uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

[greekdude]

Hello ppl,
So I got this Ibanez uv70p, green-dot (25.5" scale, Blazes 7-string), which I love, plays great, low action, great tone, sustain, but lately I started wanting to drop tuning. So I changed the low 0.054 (tuned to B) with a 0.059 (what the shop had closest to 0.062 which I had calculated by tension), and dropped to A. Guitar had a little less over all tension, but no biggie, no changes in setup, no severe buzz. But didn't like the tone on low A. Not the definition and heaviness I'd expect. With standard B-tuning it sounds better. Not great but good.
So, I wonder : is the guitar? or the pups? Should upgrading to D-activator set or Blackouts solve the problem (while retaining the green dot looks in the first case) or should I just sell this guitar and get some guitar with bigger scale and more low-tune friendly pups?
By videos I have watched on 7-strings or 6-strings dropped to A, I like a lot of them. Not so much by the 8-stringers I have listened to.
So, any suggestions?

 

[Zarg]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

with low tunings, the amp is very very important to get it sounding good, dont forget that. also you might want to add pedals like a noise gate/suppressor and a compressor to make it sound tighter.

I used to have .72 for drop A to get it tight

 

[dominus]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

Got an overdrive in front of the amp? Get one if you don't.

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

I wish I could be in the room as each of the dinosaur rock geezers that make up the bulk of this board Google "djent."

 

[dominus]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

I wish I could be in the room as each of the dinosaur rock geezers that make up the bulk of this board Google "djent."

I lost it one day when someone referred to Led Zeppelin as heavy metal.

 

[greekdude]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

I wish I could be in the room as each of the dinosaur rock geezers that make up the bulk of this board Google "djent."

haha, approaching 50 myself, but we gotta keep up with the evolution, don't you hate it when your nephew sounds bigger?

 

[greekdude]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

with low tunings, the amp is very very important to get it sounding good, dont forget that. also you might want to add pedals like a noise gate/suppressor and a compressor to make it sound tighter.

I used to have .72 for drop A to get it tight

I play with boss me-25 and headphones, so basically with emulation software. The tones with standard B with this guitar and also the rest of my guitars (5 electrics in total) are all superb. So it has to be smth with either the scale, the pup or the gauge. 0.059 is not the right one (13.07 lbs(0.059 in A) < 13.25 lbs(original 0.054 in B)) according to http://stringtensionpro.com/ , but neither is 0.072 (18.28 lbs). I went for a 0.062 and a 0.070 for a drop G experiment, but the shop only had 0.059 and the 0.070.

However I hear you about the bigger tension and the 0.072. But this would not be "natural" on this guitar of mine, aimed mainly at 90's shredding. I would hate to sell it but maybe I would need a new modern one like this : http://www.ibanez.com/products/eg_d...3&cat_id=1&series_id=1&data_id=335&color=CL01 . Or keep it and get this as well. But The place is stuffed with guitars already.
I hear you about the pre-amp. I remember sometime Jim Root from Slipknot had said that maybe going lower would need a bass amp to make sound right. So its not only the pups or scale length but also the amp, and speakers as well. OTOH with the same headphones I get some full heavy tones from drop tunings on youtube. I think the headphones are not the problem.

 

[GilmourD]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?



It's all in how tight your low end is. An OD set to low gain and high output will help. What amp are you using?

 

[GilmourD]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

I lost it one day when someone referred to Led Zeppelin as heavy metal.

Wasn't the term "heavy metal" coined in a review of a Zep concert, where the reviewer referred to the music as being as if a piece of heavy metal fell from the sky?

 

[dominus]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

Wasn't the term "heavy metal" coined in a review of a Zep concert, where the reviewer referred to the music as being as if a piece of heavy metal fell from the sky?

Entirely possible, but English is an evolving/adapting language, and the term "heavy metal" has evolved as well.

 

[EDX]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

well, for me if you don't sound at least as evil as black sabbath then you're not heavy metal........ for the love of all that is evil!, forget djent, better look at progressive metal, or brutal vegan death metal (as dumb as it sounds, that's actually a genre) or anything played by either dream theater or devin townsend (which is what djent kids try to imitate but will never be able to do, so they downtune to compensate instead)


Edit: i feel so dumb i forgot to recommend a pickup set, check out the keith merrow videos for 7 and 8 strings pickups comparison

 

[greekdude]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

EDX, I was there 30 years ago. I have been in many many other genres since then. Thanx for the tip for the comparison. The question is : are blazes and/or the 25.5" scale capable of giving this tone or not?

