Trust me, I LOVE my pickup selector and make FULL use of it.
In a 1 hour worship set I probably change my selection at least 30+ times on a regular basis.
I’ve changed pickups enough times to understand that much of the reason the S series ibanez guitars don’t speak to me is likely in the pickups, or the basic resonence of the body, and the tone it thus creates. It plays fine, but the sound doesn’t make me want to play it for ever and ever.
Pickups don’t make your guitar inherently warm or bright, they simply bring out different aspects of a guitars natural tones it’s creating. The problem is that no pickup is going to give you a perfectly clear “view” if your guitar’s tone. Some will be brighter, and others warmer. Some will have heavy mids bringing out the vocal content of the guitar, while others will have a heavy treble/bass with a softer mid.
The tony iommi signature SG has the same exact pickups in the bridge and neck, as it’s well suited to both. I had this same exact setup on my ibanez GAX for over a year, and had it nearly 2 years on my samick. 1st off, it’s amazing how different they sounded between the GAX and Samick, even though they both were nearly identical electronic setups. The GAX just doesn’t have enough body to bring out the warmth of these pickups, and the samick is so warm that you begin to realize how lacking they are in the mids and highs. The bass overpowers the mids and highs in most scenarios, and when you roll off the tone knob you get that huge warm jazz tone with ease.
…which I love. But when you’re trying to get screamin’ leads out of the bridge it just isn’t there.
I’m now running a Duncan JB SH-4 in my bridge position which is AMAZING. But unfortunately the cleans are a bit harsh and never warm. Unfortunately it’s much easier to CUT frequencies than ADD, which is why guitar electronics REMOVE high frequencies with the tone knob, so when I roll off my tone on the new pickup it most just starts to sound small, not warm. It’s like the difference of turning all your EQ on your amp down 3 hours. It’s still “flat” but lower and it’s noticable thinner in texture. Same applies here, rolling the tone knob doesn’t “fix” the tone for these pickups.
So for most of my cleans I still rely on using both pickups, or just the neck. Before I could get great cleans with either position.
And after saying ALLLLL that… I’ve found most stock ibanez pickups to be severly lacking. The only ones that ever seem decent are ones with other company names on them.
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