Good pickup suggestion for Ibanez ARX

[WDeeGee]

Hi

Ibanez ARX series come with ACH humbuckers, ceramics, not really great clean or driven. Things improved after swapping the magnets with A5's, they're great clean, scooped, crystal highs and bouncy bass, but with overdrive it's super boomy muddy lows, scratchy, fizzy highs and powerless, poorly defined midrange.

I tried to play it safe and put an SD '59 trembucker in the neck and wow! No tone at all: very thin, midrange sounding... gone all beef. Surprising, as the ARX is a mahogany neck & body + maple cap. Heavy axe, I suspect the maple cap may be very thick.

Anyone have a suggestion for a good replacement?

[Despair]

Re: Good pickup suggestion for Ibanez ARX

Sounds like you don't like pickups with A5 magnets in that guitar. Sounds like you had a bridge '59 in the neck, though? Though that winding up thin sounds peculiar, I'd expect too hot/too much bass, not thin...

Maybe a roughcast A5 would help a bit, but it sounds like you need more mids, so I'd look at Unoriented A5, especially in the bridge, or if you are more comfortable swapping pickups than magnets, something A2. Seth Lover set, maybe? Could go with a Custom Custom bridge, if you want fat, midrange-heavy high output to balance a bright, bassy guitar. And play with magnet swaps if that doesn't feel right. Unoriented A5 for louder with a bit less mid emphasis, A3 if you need lower output and brighter with less bass, might even like A8 in it, for ceramic-like bass without the highend bite.

I'm surprised the bass is boomier with A5 than ceramic, wonder if you have a pickup height issue contributing there? Or if it's just the frequency of lower mids and highs of A5 in those pickups are bad for that guitar. Usually backing pickup away a bit reduces fizziness and boom, and brings in mids a bit. I used to get a sound somewhere between a tele and a plucked piano string with a PATB-1b set at the right height, but there were no mids so it was useless outside cleans. Got it adjusted right and I can do anything with it except tele/piano cleans.

[WDeeGee]

Re: Good pickup suggestion for Ibanez ARX

Hey man, it put the 59 trembucker in the bridge, and it got totally thin, no bass. The Ibanez pickups yield a lot of bass. I guess they sound more boomy with the A5 because they have less mids than the ceramics.
I'll try adjusting the height, and have thought about swapping UOA5's in there to see what happens. In fact, I already have them. I'm just weary about the hassle should the result sucks. I mean the tone sucks but things can always get worse... or better.

[hamerfan]

Re: Good pickup suggestion for Ibanez ARX

My educated guess is you wired the trembucker wrong. A 59 trembucker bridge pickup will never sound thin in the neck position unless....

[Mincer]

Re: Good pickup suggestion for Ibanez ARX

The 59 has a good amount of bass there. I've never heard it described as thin unless there is something else going on.

[WDeeGee]

Re: Good pickup suggestion for Ibanez ARX

Man that'd have been real stupid if that was the case. Guess I'll have to try it again?

[Teleplayer]

Re: Good pickup suggestion for Ibanez ARX

2 thoughts about your ARX.
1) the stock pickups may only work well with the ceramic magnets as they are probably designed in a way to take away brightness from the ceramic magnet. Ibanez generally come with basically ok, usable pickups, so don't assume they have to be chucked out. Maybe there is not much you can do to improve them apart from wiring changes. Possibly add a treble bleed cap + resistor to get brighter clean tones when the volume is rolled off.

2) Duncan 59 is likely to be brighter than the stock pickups. If your guitar is naturally bright or has some difficult resonance issue, the 59 bridge pickup could possibly accentuate that aspect.

[ibanezrocks]

Re: Good pickup suggestion for Ibanez ARX

Are you sure you didn't wire it in parallel?

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[Despair]

Re: Good pickup suggestion for Ibanez ARX

Are you sure you didn't wire it in parallel?

Parallel would explain everything.

[WDeeGee]

Re: Good pickup suggestion for Ibanez ARX

2 thoughts about your ARX.
1) the stock pickups may only work well with the ceramic magnets as they are probably designed in a way to take away brightness from the ceramic magnet. Ibanez generally come with basically ok, usable pickups, so don't assume they have to be chucked out. Maybe there is not much you can do to improve them apart from wiring changes. Possibly add a treble bleed cap + resistor to get brighter clean tones when the volume is rolled off.

2) Duncan 59 is likely to be brighter than the stock pickups. If your guitar is naturally bright or has some difficult resonance issue, the 59 bridge pickup could possibly accentuate that aspect.

1) Well, today I swapped the ceramics out and put an UOA5 in the bridge and an A5 in the neck. Much better. A little boominess in the neck, but not too much. As you say, the guitar is naturally pretty bright (tapped it with the knuckles and the knocking sound is pretty high compared to my other guitars). The UOA5 was a great choice for the neck, took away the raspiness of the shrill high-end nicely. Not the sound I was after, it sounds a bit like an A2, but at least it's pleasant to listen too, no more screeching highs.

2) Yeah Ibanez pups can be pretty dark. Checked the frequencies in my DAW and the neck pup has some very disturbing screeching harmonics around 1.250 kHz, if you boost that frequency with a narrow Q to hear it well, it really is a battling mess. Guitar frequencies around 1KHz naturally sound a bit harsh, but my other guitars don't have that disturbing harmonic chaos going on at that frequency.
The UOA5 made it much better, somehow. It's still there, but sedated.

[WDeeGee]

Re: Good pickup suggestion for Ibanez ARX

Parallel would explain everything.

It didn't sound like parallel to me. Just like a bony sounding series wired HB. No meat.

[WDeeGee]

Re: Good pickup suggestion for Ibanez ARX

1) Well, today I swapped the ceramics out and put an UOA5 in the bridge and an A5 in the neck. Much better.
The UOA5 was a great choice for the neck, took away the raspiness of the shrill high-end nicely. Not the sound I was after, it sounds a bit like an A2, but at least it's pleasant to listen too, no more screeching highs.

Ok so todat I put a roughcast A5 in the bridge pup and this really resolved the fizzy, screechy highs after some pickup height adjustment. It sound really great, massive rocksound. I didn't like the UOA5, totally different character, a bit hard and woody with overdrive. The roughcast still has the A5 sound going.

I'll add that it was a really rough surface roughcast. I have another one which feels like silk, the surface is quite even. I doubt that one will make much of a difference with a regular A5.