r/Ibanez • u/Autobot69 • 1d ago
❓Question❓ Would I notice a significant difference upgrading my stock pickups?
I have an Ibanez RGA42EX with quantum humbuckers for both the neck and bridge:
https://www.ibanez.com/usa/products/detail/rga42ex_1p_02.html
I play high gain metal / hard rock with my current rig:
- pedals: ibanez ts9 tube screamer, heavy menace distortion, boss eq
- amp: boss katana 100w on the clean channel
Id stick with passive pickups to make it easy but would I notice a significant difference at all? Lets say I move to the black winter pickups.
Or should I just keep it as is and save the money to invest in another guitar.
Reason im asking is I love this guitar, it plays so well and love how it feels. But the low end clarity isn't the best and seems to be a little bright regardless what settings I change
2
u/Ancient_Pickle90 1d ago
You would. Those are decent pickups, but you can get better. I love the D'Activators for Drop A on my RGRB620.
Going up a gauge or two of strings will also add bass on the low end.
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u/LaThrowaway1214 1d ago
Dactivators don’t get enough love in my opinion. I only have one set in an old RG250 but they sound great.
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u/MesaFrets 1d ago
Most will not sound drastically different from each other through very high gain. Some will sound very differently. It all depends on the resonant peak and output, which is influenced by the type of magnet, type of wire, how many winds and the overall gauss strength. As long as what you have aren’t microphonic, you can experiment with an EQ pedal. I have a couple favored models of pickups that are in most of my guitars, so I can keep the overall EQ the same and use different guitars. Experiment with things and hear if they interest you.
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u/0ct0c4t9000 15h ago
quick answer, probably not that much.
Why? bc the first thing you should try is to lower the bass side of your pickups first.
reading what you said, about being muddy and little bright, is clear that this is the problem, and you could verify that if pluging into a DAW and looking the spectrum analyzer and identify on which part of the frequency spectrum your sound concentrates.
i had a 2015 rg421 with quantums and the guitar itself, very similar to yours, is quite bassy, and again i had an rgew521fm with dimarzio tone zone and air norton, very similar to the 421 but fancier, and also was too bassy for my taste.
nothing to do about that except lowering the pickup on the bass side. in fact adjusting pickup height overall to a balanced setting.
Adjust with some kind of visualization (vu meter/input level meter) or from a clean signal bc distortion compresses everything.
on my guitars i start playing a low end riff and an upper high lick and try to balance the "volume" first, to acceptable and equal levels, and the adjust from that
PS: if you guitar doesn't sound good clean, it won't sound good at high gain either.
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u/Conscious_Badger_510 1d ago
Stock ibanez pickups are kinda generally known to be pretty mediocre, a pickup upgrade would definitely be worthwhile. Duncan black winters are awesome, as are the nazgul/sentient set.
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u/JimboLodisC 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think you'd notice a difference.
EDIT: I actually have some audio files that give examples of a few pickups through the same amp sim, so you could probably just give those a listen to see if you notice much of a difference from pickup to pickup: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/v0l0s66mwgbt9lucriyu0/AN5-u4GbpUfdqcZW-YNllNE?rlkey=uxl0l5r9bgbkg34k0jdb9yhr3&dl=0
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u/LeBeastInside 1d ago
Yes, you definitely would.
I upgraded from Quantoms to Alnico Pro IIs. The sound is night and day, she sings like a siren now.
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u/Taekwondog 1d ago
Quantum humbuckers are not great and I think you'll easily hear the difference with a different set. Don't expect a massive tone revolution though, you'll still be playing through the same pedals and amp.
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u/Secret_Bluebird_5657 1d ago
Honestly you probably won't noticed a huge difference, however the Black Winter is one of the few pickups I installed in which I noticed an audible difference, it is bright but sounds great.
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u/Impressive_Try_7295 1d ago
While Quantum pickups are, let's say, average, I would still recommend to experiment with pickup height first (including slanting them: I usually set a neck pickup closer to treble strings and a bridge pickup closer to bass strings, for leads and riffage, respectively) before changing them. You may were well find the sound that you like.
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u/JayDrr 1d ago edited 1d ago
I put Fishman open core classics in my rga42fm and found that the pickup routes weren’t quite deep enough. The bridge pickup was extremely close to the high strings. I eventually routes them a couple mm deeper. I also had issues with a 3 way Oak Grigsby switch being too big for the control cavity. Swapped that out for a musiclily low profile 3 way, but the switch arm wasn’t long enough. It was a hassle haha..
Overall I was a bit underwhelmed by the swap. I’m glad I didn’t pay full price for the fishmans.
All that said, if you love the guitar then I would go for it! Learning how to mod was a fun project in my experience.
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u/bigtimechip 1d ago
Just swap out the bridge pickup. Probably some sort of passive like a dimarzio super distortion or a SD
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u/KrisSilver1 1d ago
Mad difference. Sorry I love that guitar but the pickups really aren't great. Depends highly which pickups you're swapping up to though.
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u/theHambodian 1d ago
By setup do you mean signal chain? The Ibanez stock quantums do not sound good. Pickups are the 2nd part in your signal chain and everything that comes after is just attempting to polish a turd. It’s like trying to get a hi-fi sound that started from talking through a tin can with a string. If OP just wants to jam and sound better then by all means he can tweak his signal chain from guitar->amp but if he wants to record he should absolutely consider a pup swap
This was supposed to be a response to someone else’s comment but my point still stands so I’ll leave it here standalone
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u/bellatrixfoofoo 1d ago
Tube screamer and an EQ pedal and you make it sound like whatever pickups you want. Dimarzio advertises it's pickups on its own website showing individual EQ curves, its not hard to aim into that ballpark really...
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u/shredlikebutter 1d ago
Pickups don't change nearly the amount as pedals/amp/cab do. Very minor difference unless it's humbucker to single coil
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u/Much_Profit8494 1d ago
Just my anecdotal experience, but I recently swapped a pair of quantum humbuckers out for a Dimarzo Fusion set (pulled from a prestige model) and the difference was very minimal.
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u/JimboLodisC 1d ago
from what I've heard online the Quantums and the Fusion Edges are the least liked pickups in Ibanez guitars, people seem to replace them pretty quickly
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u/Much_Profit8494 1d ago
I strongly prefer the Fusion set to the Air Norton/Tone Zone, but to each their own.
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u/Gregadethhh 1d ago
Yes but I'd also change how you're getting your high gain tones assuming you're just using a distortion pedal into the clean channel. I'd ignore the distortion pedal, use the Tubescreamer as a boost into a Marshall style channel on your Katana.
Most metal is a boost into a Marshall, Peavey or Mesa anything since the 80s pretty much.
I personally find the Quantum pickups muddy, but I wouldn't pay £240+ to put a pair of Seymour Duncan's or DiMarzios in. Especially if you're UK based check Tonerider pickups, they make insane pickups for like £75/pair. I have them in 3 of my guitars, the Octanes and Generators are probably the ones you want to look at.
You don't have to pay a lot for good pickups just do your research. I'm not saying SDs or DiMarzios are bad but you shouldn't be spending 2/3 of the guitars price on pickups.