Re: Iommi Pickups by Era
well since he mainly used vintage gibson SG's back then (and still today), im guessing PAF's. I know gibson has a signature Iommy humbucker, but its REALLY HOT! its the same output as their dirtyfingers pickup and that's the hottest pickup gibson makes. As far as SD's go, my best guess would be '59s. You could try the SD custom shop and see what they could do for you.
He used one gibson SG in the early albums then moved to custom builders like John Birch, and Jay Dee (both english). It was only recently (1999ish) that he began using actual Gibson SGs again when they released a signature model. In the later 80's he was also using/had a BC rich Ironbird, Washburn Idol, and patrick eggle guitars. He used custom builders after gibson refused to build a 24 fret left handed guitar.
Pickups by era:
the sg (what we would name a classic now) had a p90 in the bridge and a john birch pickup in the neck (magnum i believe)
When he moved on to the John Birch SG and the later Jay Dee SG (Jaydee worked for John Birch then set up his own shop that is still in production) they used John Birch Magnums or similar pickups that were double row screwhead pcikups (each string has 2 screwhards per pickup) and here overwound alot to drive his amps.
He used these pickups(and still does in the JayDee sg, the john birch was retired and is in a Hard Rock Cafe somewhere) thoughout the span of sabbath an heaven and hell.
Other companies began to design some sig pickups when Iommi was loing for a new signature guitar (before gibson came along) the washburn and possibly the ironbird had the Duncan Iommi model (now refered to as the el diablo in the scott ian guitars).
When gibson asked Iommi if they wanted to work together, they researched his old birch/jay dee pickups (x rays, materials used, etc) and designed his gibson signature pickups around these. Gibson also relesed the Custom shop SG and the Production line SG sig guitars, and later and epiphone. The gibson sigs are about 17Kohm, wheras the jaydee/birch were around 22 I think
He uses .008 LaBella strings, all his guitars have all but one volume pot disabled. He also now has a white custom shop sg with his gibson sigs and a floyd rose for use on some of the Dio era songs currently being played on tour.
all this goes into a pete cornish foot controller (for the rack setup), he uses a tychobrahe (or chicago iron reproduction rackmount version) into his signature Laney head and 4x12 cabs loaded with Celestion G12H speakers.