From what I see most of them have a flat EQ response maybe boosted at low mids? (smth the Blazes are exactly the opposite)

 

[EDX]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

well, some guys describe the djent pickup as a well bodied, tight bass, high mids, low highs pickup, you can start there searching pickups that fit the bill...... or go straight ahead and buy one of the dedicated djent pickups, BareKnucle Aftermath set, the Mark Holcomb signature set (Duncan Alpha/Omega), BareKnucle Juggernaut set. or the Dimarzio Titan set.

but beware all those sets are HH, djent doesn't use the middle single coil.

also, you can go with the tone and playing djent kids want to imitate, so you can pursue Meshuggah, Dream Theater or Devin Townsend, so on that dep, you have basically all the john petrucci pickup sets, Lundgren (M7, meshuggah use the M8 but only because they play 8 string guitars) and EMG 57/66 or the Fishman Fluence Devin Townsend set

any path you choose the tone you will get will be really huge, tight, mid heavy (well kinda), and quite muffled on the highs (wich is the reason i hate djent tone, so i hope at least you can do a better incarnation of it)

also a 25.5 guitar is nice, you only need big strings man, get a .10 7 strings set, or due to the tension a .9 NYXL 7 S set will do, but really, the strings are a fundamental part of the tightness on djent, lot of those guys use really big string gauges for the low ones

 

[greekdude]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

I am not a racist against kids or ppl who imitate, heck most of the dinosaurs here, when we were young, we were "imitating" Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Pink Floyd, Doors, ACDC, Iron Maiden, Manowar, then Accept, then Thrash, then death, then grunge, then nu-metal, then all those lower tunings, right? Look at early SOAD or Slipknot, big tone, and low tunings, also Disturbed sounded big. That's where I want to orientate to. Maybe I used the term Djent making it sound too constrained. Will see. Again thanks for your thoughts

 

[EDX]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

Well, i like ac/dc, zz top, black sabbath, iron maiden, megadeth, sodom, helloween, gamma ray, cannibal corpse, death, arch enemy, the agonist, nevermore, parkway drive, nekrogoblicon, SOAD and others on that line, included strapping young lad, but i was never able to get on slipknot, korn, black veil brides, or most o the pure metalcore bands nor actual self labeled as djent bands, but i really like animals as leaders (wich are prog but are cited along with messhugah as the precursors of djent) so....... anyway, cheers and good tone chasing dude!

sent from my crappy junk-phone

 

[greekdude]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

Thanx man! Most probably I will play with the rectifier settings, as is the closest to this tone. Boss/Roland provide also a "metal amp" but this one, although modeled after (and consequently superb for) Pantera (drop-D) and everything on those lines, gets hollow, bassy and trebly in drop-A, even B-standard. Dimebag got his tone by completely scooping mids, but boosting lows with blazes and especially the 7-th string just sounds bad. Boosting mids and subtracting lows/highs to compensate, then it becomes hollow, empty, not powerful. With a 80's guitar, I think I should stick with 80s amps. Surely tone chasing can be a long way!

 

[NjuiMusic]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

if you are tuning to Drop A you are going to want at least a .62

pickups? I personally recommend Seymour Duncan Black Winter or Distortion (that is if you wanna stay with SD)

get an Overdrive if you do not have one already.

goodluck!

 

[NjuiMusic]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

ALSO: a lot of "djent" tone is in the picking, you gotta really attack the string.

 

[greekdude]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

That's what I figured, 0.059 which is what the store had is not tight enough (but with lighter attack does not sound too bad). 0.062 or 0.064 would do it. Too bad I cannot find 0.062->0.064 nearby. I agree about the picking, it has to be aggressive. But all in all we are talking about a newer version of old classic thrash metal, not exactly unfamiliar to my generation.

 

[NjuiMusic]

Re: uv70p for Djent or a different guitar and with which pups?

That's what I figured, 0.059 which is what the store had is not tight enough (but with lighter attack does not sound too bad). 0.062 or 0.064 would do it. Too bad I cannot find 0.062->0.064 nearby. I agree about the picking, it has to be aggressive. But all in all we are talking about a newer version of old classic thrash metal, not exactly unfamiliar to my generation.

check out StringJoy strings man! they make great strings and you can make custom gauges! they also have GREAT customer service! I order my .10-.70 set from them all the time!