blacksheep806
New member
After months of lurking here I decided to join in and ask for help from the more knowledgeable minds. I thought I would get a way by just lurking and reading other posts and I got pretty far but not to my destination yet. So...
I recently got Ibanez J Custom RG8571 (mahogany body with maple top, bolt on neck, fixed bridge) and it came with Dimarzio Tone Zone bridge and Air Norton in the neck and I already know before even playing that the stock Tone Zone would probably be way too hot for me and that turned out to be right, the Air Norton wasn't too bad but I'm probably going with Paf Pro on the neck. Also I wasn't too fond of the tone of Tone Zone itself, the treble was way too smooth and it lacked some bite, and it had this infamous "cheap overdrive pedal" effect going on that I heard some other people also had experienced, so overall it was way too off for me. I mainly use my guitar for songwriting so I'm looking for an "inspirational" pickup so to say
Getting a tone that cuts through mix isn't something I have to worry about since it's 90% just for demo/composing work.
After a ton of research I had lot of options on the table but I always wanted to give the JB a shot since it seemed to share so much opinions so I was curious about it and gave it a shot. Well turned out I kinda had unexpected neutral opinion with it. It was way better than Tone Zone, it had some nice bite in the upper mids and I didn't find the bass to be too smooth as some people have experienced, to me it was tight enough, but I also play with standard tuning so that might tighten it a bit. But then again I didn't feel or hear anything special about it, to me it didn't have any of that screaming or singing quality to it that seemed to make it so great for leads (and that description is exactly what I'm looking for), to me it just was pretty neutral nothing special to it. But I guess people see the "singing" a bit differently, to me it is that bloom when you pick really hard and bend the note at the sweet spot where you can hear the mid peak shift a bit midway the bend and then turns into a nice singing feedback, that kind of thing I'm looking for, and what I have seemed to found out that the high output of the pickups doesn't really give that, the note just sustains "too well" and it just keeps ringing for ages and doesn't transform into anything.
So again after lot of research I decided to jump to completely another direction and try way lower output pickup Paf Pro since it seemed to have a little bit of this half cocked wah thing going on and that got me interested. So I wanted to try it in the bridge and my first thoughts was that I felt like I was definitely in the right direction this time, I loved the versatility and ability to finally actually control the tone and get all these small details of my playing to get through. Like these small "half harmonics" as I like to call them, when you kinda like f*ed up harmonic and the note just screams nicely, it doesn't ring as a full note but not as a full straight on harmonic, and these small things I find impossible to get with higher output pickups, it's either full ringing harmonic, full ringing normal note or completely muted note. I really liked the Paf Pro but after messing with it a while I started to find myself wanting just a tiny bit more output and compression, I loved the tone and the response to my playing but I find myself really having hard time with some legato runs and the pickup made you really work for it to get them thru, which has its positives of course but it was just too much that it got to a point where it got just a bit disturbing. I of course tried to mess with the amp settings a bit and even try bit of compression from unit but I just didn't get to where I wanted, the pickup just didn't seem to have enough power.
Now my question is where to go next? ...
I have kinda narrowed my choices to FRED, Mo Joe, Breed neck model, Norton (a bit worried it will have too much of tone zone's tone that I disliked, that artificial "hi-fi" treble), Duncan Custom SH-5 (little worried if it's too hot, close to JB?) and also the 59/Custom Hybrid seems really interesting. Currently I'm kinda steering towards FRED and Mo Joe but I'm a little bit worried if it they actually have any more output than the Paf Pro, is it almost the same or is there noticeable difference? Also if you have some other wild card suggestions I would be more than glad to hear!
Thank you so much and apologies for the way too long first post!
I recently got Ibanez J Custom RG8571 (mahogany body with maple top, bolt on neck, fixed bridge) and it came with Dimarzio Tone Zone bridge and Air Norton in the neck and I already know before even playing that the stock Tone Zone would probably be way too hot for me and that turned out to be right, the Air Norton wasn't too bad but I'm probably going with Paf Pro on the neck. Also I wasn't too fond of the tone of Tone Zone itself, the treble was way too smooth and it lacked some bite, and it had this infamous "cheap overdrive pedal" effect going on that I heard some other people also had experienced, so overall it was way too off for me. I mainly use my guitar for songwriting so I'm looking for an "inspirational" pickup so to say
Getting a tone that cuts through mix isn't something I have to worry about since it's 90% just for demo/composing work. After a ton of research I had lot of options on the table but I always wanted to give the JB a shot since it seemed to share so much opinions so I was curious about it and gave it a shot. Well turned out I kinda had unexpected neutral opinion with it. It was way better than Tone Zone, it had some nice bite in the upper mids and I didn't find the bass to be too smooth as some people have experienced, to me it was tight enough, but I also play with standard tuning so that might tighten it a bit. But then again I didn't feel or hear anything special about it, to me it didn't have any of that screaming or singing quality to it that seemed to make it so great for leads (and that description is exactly what I'm looking for), to me it just was pretty neutral nothing special to it. But I guess people see the "singing" a bit differently, to me it is that bloom when you pick really hard and bend the note at the sweet spot where you can hear the mid peak shift a bit midway the bend and then turns into a nice singing feedback, that kind of thing I'm looking for, and what I have seemed to found out that the high output of the pickups doesn't really give that, the note just sustains "too well" and it just keeps ringing for ages and doesn't transform into anything.
So again after lot of research I decided to jump to completely another direction and try way lower output pickup Paf Pro since it seemed to have a little bit of this half cocked wah thing going on and that got me interested. So I wanted to try it in the bridge and my first thoughts was that I felt like I was definitely in the right direction this time, I loved the versatility and ability to finally actually control the tone and get all these small details of my playing to get through. Like these small "half harmonics" as I like to call them, when you kinda like f*ed up harmonic and the note just screams nicely, it doesn't ring as a full note but not as a full straight on harmonic, and these small things I find impossible to get with higher output pickups, it's either full ringing harmonic, full ringing normal note or completely muted note. I really liked the Paf Pro but after messing with it a while I started to find myself wanting just a tiny bit more output and compression, I loved the tone and the response to my playing but I find myself really having hard time with some legato runs and the pickup made you really work for it to get them thru, which has its positives of course but it was just too much that it got to a point where it got just a bit disturbing. I of course tried to mess with the amp settings a bit and even try bit of compression from unit but I just didn't get to where I wanted, the pickup just didn't seem to have enough power.
Now my question is where to go next? ...
I have kinda narrowed my choices to FRED, Mo Joe, Breed neck model, Norton (a bit worried it will have too much of tone zone's tone that I disliked, that artificial "hi-fi" treble), Duncan Custom SH-5 (little worried if it's too hot, close to JB?) and also the 59/Custom Hybrid seems really interesting. Currently I'm kinda steering towards FRED and Mo Joe but I'm a little bit worried if it they actually have any more output than the Paf Pro, is it almost the same or is there noticeable difference? Also if you have some other wild card suggestions I would be more than glad to hear!
Thank you so much and apologies for the way too long first post!
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