Finally found a pickup combination that suits my sound on my Ibanez AZ!!
A bit of a backstory. I love my Ibanez AZ 2204 HSS for its playability, its looks, its modern components and the general feel of it. The sound is amazing too, perfect for fusion, jazz, rock and hard blues. It has a naturally modern and bright sound with the compressed pickups, the stainless steel frets and the titanium saddles. When it comes to sound, I personally prefer it warmer, more vintage, mellow and dynamic. Especially the neck pickup which I use 80% of the time.
I tried the SD Alnico II pro strat in the neck but it was too bright. I then put a resistor in parallel to the neck pickup to warm it up but it sounded just like the stock pickup to me. I tried a Dimarzio Transition Bridge since Lukather is my favourite player and I love his heavy sounds, but it was too high output (naturally).
But I think I have now found the perfect setup for me. I modern build with a vintage sound. Powerful and trustworthy components but with a mellow tone.
Neck - Fat 50
Middle - Fat 50
Bridge - Pearly Gates
I put a 470K resistor to both 500K pots to decrease their value to around 250K so all three pickups 'see' 125K. Naturally this is perfect for the Fat 50s which deliver exactly the sound I expected. The are warm and glassy. Dynamic, mellow but also spanky. Really, I think this is the best single coil I have ever played. Especially the Neck! Very reminiscent of Gilmour.
The humbucker sounds fantastic too. With the natural brightness of the guitar and the spikey highs of the pearly gates, the bridge pickup really suits the '250K' pots. Its warm and tame but still screams when the OD is engaged or when I increase my pick attack.
For a quick sound demo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSNpHeUOPGY
In this video I am using the standard strat 4th position. Be aware that I am plugged straight into my interface using just the Ableton stock reverb and delay, nothing else.
A bit of a backstory. I love my Ibanez AZ 2204 HSS for its playability, its looks, its modern components and the general feel of it. The sound is amazing too, perfect for fusion, jazz, rock and hard blues. It has a naturally modern and bright sound with the compressed pickups, the stainless steel frets and the titanium saddles. When it comes to sound, I personally prefer it warmer, more vintage, mellow and dynamic. Especially the neck pickup which I use 80% of the time.
I tried the SD Alnico II pro strat in the neck but it was too bright. I then put a resistor in parallel to the neck pickup to warm it up but it sounded just like the stock pickup to me. I tried a Dimarzio Transition Bridge since Lukather is my favourite player and I love his heavy sounds, but it was too high output (naturally).
But I think I have now found the perfect setup for me. I modern build with a vintage sound. Powerful and trustworthy components but with a mellow tone.
Neck - Fat 50
Middle - Fat 50
Bridge - Pearly Gates
I put a 470K resistor to both 500K pots to decrease their value to around 250K so all three pickups 'see' 125K. Naturally this is perfect for the Fat 50s which deliver exactly the sound I expected. The are warm and glassy. Dynamic, mellow but also spanky. Really, I think this is the best single coil I have ever played. Especially the Neck! Very reminiscent of Gilmour.
The humbucker sounds fantastic too. With the natural brightness of the guitar and the spikey highs of the pearly gates, the bridge pickup really suits the '250K' pots. Its warm and tame but still screams when the OD is engaged or when I increase my pick attack.
For a quick sound demo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSNpHeUOPGY
In this video I am using the standard strat 4th position. Be aware that I am plugged straight into my interface using just the Ableton stock reverb and delay, nothing else.
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