make the right choice between all those quality -but expansive- pickups.
I don't have to do this and i do not pretend to know it all, but i try to provide the help i would be glad to receive.

or

2: Because i'm an a**hole who just want to watch the world burns.

Be more patient, more decent, and learn to recognize when someone really owes you something.

That said i hope you'll be very happy with your pickups and I'm sure they'll be great in your Ibanez S.

[IbbySabre]

Got it sorted. I just had a moment of complete worry. Sorry to sound a bit of a...well you know. I'm all new to this forum stuff, and I didn't look at schematics because to me it would make as much sense as a giraffe trying to solve a rubix cube. I didn't even hear of reverse polarity until you mentioned it. Now I know all these things, it's easy to look back and feel a bit stupid. But when you honestly have no idea, it's not something you go looking for, as you don't realise it exists. Thanks for the help though. Just the fact of spending a fortune on a pickup with specialised covers and receiving them wrong, really touched a nerve.

I've just done a lot of research now, and you said you could simply change the wires round? From what I've been told, switching wires isn't the way to solve, as apparantly the entire magnet has to be flipped. Anyways all in the learning curve.

Cheers for the advice though

[IbbySabre]

Oh forgot to ask, you said you thought you had to have the magnet reversed in an HSH ibanez. How does the reverse magnet in the neck affect your Ibanez S? Or does it just not hum-cancel in the fourth position? I've read somewhere it's pretty easy to flip a pickup magnet.

I've actually thought by your suggestion. BKP has a diagram were you can just use 2 Humbuckers with Ibanez Wiring, with the reverse magnet you suggested. Does anyone like this wiring? Luckily the guy hasn't ordered yet, so I'm thinking of ditching the single-coil to try this wiring. Looks a nice refreshing change :)

[darkbluemurder]

I've read somewhere it's pretty easy to flip a pickup magnet.

That depends. If it's an uncovered pickup, yes. You still need to be careful. If it's a covered one, you will need to remove the cover first. And if it's epoxy potted in the cover as some Gibson or Gordon Smith pickups are, forget it.

I have actually reversed the magnet in the Holydiver I use in my PRS which was fairly easy. In a design with triple magnets such as the Painkiller it's more involved, though, as you need to reverse all the magnets - otherwise the pickup will be weak and thin (I had a P90 once which has two magnets, and one was reversed - that pickup was almost dead).

Cheers Stephan

['Ash' J. Williams]

How does the reverse magnet in the neck affect your Ibanez S? Or does it just not hum-cancel in the fourth position?

Well my S is a HH, and i've replaced the 5-way with a 3-way blade switch so the HDs in there are 'standard'.

The 5 pos with HH from Ibanez worked well enough but you can't beat a HSH setup for versatility, that middle sc gives more character to the in-between positions and i personally like the sound of a middle single coil alone.

I've just done a lot of research now, and you said you could simply change the wires round? From what I've been told, switching wires isn't the way to solve, as apparantly the entire magnet has to be flipped.

The thing about switching the hot and ground wires comes from my experience with the PG Blues;
you can more or less revert to in-phase in between position by doing this (even if the pickup is still wound out-of-phase) but again, i really would like someone to chime in on this to give us a more detailed explanation  !