The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #76
    Ok so I'm more or less satisfied with the tone, but something in me wants the super 58s badly. So I'm thinking korea or japan? Afaik japanese are on af 200 and high end PM series, while Koreans are on AF(S) 120? Is that correct? How big is the difference? Samples on the tube are conflicting, cause some players make the af 200 sound like crap, and 120 godly and then it's the opposite picture. I'm sure the 70$ koreans will be a noticeable upgrade, but maybe I should just get a single neck silent 58 instead of paying for 2 koreans? Other 2 options I considered are Seths (really loved the sound on all guitars I heard) and 57s (this one is not so stable, some sounded good , some not so, plus I don't feel like it's the sound that I need), but since both PM and GB used the supers, I'm a bit biased here. However I'm confused cause seems like the new japanese supers are alnico V now?! It's such a mess with these supers..

    and then there's these guys Ibanez Super 58 Guitar Pickup Set Gold 4-Conductor | eBay which are indonesian and supposed to be alnico III.. go figure
    Last edited by ASonic; 01-17-2022 at 09:39 PM.

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  3. #77

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    I would try first ....

    just changing the magnets in your
    ACH pickups to alnico ones

    might transform the pickups
    quite cheap and worth a try ?

  4. #78
    Quote Originally Posted by pingu
    I would try first ....

    just changing the magnets in your
    ACH pickups to alnico ones

    might transform the pickups
    quite cheap and worth a try ?
    If i take it to a luthier it can cost me half the price of a mik set of supers. and i surely won't be changing the magnets on my own especially through the f holes

  5. #79

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    You don't change the magnets through the f holes. You remove the pickups.

  6. #80
    Quote Originally Posted by sgosnell
    You don't change the magnets through the f holes. You remove the pickups.
    so I can just pull them out, open them , change the magnet, solder and put back into the slot?

  7. #81

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    This should be pretty authoritative on magnet replacement


  8. #82

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    Ive now managed to free the vol pot with the wires that leads to neck pickup. After securing them with strong sewing thread I dropped the selector and tone pot into the body. The cables were straining and it had to be done to allow the vol pot out of the sound hole and accessable for soldering. After some thinking and humming it did´nt take long to do all of that.
    Ibanez Artcore tweaks-20220118_211231_hdr1-jpg
    As far as i can tell the white wire on right side of the vol pot, as seen in the pic, is the hotwire from the neck pickup. A cap is very cheap but a colleague happend to have a 0,01 microfarad cap (and some others) laying around, that i will solder between the pickup and the vol pot as a low pass filter. Doesnt cost anything to try. I´ll get back with the results.

  9. #83

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    Hi,

    I own an Ibanez AG95.
    I changed original pickups for SD Seth Lover, changed original TOM for a wooden bridge (great improvement), swapped strings for TI Jazz Swing and play the guitar through a Fender 85.
    George Benson would be jealous of my sound!

  10. #84
    Quote Originally Posted by balthazar
    Hi,

    I own an Ibanez AG95.
    I changed original pickups for SD Seth Lover, changed original TOM for a wooden bridge (great improvement), swapped strings for TI Jazz Swing and play the guitar through a Fender 85.
    George Benson would be jealous of my sound!
    the super customs on 95 arent great eh? Does anyone have a 120 here? They're supposed to have koreans, I'd like to hear some feedback on those in case I end up getting them

  11. #85

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    Quote Originally Posted by ASonic;[URL="tel:1174227"
    1174227[/URL]]the super customs on 95 arent great eh? Does anyone have a 120 here? They're supposed to have koreans, I'd like to hear some feedback on those in case I end up getting them
    I play an old korean af120
    with stock super 58 pickups ....

    they’re fine ,
    I sometimes want a slightly
    shinier top end on the neck pu depending
    on the room /amp / mood etc

    but the I just add in a little of the bridge pu
    and all is good ....

    (It would be interesting to try some
    Japanese S58 sometime to see if
    they’re a much better sound ....)

  12. #86
    Quote Originally Posted by pingu
    I play an old korean af120
    with stock super 58 pickups ....

    they’re fine ,
    I sometimes want a slightly
    shinier top end on the neck pu depending
    on the room /amp / mood etc

    but the I just add in a little of the bridge pu
    and all is good ....

