building a body, What pickup to use?

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xk6m6m5

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having a mahogany ibanez 540pii built with a sustainer in it. I want a versitile bridge pickup that goes from snarling hot to a nice warm clean, i thought about the p-rails but now im having second thought. what do you guys recomend? since your the welth of duncan knowledge and i hate dimarzios lol
 
Re: building a body, What pickup to use?

I'm going to go against the grain a bit and recommend you look at the DiMarzio Tone Zone and the DiMarzio Norton (not the Air Norton)

If you want to go Duncan, I'm going to suggest you try a JB. It can be a bit picky, but, it's actually a great choice for a mahogany body/maple neck. Roll the volume back for smoother cleans, push it up for all-out rock and metal with good sizzle. Plus, you can find them cheap (I think there's one for $40 in the Trading Post)
 
Re: building a body, What pickup to use?

yea id like to stick with duncans and josh you funny...thought you were going to put the jb back in the lespaul?
 
Re: building a body, What pickup to use?

Or a DD with an A2 mag. Phenominal pup...snarling when you want, and warm and smooth as silk when clean.
 
Re: building a body, What pickup to use?

xk6m6m5 said:
i assume DD is duncan distortion?
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Yes.

But, perhaps a more economical option would be to get the JB (very similar wind to the DD, by the way), try it with the stock A5 first and THEN swap to an A2 if you find it still needs more growl/less bite.

If you go the DD route, I can pretty much guarantee you'll have to do a mag swap as the double-thick ceramic it comes with is just about the complete opposite of what you're looking for! Whereas, you may actually like the stock JB a lot.
 
Re: building a body, What pickup to use?

With a sustainer, I'd stay away from the Custom/59. It's a great pickup, but it doesn't have perfect hum cancellation. Not an issue for most uses, but sustainers want no hum and higher output pickups.

P-Rails is a great choice if you want flexibility, though it likely wont work terribly well split with the sustainer on. Serial should work fine, though. Most sustainers automatically switch to bridge serial humbucking anyways because of noise issues and need for high drive for maximum sustain. Parallel might work noisewise, though the lower volume compared to serial might not give optimal drive for sustain.

JB and Full Shred are also great choices. Might also look at PATB-1b [high output, but very dynamic pickup], but you'll likely need the pickup routes enlarged. But where you mention the body is being built, that shouldn't be an issue.

Would really need a better description of what you are looking for tonewise from the guitar, to specify a particular pickup.
 
Re: building a body, What pickup to use?

Despair said:
With a sustainer, I'd stay away from the Custom/59. It's a great pickup, but it doesn't have perfect hum cancellation. Not an issue for most uses, but sustainers want no hum and higher output pickups.

P-Rails is a great choice if you want flexibility, though it likely wont work terribly well split with the sustainer on. Serial should work fine, though. Most sustainers automatically switch to bridge serial humbucking anyways because of noise issues and need for high drive for maximum sustain. Parallel might work noisewise, though the lower volume compared to serial might not give optimal drive for sustain.

JB and Full Shred are also great choices. Might also look at PATB-1b [high output, but very dynamic pickup], but you'll likely need the pickup routes enlarged. But where you mention the body is being built, that shouldn't be an issue.

Would really need a better description of what you are looking for tonewise from the guitar, to specify a particular pickup.
Click to expand...

thanks for the info man. i really just want something that can do metal drive and really nice cleans wich i know are just about polar opposites but i figured the prails would work nice
 
Re: building a body, What pickup to use?

Late to the party, but I've got a mahogony body guitar with a sustainiac sustainer and homebrew C/59 and she works like a dream :)

Yeah the humcancelling of mishmashed coils isn't perfect, but the sustainiac brand works in a strat, so even full on single coils should be ok. I love mine. The pup started out being a CC, which I thought was the best sounding pickup on the sample clips on the site here, but in my guitar it just sounded toooo lower/mid heavy, like there was a duvet over the speaker. Mag swapping to A5 made her lovely, and hybridising made her amazing, whatever the mag :) I tried the A2 & A5 as well as an A4 and a UOA5 (and mebe a ceramic, I can't remember for sure) and they were all good. Ended up with the UOA5, mostly because that was the last mag I tested, and it didn't need swapping out :)
 
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