Pickup suggestions for Ibanez AZ2204N

S

skolacki

Fractal Fanatic
I picked up one of these guitars and it’s a nice guitar. Lots of frills like SS frets, compound radius, convoluted switching scheme and locking tuners. It plays really good and the build quality is excellent.

It has a set of Duncan Fortuna pickups on it in the HSS configuration. The staggered pole singles are kind of a drag but the neck sounds great despite that. It’s the humbucker I’m not liking much. It’s a S guitar with the Alder body but I’m looking for a pickup with more warmth and meat to it with a vintage or slightly over vintage output. The Duncan Fortuna bucker is pretty bright and it’s not bad but I don’t love it. It doesn’t have warmth or girth. Hard to describe it. But throwing this question out there in case anyone has suggestions for a good S style HSS bucker. I’m not a high gain player, more of a classic rock guy.

I’m also considering a new neck pickup. The G pole is very high, and the high B and E are low. Sounds great but the G is too loud and the high E and B are too quiet. Can you file down poles?
 
I really like the SSL-5 singles in my DK-24 guitars. I bought a used set that I'm considering swapping into my Tom Anderson Drop Top.

On the MIM DK-24, I replaced the humbucker with a Suhr Thornbucker which I like better than the stock Duncan Full Shred.
 
skolacki said:
I picked up one of these guitars and it’s a nice guitar. Lots of frills like SS frets, compound radius, convoluted switching scheme and locking tuners. It plays really good and the build quality is excellent.

It has a set of Duncan Fortuna pickups on it in the HSS configuration. The staggered pole singles are kind of a drag but the neck sounds great despite that. It’s the humbucker I’m not liking much. It’s a S guitar with the Alder body but I’m looking for a pickup with more warmth and meat to it with a vintage or slightly over vintage output. The Duncan Fortuna bucker is pretty bright and it’s not bad but I don’t love it. It doesn’t have warmth or girth. Hard to describe it. But throwing this question out there in case anyone has suggestions for a good S style HSS bucker. I’m not a high gain player, more of a classic rock guy.

I’m also considering a new neck pickup. The G pole is very high, and the high B and E are low. Sounds great but the G is too loud and the high E and B are too quiet. Can you file down poles?
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Inner poles can usually be pressed down through the bobbin ( on a fibre constructed pickup) but there is a risk of damage to the coil but if your carful it is possible . If it has plastic bobbins push away as there is no contact with the coil.
 
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Andy Eagle said:
Inner poles can usually be pressed down through the bobbin ( on a fibre constructed pickup) but there is a risk of damage to the coil but if your carful it is possible . If it has plastic bobbins push away as there is no contact with the coil.
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I’ll be changing strings soon so I’ll pull the pickguard and see what I can see. If that would work it would be sweet because that neck pickup is the only reason it’s not listed for sale. Sounds amazing. Still need to find a humbucker for the bridge. Thanks Andy.
 
skolacki said:
I’m probably going with the Seth Lover. The price isn’t over the top. Can always move it to another guitar if it doesn’t pan out.
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I'm partial to the Tonerider Alinco II Classics. They offer what you're looking for, for half the price. And as you say, you can always move it to another guitar,
 
Rex said:
I'm partial to the Tonerider Alinco II Classics. They offer what you're looking for, for half the price. And as you say, you can always move it to another guitar,
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Tonerider are by far the best budget pickups you can buy but they aren't "quite" as good . My favourite Paf clone is a Throbak 101 but that's 3x the Seth price. I like the Tom Holmes as well but they are basically not available . The Ron Ellis is no better than the Seth IMO.
 
I just recently did a HSS strat with a Fred in the bridge, Area 67 middle and injector neck. It might be what you are looking for. The fred is such a cool beefy pickup. Its very detailed but still feels pretty vintage since its based off the PAF pro. The injector is a pretty warm neck pickup too. I also have it all on a 500k volume pot. But you could 470k the singles and it might even it out a little more.
 
My Seth Lover came in yesterday. Installed it, fresh strings, and the Ibanez is now an official keeper. It’s a beautiful pickup. It gave me exactly what I was looking for. Matches well with the singles too. With the wiring scheme I had to jump out the coil split which is ok by me. Next will be a new single. The bottom of the stock pickup is fiberboard so it look like the windings are wrapped on the poles. I might try to press the G pole down next string change but more likely just buy a new one.

The pick guard still had the plastic on it so I pulled the knobs and pots to make a clean job of removing it. The tone pot shaft pulled up quite a bit. I pressed it back in and it works. Never saw that before.

These AZ guitars are aimed at the Suhrs I think and for the price they’re excellent. MIJ Ibanez is good quality in my experience, and this one is definitely better than my US Strat.
 
skolacki said:
My Seth Lover came in yesterday. Installed it, fresh strings, and the Ibanez is now an official keeper. It’s a beautiful pickup. It gave me exactly what I was looking for. Matches well with the singles too. With the wiring scheme I had to jump out the coil split which is ok by me. Next will be a new single. The bottom of the stock pickup is fiberboard so it look like the windings are wrapped on the poles. I might try to press the G pole down next string change but more likely just buy a new one.

The pick guard still had the plastic on it so I pulled the knobs and pots to make a clean job of removing it. The tone pot shaft pulled up quite a bit. I pressed it back in and it works. Never saw that before.

These AZ guitars are aimed at the Suhrs I think and for the price they’re excellent. MIJ Ibanez is good quality in my experience, and this one is definitely better than my US Strat.
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Glad you like it.
 
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