Pickup recommendations for a neck-thru Ibanez Musician MC150FR

[koshikas]

Hi all, I m a newbie here being reading posts forever but never made a thread here, never had to. I recently got hold of a Ibanez Musician MC150FR currently featuring stock humbuckers, Ibanez 'Super 58' Alnico III, and the guitar itself is completely stock as made in the early 80's. I like the sound of the pickups but feel them being very underpowered. I like the slight mid heaviness with sweet sparkle but feel the guitar deserves bit more power for overdriven tones. Besides they've made a blunder, the neck pickup has a higher DC resistance than the bridge, impossible to match the volumes between neck/bridge, therefore both of them has to come out. The guitar is a 5-piece maple/walnut neckthru, mahogany wings, with an rosewood fretboard and has a lofty brass bridge resembling a TOM bridge with brass tail-piece. Scale is 24¾" and like wise has les paul like electronics. Acoustically it is not sharp/shrill sounding as most ppl claim maple neckthrus to be. It is probably the brass hardware at play.

In my own opinion I think it should be one of those low-to-moderate output humbuckers featuring probably a Alnico II or V magnet. I prefer to split the humbuckers too (though it is not a must, too much tone wizardry spoils tone), if so I think to get decent sound, we need moderate output pickups. I´d certainly like a combination of pickups featuring good mids, with tighter bass and not too shrill high-end, sort of a very good vintage clean tone with enough power to be well defined under moderate amounts of gain.

I would like to use this guitar live more often, and think that having mid presence would help me audible in the mix, with the other guitarist being mostly a mid-scooped. I play everything from blues/jazz to heavy rock/metal certainly nothing detuned. I m expecting this guitar to be played mostly for blues/jazz to heavy rock sorta thing.

As for amps employed, it varies from having to use Marshall one day to a fender twin the next day with multi-FX pedals. so it should be quiet versatile as to what it is plugged into.

Thanks in advance.

photo reference:
http://strangedesign.org/forums/index.php?topic=890.0
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.282494888444362.85475.270897539604097&type=3

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Pickup recommendations for a neck-thru Ibanez Musician MC150FR

Welcome to the forum.

Photographs of your pickups would help. Some Ibanez MC series guitars had conventional humbuckers. Others came in a curious plastic moulded housing with an arched upper side.

If you can gain access to the bar magnet inside each pickup, you may be able to alter the relative output levels by changing magnet material types. This requires patience and steady hands but would be far less expensive than buying new pickups.

 

[LatsMcGee]

Re: Pickup recommendations for a neck-thru Ibanez Musician MC150FR

Get a Dimarzio Breed Set...I think those pups would do what you want in that axe....

 

[koshikas]

Re: Pickup recommendations for a neck-thru Ibanez Musician MC150FR

Photographs of your pickups would help. Some Ibanez MC series guitars had conventional humbuckers. Others came in a curious plastic moulded housing with an arched upper side.

If you can gain access to the bar magnet inside each pickup, you may be able to alter the relative output levels by changing magnet material types. This requires patience and steady hands but would be far less expensive than buying new pickups.

here are the crappy blurred snaps of the pickups :barf::



you are right about some Ibby Musician guitars featuring those plastic housed pickups, no worries here, these are conventional humbuckers in size, except for their 3 screw mounts. Thats no worry I intend to replace the mounting rings as well.

I dont mind changing magnets at all, in which case I would mostly have to go for Alnico IV or II to get the sort of tone I m after. (Please let me know if you have other suggestions). However, I have 2 worries in this case. 1) These are covered pickups in which case there is a good deal of desoldering and de-waxing involved, which I m not sure the winding wires will survive. 2). There is a error in pickup winding/power ratio in this pair. They have wired the higher powered pickup in the neck (reads 7.5kΩ in the neck and 7kΩ in the bridge), and the 3-screw mounting of the pickups makes it impossible to exchange the two with the screw coil on the correct side.

So I guess there is no other way out, gotta take those pickups out and replace em, hopefully with some SDs :fingersx:.

 

[koshikas]

Re: Pickup recommendations for a neck-thru Ibanez Musician MC150FR

Get a Dimarzio Breed Set...I think those pups would do what you want in that axe....

checked em out, (as in the site, and Steve vai's 'pogo' JEM clips). Though the tone specs match with the tone I m after, it says it is being made specifically for 25.5" scale bolt on guitars, which my axe is not.

I ve nothing against DiMarzios though, top notch stuff.

 

[Ashurbanipal]

Re: Pickup recommendations for a neck-thru Ibanez Musician MC150FR

Nice guitar, don't see those around often. The high end Musicians with all those funky electronics have the plastic encased pups.

Have you thought about switching the pups in their respective positions, since the bridge has a higher resistance? Remember that resistance doesn't always equal output.

The pup baseplate should have a central mounting screw hole, so it should just be a matter of drilling a hole in the pu ring.

No need to desolder to get the covers off, just run a stanley knife across the solder joint (solder is pretty soft stuff).

 

[koshikas]

Re: Pickup recommendations for a neck-thru Ibanez Musician MC150FR

Nice guitar, don't see those around often. The high end Musicians with all those funky electronics have the plastic encased pups.

Have you thought about switching the pups in their respective positions, since the bridge has a higher resistance? Remember that resistance doesn't always equal output.

The pup baseplate should have a central mounting screw hole, so it should just be a matter of drilling a hole in the pu ring.

