Pickups for JP Majesty

LibbyDoe

LibbyDoe

New member
Y'all have steered me right before, maybe you can save my tone again? Just got a JP Majesty and I'm in love with the guitar... the pickups, not so much. The stock dreamcatcher bridge has great harmonics and stays tight with a boatload of gain, and while it's not as brittle as some ceramics it still has that ceramic sizzle that really isn't my bag. And the neck rainmaker really doesn't do it for me. I really don't care for most ceramic neck pickups - I think neck pickups need the alnico warmth for liquid lead tones with high gain.

I love the JB/59 and JB/A2P combos on 22 fret guitars and just wired up a 24 fret guitar with an Alt8/Sentient that sends me to tone nirvana every time I play it. I'd absolutely drop an Alt8/Sentient in this one too, except the Majesty is an electronic nightmare under the hood and you can't just whip out the soldering iron - it really only takes dimarzios. So I guess I'm asking is, does anyone know anything in the dimarzio line that gets in the ballpark of an Alt8 or JB bridge tone and a Sentient neck? I don't expect to nail the exact sound (and hey, different can be good!) but I'm really missing the organic character that I hear in my sd pickups.

Any suggestions?
 
The Dimarzio AT-1 is by most accounts JB-like. It's a damn good pickup from what ive heard.

As far as neck pickups go, i'm short on ideas.
 
Maybe the Satchur8 and PAF Pro? I'm about to install this exact set (haven't tried the Satchur8 yet) but the PAF Pro is a classic for high gain leads on the neck pickup. It's hard to go wrong with the PAF Pro as a neck pickup.

The Satchur8 is described really similarly to the Alt 8 from most reviews I've read.

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If you like the fullness of the Dreamcatcher, but want a little less push, the AT-1 is a really great choice for the bridge. The AT-1 also has a slight upper-mid emphasis, which gives it more of a "JB" vibe and vocal-ness without being quite as spikey as the regular JB

JP was also a famous user of the Tone Zone and it can sound great in the right guitar.

For the neck, PAF Pro or a Fred are always solid choices. Of course, the Air Norton is what JP used for years, it pairs well with either the AT-1 or Tone Zone in the bridge, and it's wonderful for liquid lead tones like you describe.
 
Thanks all! That gives me some good places to start. I'll have to msg dimarzio since I'm told their pickup heights vary a bit and the majesty is direct mount, but at least I have some options for both neck and bridge now that can get me closer to the warmer organic vibe I'm looking for. The dreamcatcher/rainmaker are honestly rather impressive at what they do but they just aren't the tone I hear in my head so I'm looking forward to trying something new. Still wish I could just sub in some duncans, but if wishes were horses...
 
It's not a traditional size humbucker but the Chopper is a AWESOME neck pickup. I tried several DiMarzio's in the neck,started w the FRED too warm for me, tried PAF 36th anniversary didn't like it at all, tried a single coil size humbucker The Chopper and solved all the problems I had and seemed to work great for all my different applications
 
Just curious, why can't the 2 be replaced with Duncans, or some other vendor? Looked at the DiMarzio site and they are both 4 conductor passive pickups, what makes them special? I haven't seen the JP guitar with its wiring so far.
 
Mincer said:
I am curious...what's going on with the pickups that you couldn't use Duncans?
Click to expand...

The OP would have to do some routing as DiMs have the small triangular mounting feet, and the Majesty pu cavities only really allow for DiM.

Various Ibanez guitars over the years were made like this too, and people had a harder time if they wanted to install Duncans (or other pups) in them.
 
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Yes, it's possible to modify Duncans to fit, but it's not convenient. Also, there are other pickups from DiMarzio that will do what he's looking for
 
Yes, you can either swap the baseplate or have someone cut the mounting tabs into a triangle (or do it yourself). Duncan actually does this for people, too.
 
Nope.
But you can get a quote on how much they would charge. It doesn't show up in what is possible with Floor Shop Customs, but people have sent their pickups in to mod. If you are buying them directly from SD, call them and see how much they would charge for this modification.
 
Any choice will be an audition, and why would anyone want to do modifications for something to audition? Altering the tabs would void the return/exchange policy too.

Which Majesty is it? There are several and they have different wood combinations iirc. They are all mahogany necks though,,,,right? Don't do TZ if that's the case,,IMO.
 
Wait, doesn't the Majesty have the active boost built-in?

Are you using the boost when evaluating the pickup?

I have no idea about these boosters, but many active systems make just about everything sizzle.
 
You may find success by trying different drive/dirt pedals or settings. New guitar may need new signal chain to sing how you want. Like if you're using a distortion box, try a tubescreamer for example. Of course you can't put lipstick on a pig and if ceramic is your pig, then something alnico will put you closer to a baseline that you're looking for.

If I were modding a JP guitar and wanted Dimarzios for high gain, I'd be quite interested in the Super Distortion, PAF Pro, classic ones like that.
 
I'm not totally convinced this is even a good idea. However if I was going to go for passives, I would bypass all the on-board electronics. To get the right sound from passive pickups you actually need the instrument cable in the circuit with the pickup and volume control. When you add a buffer amplifier, it will change the loading on the pickup and it won't sound like its supposed to. Also it seems like you are trying to take a high-gain metal guitar and turn it into something more vintage like. Unless you really like mahogany guitars, I have doubts about how successful this is going to be.
 
Besides the mounting tabs, what is going on with the electronics? Is there a passive/active switch? Are those pickups specially designed to be used with the onboard preamp?
 
A good pickup might be a Gravity Storm bridge. Had one for a while a really liked it in a Carvin ST 300 but it was so different from the other set ups I had. I needed a different type tone in that guitar. so went with a Saturday Night Special set. Those are really big and sweet but have some serious attitude and IMO would make a great bridge pickup in a Majesty with maybe a Paf Pro or a PAF Joe. The Satur8 with a PAF JOE would also be really nice!
 
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