HI everyone!
It's been a while since I posted here. I haven't modified pickups or changed them for quite a long time. Around a month ago I started reviving my Ibanez RGD71AL 7-string that has been sitting in a case for around 3 years. I was playing other guitars at that time but wanted to get it back to working order due to project I'm starting in january.
Long story short; originally guitar had quite horrible stock pickups that I swapped to Duncan Custom/Air Norton set. After I left my previous band I've been too lazy fixing the electronics but one day I just decided to do it. After I got it fully playable order I found out that Custom/Air Norton set isn't cutting it anymore. I needed something more aggressive sounding for this guitar that acoustically sounds quite dull and midrange heavy so I decided to sell Custom/AN set to a friend of mine. Luckily I had old blaze neck and ibanez axis neck pickup in my drawer so I decided to give them a go.
I tried axis neck on the neck position of this guitar before I bought Air Norton so I knew what to expect. With stock ceramic magnet it was tad too dark and one dimensional so I decided to swap ceramic magnet to unpolished Alnico 5 and hex poles to philips heads. More interestingly blaze neck also had normal thickness ceramic magnet in it but as I wanted to try it in bridge position I needed to put something much stronger in order to give it more output. I eventually went with double thickness Alnico 5 magnet I had lying around. After installing those pickups I was shocked to say at least. These pickups gave it a new life and it's not so dull and midrange focused when playing through my kemper profiler that is usually stuck with one Friedman HBE profile that I use for my rhythm tones.
I was debating to buy Black Winters for this guitar but as money is really tight I wanted to try something different for this pickup and I'm really happy that it now suits my needs better. Modded Blaze neck in bridge has at least the same output level to Duncan Custom but maybe a tad more. What really sets modded Blaze neck apart is added touch sensitivity that I believe is caused by thick magnet for added output. Custom was pretty dynamic already but Blaze neck cleans much better with volume pot and is much more controllable overall. I like dynamic bridge pickups since I hit strings usually pretty hard so I can have more options with tones just by adjusting my the power I use with my picking hand. I haven't tried many pickups but I think that modded blaze neck is pretty close to evolution 7 in terms of tone since it has really good string separation, especially when tuned down to drop G with 10-52 + 68 strings. Whether I play complex chords, low tuned palm muted stuff or fast staccato riffs this pickup refuses to sound muddy at all and has excellent definition and string separation. I highly recommend trying this mod out if you have this pickup in your drawer.
Idea for putting double thick magnet to Blaze neck pickup came from the fact in my 6 -string guitars I use Dimarzio Illuminators and Transitions that are loaded with thick magnets and relatively reasonable output.
I don't have any audio clips at this time because I've been just enjoying playing this guitar again. If anyone wants I can make some clips for sure.
Thanks for reading!
It's been a while since I posted here. I haven't modified pickups or changed them for quite a long time. Around a month ago I started reviving my Ibanez RGD71AL 7-string that has been sitting in a case for around 3 years. I was playing other guitars at that time but wanted to get it back to working order due to project I'm starting in january.
Long story short; originally guitar had quite horrible stock pickups that I swapped to Duncan Custom/Air Norton set. After I left my previous band I've been too lazy fixing the electronics but one day I just decided to do it. After I got it fully playable order I found out that Custom/Air Norton set isn't cutting it anymore. I needed something more aggressive sounding for this guitar that acoustically sounds quite dull and midrange heavy so I decided to sell Custom/AN set to a friend of mine. Luckily I had old blaze neck and ibanez axis neck pickup in my drawer so I decided to give them a go.
I tried axis neck on the neck position of this guitar before I bought Air Norton so I knew what to expect. With stock ceramic magnet it was tad too dark and one dimensional so I decided to swap ceramic magnet to unpolished Alnico 5 and hex poles to philips heads. More interestingly blaze neck also had normal thickness ceramic magnet in it but as I wanted to try it in bridge position I needed to put something much stronger in order to give it more output. I eventually went with double thickness Alnico 5 magnet I had lying around. After installing those pickups I was shocked to say at least. These pickups gave it a new life and it's not so dull and midrange focused when playing through my kemper profiler that is usually stuck with one Friedman HBE profile that I use for my rhythm tones.
I was debating to buy Black Winters for this guitar but as money is really tight I wanted to try something different for this pickup and I'm really happy that it now suits my needs better. Modded Blaze neck in bridge has at least the same output level to Duncan Custom but maybe a tad more. What really sets modded Blaze neck apart is added touch sensitivity that I believe is caused by thick magnet for added output. Custom was pretty dynamic already but Blaze neck cleans much better with volume pot and is much more controllable overall. I like dynamic bridge pickups since I hit strings usually pretty hard so I can have more options with tones just by adjusting my the power I use with my picking hand. I haven't tried many pickups but I think that modded blaze neck is pretty close to evolution 7 in terms of tone since it has really good string separation, especially when tuned down to drop G with 10-52 + 68 strings. Whether I play complex chords, low tuned palm muted stuff or fast staccato riffs this pickup refuses to sound muddy at all and has excellent definition and string separation. I highly recommend trying this mod out if you have this pickup in your drawer.
Idea for putting double thick magnet to Blaze neck pickup came from the fact in my 6 -string guitars I use Dimarzio Illuminators and Transitions that are loaded with thick magnets and relatively reasonable output.
I don't have any audio clips at this time because I've been just enjoying playing this guitar again. If anyone wants I can make some clips for sure.
Thanks for reading!
