Pickups suggestion for my Ibanez S671QM (and other modifications)

[FuryGuitar]

Greetings kind folks! My name is Fury and it is my first time around here. I would like to enlist your help in helping me modifying my Ibanez S guitar.
It is a Made in Indonesia guitar with Infinity stock pickups and fixed hardtail bridge (non-tremolo). So far I have replaced the Infinity I and Infinity II with the
Seymour Duncan SH-2 Jazz and the Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB in the neck and bridge position, respectively.

Since my configuration is HSH, I would like a good recommendation for a Seymour Duncan single-coil pickups for my guitar.
So far I was suggested the STK-S6 Custom Stack Plus, but I am not proficient enough in pickups to decipher whether or not it will work well.
Which pickups should I get for the middle position (position 3) single coil?

And right now I am planning to modify my Ibanez to have a Iron-Man set theme (red and gold), so I am currently in the process of looking for the right parts.
My guitar's color is Transparent Red Burst, so I was hoping to find matching gold hardware for the pickup rings, hardtail bridge and tuners.
Do you guys have any go-to places to find such parts? I came across Reverb.com and also Allparts.com (in which I ordered the gold pickup rings in flat profile).

Cheers everyone! Thanks for the help!

 

[Mincer]

Re: Pickups suggestion for my Ibanez S671QM (and other modifications)

Welcome to the Forum!

For the middle, it depends if you are going for balance with the other pickups (which won't really sound like a traditional single coil), or authentic single coil tone. Do you want hum cancelling? Does it matter? What kind of music? What kind of amp? Do you have coil splitting in positions 2 & 4, or are they full humbuckers?

 

[FuryGuitar]

Re: Pickups suggestion for my Ibanez S671QM (and other modifications)

Welcome to the Forum!

For the middle, it depends if you are going for balance with the other pickups (which won't really sound like a traditional single coil), or authentic single coil tone. Do you want hum cancelling? Does it matter? What kind of music? What kind of amp? Do you have coil splitting in positions 2 & 4, or are they full humbuckers?

Thank you for the warm welcome!

Yes, I am going for something that complements the JB/Jazz combo on my guitar. So far I am really interested in the STK-S6 Custom Stack Plus, but again, I am not too sure whether or not I should go with it.
Hum cancelling and lower output is preferable for me, and I want the middle pickups to NOT mess the sound of the Jazz and JB pickups.

I play a wide variety of music, from classic rock, metal, blues rock, classic blues, jazz, neo-classical, ballad and others. Currently I am using the Line6 Spider IV Amp with a ZOOM G1NEXT multi-effect pedal.
Since I have a HSH config, position 2 & 4 are coil-split.

Position 1: full SD Jazz
Position 2: split coil: SD Jazz and the middle pickups
Position 3: full single coil middle pickups (in this case, the stock Infinity)
Position 4: split coil: Middle pickups and the SD JB
Position 5: full SD JB

So, yes, I want a middle pickup that balances the JB/Jazz combo well, complementing the sound of both when it is coil-split. I want it to be bright and rich in sound, not muddy and overpowering.
The most important part is that it must serve as the perfect middle ground between the Jazz and the JB, without affecting the sound of the classic HotRodded combo.

Thank you again for the reply!