Hello,
It’s been ages since I’ve looked into aftermarket pickups!
I have a '15 Ibanez AS-73 semi-hollow, which is 24.75" scale with a maple laminate body, mahogany neck, and rosewood fingerboard. The pickups are "Classic Elites," which the Ibanez wiki tells me have ceramic magnets with 9.5K/11.0K DC resistance on the neck and bridge, respectively. They have wayyy too much bass for my taste. I think they might be a little too hot for me, too, but it’s hard to tell because the bass bloats up input gain really easily. I’m toying around with pickup height, which is helping a little bit, but I get the feeling I’m fighting against the way these pickups are voiced.
This guitar doesn’t get a ton of use—I mainly use a guitar with Filtertrons and a guitar with P-90s. But now and again I like a middy, creamy, thick sound. I only play and record at home, so I don’t need this guitar to be versatile or overlap my main two guitars in any way. I just want it to be distinct from my my main two guitars by excelling at humbuckerism.
I was looking at Alnico 2-based humbuckers, since I don’t need mega fat bass or crispy, bright treble, and I’ve heard these magnets have complex midrange tones. I excluded the Antiquity (out of my budget), the Duality (don’t want active preamp), Stag Mag (don’t want coil split), and Phat Cat (don’t want to approximate a P-90) and now have this list:
Seth Lover (SH-55)
Pearly Gates (SH-PG1)
Alnico 2 Pro (APH-1)
Slash Alnico 2 Pro (APH-2)
Custom Custom (SH-11)
While the Custom Custom seems to be the hottest, middiest outlier, I’m not sure how to compare the other four. How do they line up to one another in terms of EQ and output response?
Also happy to consider anything not on this list.
It’s been ages since I’ve looked into aftermarket pickups!
I have a '15 Ibanez AS-73 semi-hollow, which is 24.75" scale with a maple laminate body, mahogany neck, and rosewood fingerboard. The pickups are "Classic Elites," which the Ibanez wiki tells me have ceramic magnets with 9.5K/11.0K DC resistance on the neck and bridge, respectively. They have wayyy too much bass for my taste. I think they might be a little too hot for me, too, but it’s hard to tell because the bass bloats up input gain really easily. I’m toying around with pickup height, which is helping a little bit, but I get the feeling I’m fighting against the way these pickups are voiced.
This guitar doesn’t get a ton of use—I mainly use a guitar with Filtertrons and a guitar with P-90s. But now and again I like a middy, creamy, thick sound. I only play and record at home, so I don’t need this guitar to be versatile or overlap my main two guitars in any way. I just want it to be distinct from my my main two guitars by excelling at humbuckerism.
I was looking at Alnico 2-based humbuckers, since I don’t need mega fat bass or crispy, bright treble, and I’ve heard these magnets have complex midrange tones. I excluded the Antiquity (out of my budget), the Duality (don’t want active preamp), Stag Mag (don’t want coil split), and Phat Cat (don’t want to approximate a P-90) and now have this list:
Seth Lover (SH-55)
Pearly Gates (SH-PG1)
Alnico 2 Pro (APH-1)
Slash Alnico 2 Pro (APH-2)
Custom Custom (SH-11)
While the Custom Custom seems to be the hottest, middiest outlier, I’m not sure how to compare the other four. How do they line up to one another in terms of EQ and output response?
Also happy to consider anything not on this list.
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