First, please forgive me if this has already been addressed in another thread! If it has, I'm unable to find it, and will be happy to read up if anyone can link to it.
I've had a 27-fret Ibanez Xiphos for a few years now, and while it plays and sounds great acoustically, I've never been really inspired by the stock Dimarzio pickups (D-Activator bridge + Air Norton S neck). They're serviceable, but they don't really make me want to rip like the Duncans in my other guitars do. I REALLY want to get something with some mojo in there!
The guitar is a maple/walnut neck-thru with mahogany wings and a rosewood fretboard, Ibanez Edge-III bridge + Goeldo Backbox stabilizer. It sounds almost like a Les Paul with just a little more modern "zing" from the bridge. The thing that complicates pickup selection is the 27-fret neck; due to the reduced space they used a single-coil-sized humbucker that sits closer to a middle-position than a traditional neck slot. This means that the selection of humbuckers that'll fit is pretty limited.
The tones I like are "wrong", too. I currently use an APH1 neck pickup with an Invader bridge model in my cheap bolt-on Dean, and it sounds fantastic! I love having an ultra-hot bridge pickup with a low-output neck pickup, it helps get a warm sound with plenty of clarity in the neck slot with a killer sizzle in the bridge position. Coil-splitting with this setup is amazing too, which is good because I don't like humbuckers with a clean sound. My other reference guitar is an old no-name mahogany V with a Kahler 2220 bridge and JB/Jazz pickups, which is traditional-sounding but versatile and awesome.
I'm leaning toward the Little '59 or Cool Rails neck pickups for the warm/clear neck pickup sound, probably the '59. What I'm wondering is, does anyone have experience using either of these with any of the newer "metal" pickups SD has out? Scott from Skeletonwitch highly recommended the Black Winter, which sounds like it would work, but I'm worried about getting an icepick in the high-mids. I'm also really curious how the Nazgûl and Pegasus would match up with either of the aforementioned neck pickups; the Nazgûl seems like an obvious choice since this is mainly a metal guitar, but I can't help thinking the Pegasus might offer more clarity. No sense muddying up the response on an Ibanez, right?
I'm open to other suggestions as well, I know some of the "Custom" series are supposed to be great for metal with some versatility in there too. Just hoping someone out there has run into the "H+S" pickup conundrum before, thanks in advance to anyone with any suggestions!
I've had a 27-fret Ibanez Xiphos for a few years now, and while it plays and sounds great acoustically, I've never been really inspired by the stock Dimarzio pickups (D-Activator bridge + Air Norton S neck). They're serviceable, but they don't really make me want to rip like the Duncans in my other guitars do. I REALLY want to get something with some mojo in there!
The guitar is a maple/walnut neck-thru with mahogany wings and a rosewood fretboard, Ibanez Edge-III bridge + Goeldo Backbox stabilizer. It sounds almost like a Les Paul with just a little more modern "zing" from the bridge. The thing that complicates pickup selection is the 27-fret neck; due to the reduced space they used a single-coil-sized humbucker that sits closer to a middle-position than a traditional neck slot. This means that the selection of humbuckers that'll fit is pretty limited.
The tones I like are "wrong", too. I currently use an APH1 neck pickup with an Invader bridge model in my cheap bolt-on Dean, and it sounds fantastic! I love having an ultra-hot bridge pickup with a low-output neck pickup, it helps get a warm sound with plenty of clarity in the neck slot with a killer sizzle in the bridge position. Coil-splitting with this setup is amazing too, which is good because I don't like humbuckers with a clean sound. My other reference guitar is an old no-name mahogany V with a Kahler 2220 bridge and JB/Jazz pickups, which is traditional-sounding but versatile and awesome.
I'm leaning toward the Little '59 or Cool Rails neck pickups for the warm/clear neck pickup sound, probably the '59. What I'm wondering is, does anyone have experience using either of these with any of the newer "metal" pickups SD has out? Scott from Skeletonwitch highly recommended the Black Winter, which sounds like it would work, but I'm worried about getting an icepick in the high-mids. I'm also really curious how the Nazgûl and Pegasus would match up with either of the aforementioned neck pickups; the Nazgûl seems like an obvious choice since this is mainly a metal guitar, but I can't help thinking the Pegasus might offer more clarity. No sense muddying up the response on an Ibanez, right?
I'm open to other suggestions as well, I know some of the "Custom" series are supposed to be great for metal with some versatility in there too. Just hoping someone out there has run into the "H+S" pickup conundrum before, thanks in advance to anyone with any suggestions!