    (It would be interesting to try some
    Japanese S58 sometime to see if
    they’re a much better sound ....)
    That's quite encouraging. Especially since I rarely need skinny top, not with my amp anyway. So the thing is these koreans I was able to find on drumsetc.com only, but I'm not sure how they work, is most stuff on demand and ships late, or do they have them in stock?

  13. #87

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    Quote Originally Posted by ASonic
    the super customs on 95 arent great eh? Does anyone have a 120 here? They're supposed to have koreans, I'd like to hear some feedback on those in case I end up getting them
    Hi ASonic,

    Earlier models like mine were mounted with ACH pickups.

  14. #88
    Quote Originally Posted by balthazar
    Hi ASonic,

    Earlier models like mine were mounted with ACH pickups.
    Oh ok!

  15. #89

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    I´ve now tried this mod Seymour Duncan Mod Squad: Muddy sounding neck pickup? - Guitar Pickups, Bass Pickups, Pedals

    Ibanez Artcore tweaks-20220124_194326_hdr-jpg

    This adds a capicitator on the pickup hotwire. The lower microfarad - the more bass tones are filtered out.

    I tried with a 0,01 microfarad cap and also added a switch for bypass so i could toggle before/after mod. To my surprise it worked just as advertised. It cuts away a little bit of bass (and therefore also ca 10 % of the volume). The mids are slightly lifted and the treble I find more or less intact. When I listened to a recorded sound test i found to my surprise that the original sound didnt sound as bad as i remembered, even when using the low e-string in the chords, i tried to play with a lighter touch though. The mod did give me a clearer sound, but Im not sure if this is an alternative to a pickup swap.

    I will make the mod more permanent and buy a mini switch that i can hide away under the pick guard for bypass, then evaluate for a while.

  16. #90
    Good stuff.
    By the way, anyone here knows the Drums Etc. | The Drummer's & Guitarist's Pro Shop website? Can they be trusted? The guy told me both korean and japanese supers are in stock at Ibanez, and available for ordering. What I find interesting, is that the chinese/indonesian ones from ebay that I posted, are more expensive on this site (Ibanez Super 58 Guitar Pickup - Neck 3PUS58N4GDG | Drums Etc.) than the koreans. No idea why, are the pickups on 153 better than the ones on 120 for instance? Anyone has experience with both? Is it even worth going for MIK these days, or are others just as good now? The alternative is buying a japanese neck pickup only, since I'm reluctant to spend 300-400$ when I got the guitar for 325$.
    Last edited by ASonic; 01-25-2022 at 08:24 PM.

  17. #91
    Hey there! Wanted to update this thread. I just received (finally!) the MIK Super 58's, and gave them to my luthier for installation.
    It's funny that turned out they are completely filled with wax, so basically the Silent 58's (Pat's guitars) Korean analog. These are extremely hard to find, I managed to order them through the site above, and they said Ibanez have like 2 sets in storage for each of these older pickups.

    Ibanez Artcore tweaks-img_20220320_190327-jpgIbanez Artcore tweaks-img_20220320_190348-jpg

    They do look like they're going to go extinct soon, the bridge one doesn't even have the sticker on it

    Will get back with results in a couple of days.

  18. #92

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    Do you tend to keep the volume pot on your guitar set to maximum? The volume pot has a great effect on frequency response. In general the frequency response becomes flatter if you roll off that pot. Of course your amp’s volume then needs to be set higher. I’m much happier with the tone of all my guitars since I adopted that approach.

    Someone made the excellent suggestion to try different picks. You might also experiment with where you pick. The tone changes a lot as you move away from the bridge. I’d suggest experimenting with ideas like that before giving up on a pickup.

  19. #93

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    Quote Originally Posted by balthazar
    Hi,

    I own an Ibanez AG95.
    I changed original pickups for SD Seth Lover, changed original TOM for a wooden bridge (great improvement), swapped strings for TI Jazz Swing and play the guitar through a Fender 85.
    George Benson would be jealous of my sound!
    I love my AG95 and would like to swap the factory TOM. Which wood material did you select - rosewood, ebony, etc, and where did you get it?

  20. #94

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    Quote Originally Posted by ASonic
    By the way, anyone here knows the Drums Etc. | The Drummer's & Guitarist's Pro Shop website? Can they be trusted?
    In 2015 I ordered an Ibanez ArtCore bridge from Drums Etc. that no other online music store in the US stocked. It arrived quickly.

