Ibanez RG550EX pickups suggestions

[markr76]

Hi There.

I have an old ibanez rg500 from 1990 which i had retired as the trem posts had moved in the basswood body and i thought the guitar was knackered.

Well i decided to sort it out as , i am a cnc machinist and patternmaker by trade so woodwork and engineering is my thing. Plus I have access to cnc machines. I drilled out the trem post body inserts to a larger diameter and glued mahogany plugs in,re drilled and press fit in the trem posts. Bought a new low pro ibanez locking trem and the guitar is like its old self. Never go's out of tune!

The guitar currently has seymour duncan pups in it. A custom custom in the bridge, a pearly gates in the neck and a classic stack plus singlecoil in the middle. I really like the classic stack pickup but not to bother by the other two. This guitar has had more pup changes over the years than i can remember, but I always though the best combination in that guitar was a Dimarzio super distortion in the bridge and a paf pro in the neck. the best middle single would be the seymour duncan. With the super distortion. I liked it in that ibanez but didn't like it in my friend who bought that pup off me guitar which was also an ibanez.

So I was just going to pop some more dimarzios in the guitar when i thought a set of BKP's would be much better as I do love that guitar.

I was thinking a set of either vhii's, holydivers or rebel yells. With either a irish tour or a trilogy suite in the middle.

The guitar itself has a basswood body, maple neck and fretboard and has a locking trem.  The guitar can be a little bright with the wrong pups and my other guitars are a prs single cut and a les paul standard which is as beefy as hell! So i want to tame the high end a little while still having the snap from the maple. But make sure its nice and warm and thick sounding. Also not too high output pickups as i like to clean things up with the volume. I will also be splitting the buckers so they have to sound good there too.

I generally use this guitar for heavier rock and the van halen, satriani, Vai sort of stuff. I use orange amps the or15 and 100 id that helps

What pickups would you chap recommend?

Cheers, Mark.

[Telerocker]

Holy Diver/VHII-neck would work fine in your guitar. Diver has serious mids and a round topend. One of the best BKP's for (prog.) solo's. The VHII-neck is great for fluid solo's. It's definitely not as bright as a HD-neck.

[m t soule]

You have just described me there.
I own a 90's rg maple neck/board.
It has the vhii/hd combo and had vhii/ry in at one point but I swapped the ry for hd because it's bottom end wasn't present enough for my uses and had a lot less volume than the vhii in the neck which niggled me (Great sound tho!!!)
The vhii neck is my fave bkp so far. Very articulate, responds well to volume adjustments, has a great pick attack combined with the maple board, can get brighter if you pick harder and warmer If played softer. Both split with the stock s1 middle nicely.
To give you a base for comparison the vhii/hd sound (to me) very much like more open, dynamic, louder, richer dimarzio evolutions
Evos compression is highlighted when played on my jem after my Rg. (I still love my jems sound btw)

I have the irish tour middle in a separate rg and I like it a lot. Much better than the stock s1. They are clearer and louder, slightly punchy in the bottom and brighter at the top.
I am going to swap this out of black Rg and into Red Rg and see how they get on with the vhii/hd.

I did some vids ages ago now but I have improved my playing and rig since then so let me know if you want an update.

[m t soule]

Alternatively for thickness a crawler is fat as fu!! In my rg550mxx

[Telerocker]

Oh yeah, Crawler in my swampashstrat just rocks.