No need to desolder to get the covers off, just run a stanley knife across the solder joint (solder is pretty soft stuff).

Thanks bro, yeah got it for a good deal and it is a very decent guitar for being an entry-level to the series. The higher end ones have more fancy electronics as well as some pretty awesome construction (7-piece neckthrus with sandwiched woods for the body with more swamp ash, brass sustain blocks and what not).

I agree with you about the DC resistance not being ideal measure of output. I just quoted the ohmage to give everyone figures. The actual scenario is even with neck pickup lowered just below the pickup ring (farthest away while getting decent tone), and the bridge pickup being raised to almost touch the strings, still the bridge pickup is not as loud as the neck pickup. This is really a big flop in it.

Funny enough the last time i checked it out, I remember it not having a central screw hole, re-checked indeed it has one, so yes ideally i should be able to swap the pickups in between neck and bridge, and have the screw coil facing away from each other and resolve the output in-balance. Is it correct to assume that pickups interchanged in this fashion would NOT have any undesired consequences (you know out-of phase positions, etc.). In my lame ass knowledge in electronics and electro-magnetics there shouldn't be any problems.

as for taking the covers off for magnet changes, i m pretty sure i can get the solder out or cut, but I m worried about the de-waxing/de-potting part. Even with hell lot of insane gain cranked to raise satan back, these pickups dont squeal at all, not even marginally, so I m thinking whoever potted this has all wax that they could possibly put in it. Having said that, i ve seen some 'Super 58' pictures in the net with their covers off, with clear signs of them being removed after. Any recommendations to get the wax off this sucker.

Thanks again bro for you time, I m quiet surprised that only one post mention any replacement pickup still. I really dig the stock neck pickup for its power and the Alnico III sweetness in mids and highs (that ppl rave about, though it is a rarity now since everyone crazy about either Alnico IIs or Vs). The note separation is big chords even with slight breakups is acceptably good. Single notes have lots of meat with lots of character, but not muddyingly so under moderate gain. However when I change to the bridge to get that hard hitting gain stuff the bridge pickups sounds choked. So I am altleast expecting to change the bridge pickup. I m eyeing something like the Custom-Custom, Pearly Gates bridge, 59/Custom Hybrid sorta thing but blindly, cos out of these I ve only played a friends guitar having Pearly Gates in the bridge. But then his guitar is an Ibby RG with floating bridge, not at all similar to my guitar in any way.

 

[koshikas]

Re: Pickup recommendations for a neck-thru Ibanez Musician MC150FR

Please guys, I m really in need of recommendations for replacement pickup here. Like said earlier I am altleast expecting to change the bridge pickup. I m eyeing something like the Custom-Custom, Pearly Gates bridge, 59/Custom Hybrid or Alnico II Pro sorta thing.

 

[Ashurbanipal]

Re: Pickup recommendations for a neck-thru Ibanez Musician MC150FR

Shouldn't be any problems if you swap the pups from their respective positions. Though if you're putting in a pup of another make, the magnetic polarity may be different to the Ibanez pup. I've got this in one of my guitars, where the 59/Jazz I installed is ootp with the IBZ bridge pup, but I decided to keep it that way, as I sometimes use an ootp sound.

The only one I have direct experience with out of the ones you mentioned is the 59/C. It's 11k and sounds good from clean (yeah, I never thought I'd use a bridge bucker on clean) to serious dirt - very versatile pup. Mine is home-brewed and I've never had any problems with feedback from doing the coil swaps. People have experimented with different mags in them successfully, like A2, A8, unoriented A5 etc. Mine has a normal polished A5. There's plenty of threads about it.

A CC is hotter, while the PG/A2P are in the vintagey range. Keep in mind that A2 pups have less low end, soft high, and pronounced mid, so depends on what you want. The 59/C in comparison would be tighter with crispier high end (kind of P90ish almost).

 

[koshikas]

Re: Pickup recommendations for a neck-thru Ibanez Musician MC150FR

The only one I have direct experience with out of the ones you mentioned is the 59/C. It's 11k and sounds good from clean (yeah, I never thought I'd use a bridge bucker on clean) to serious dirt - very versatile pup. Mine is home-brewed and I've never had any problems with feedback from doing the coil swaps. People have experimented with different mags in them successfully, like A2, A8, unoriented A5 etc. Mine has a normal polished A5. There's plenty of threads about it.

A CC is hotter, while the PG/A2P are in the vintagey range. Keep in mind that A2 pups have less low end, soft high, and pronounced mid, so depends on what you want. The 59/C in comparison would be tighter with crispier high end (kind of P90ish almost).

agree totally with u on versatility of 59/Custom. Has good split tone courtesy of the slug coil of the Custom too. My only worry is whether it would be too treble-y in the bridge. Have a feeling that the bridge pickup is placed a touch too close to the bridge in this guitar (checkout the snaps at the top of the thread).

 

[Ashurbanipal]

Re: Pickup recommendations for a neck-thru Ibanez Musician MC150FR

Yep. It's a great pu where you're trying to match vintage style single coils too.

Well, the only way to know is to try it; it's easy to talk about what pups sound like but can't know how they'll sound in a particular guitar till they're installed, always a bit of a punt.

Another pup worth considering is the WLH, vintage with a bit of a boost; getting lots of love on the forum at the moment.

 

[koshikas]

Re: Pickup recommendations for a neck-thru Ibanez Musician MC150FR

ppl anyone else care to chip-in, please