  21. #95

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    Quote Originally Posted by ASonic
    Good stuff.
    By the way, anyone here knows the Drums Etc. | The Drummer's & Guitarist's Pro Shop website? Can they be trusted? The guy told me both korean and japanese supers are in stock at Ibanez, and available for ordering. What I find interesting, is that the chinese/indonesian ones from ebay that I posted, are more expensive on this site (Ibanez Super 58 Guitar Pickup - Neck 3PUS58N4GDG | Drums Etc.) than the koreans. No idea why, are the pickups on 153 better than the ones on 120 for instance? Anyone has experience with both? Is it even worth going for MIK these days, or are others just as good now? The alternative is buying a japanese neck pickup only, since I'm reluctant to spend 300-400$ when I got the guitar for 325$.
    that site looks great thanks AS

    does anyone know the part number
    for Japanese Neck S58 Humbucker ?

    (I want to put one in my Korean AF120)

  22. #96
    Quote Originally Posted by pingu
    that site looks great thanks AS

    does anyone know the part number
    for Japanese Neck S58 Humbucker ?

    (I want to put one in my Korean AF120)
    These are exactly the ones that are in your AF120. Just got my guitar back from the luthier. The sound is fantastic. I still needed to get a better combo, but the clarity is on another level compared to the stock ceramic ones. Does it sound better than my Epiphone Les Paul alnico II pups? Not sure, both are great, but I'm very pleased.


    Ibanez Artcore tweaks-whatsapp-image-2022-03-23-19-25-16-jpeg

    Ibanez Super 58 Guitar Pickup -Neck 3PU1J158C1 | Drums Etc. this is what you need pingu. The gold ones have g1 instead of c1. Be aware that it takes some time before they order it from ibanez and send to you. I ordered at the start of February and received them in mid March. Almost lost hope, but then they said they finally received them from the warehouse.

    I'll try to post some sound demos for comparison, but I still haven't got any decent recording equipment, so..

    P.S. for Ibanez parts you can use this Ibanez parts catalog , helped me a lot with determining what exactly I needed by watching videos of the guitars that have the parts I was looking for.
    Last edited by ASonic; 03-23-2022 at 05:11 PM.

  23. #97

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    Quote Originally Posted by PatrickB
    I love my AG95 and would like to swap the factory TOM. Which wood material did you select - rosewood, ebony, etc, and where did you get it?
    Hi PatrickB,

    It is a home-made ebony bridge.
    Disappointed by the previous one I bought (same issue here) , I decided to make my own one.
    There was a discussion with pics about it on the forum but seems vanished.

    Ibanez Artcore tweaks-bridge-jpg
    Last edited by balthazar; 03-26-2022 at 07:56 AM.

  24. #98
    I ended up ridiculously close to Jim Hall's sound on the Concierto album. Will try to record a demo soon.

  25. #99

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
    While a cap changes the feel of the sound shift as you find your sound, understand that the different values change the sweep, but the actual sound of the pickup at both ends of the tone, 0 and 10 are the same. Different caps will effect how fast the high or low end bleeds off, how much of the high or low end is allowed to pass to the amp, that's what it does: It effects the slope of the frequency roll off and how fast it feels when you "sweep".
    This understood, with one value, the 6 setting might sound where the 5 setting is on another value. etc.
    I know it's a cop out answer but in the end, that's your taste. The more you twittle with your tone, the more you'll feel what's right for you.
    For my useless advice anyway...
    That’s not correct. The RC tone control circuit changes the shape of the frequency response, especially the frequency at which the response peaks. E.g., you may be able to achieve the same amplitudes at 100 Hz and 5000 Hz with two different capacitors values by adjusting the tone pots to different values, but the frequency response between those endpoints may be quite different, peaking at different frequencies. So if you aren’t in the habit of keeping your tone control set to maximum, selection of capacitance values can be as important to your tone as selecting pickups.

  26. #100

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    Quote Originally Posted by KirkP
    Do you tend to keep the volume pot on your guitar set to maximum?
    I only saw this mentioned once, as I read through the thread. In my search for the sound I wanted, this little hint is one of the top three that helped me get there. Just turn it down a small amount (or more if you want) and the character of the sound will change. The other two things in the top three for me, were the pick choice, and setting the amp tone controls to midway first, and experimenting from there. In most situations, I find I can leave the amp set flat (midway) and just back off the guitar volume, and maybe the tone control if needed.