Looking for pickups for my ibanez S570b

I was looking for new pickups to replace the stock ones.
I have an Ibanez S570 guitar which has mahogany body and a maple neck. And a Floating bridge. I wish to change both the bridge and the neck pickup. I play a little diverse range of music like classic rock, metal, space rock etc. The artists i would like to sound similar to are Pink floyd, Dire straits, Metallica, Pantera, Rammestien, Blink-182, Guns N' Roses, Iron Maiden, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Kamelot, Dream Theater, Monster Magnet, Judas Priest.

I would like my neck pickup to have a fluid nice singing tone like that of Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. I need good sustain and harmonics. It should be able to handle shred soloing and sweep picking. It should have good sparkling cleans too.

The bridge pickup should be high output that puts tube amps to overdrive and has punchy bass. I want to stress on it it needs to have a tight bass response and should handle aggresive metal rhythm playing. I am not into scooped mids and stuff.

Some of the pickups i have considered are:
Neck: Dimarzio Evolution, Dimarzio Liquifire
Bridge: Seymour Duncan Sh-13 Dimebucker, Bare Knuckle Nailbomb ceramic, Bare Knuckle Painkiller

Please specifically tell me more options for the neck pickup as i cannot choose one from Bare Knuckle ones. here is the website
https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/main/pickups.php?cat=humbuckers&sub=contemporary

 

i think u would have to go for f spaced pickups as u have a floyd rose
also for bridge i think u would like the dimarzio breed

 

If you are going DiMarzio in a Mahogany guitar with floating trem, I guess the most tried, tested and popular choice would have to be Air Norton in Neck and Tone Zone in Bridge. Steve's Special is supposedly a brighter alternative for the bridge position.

If you choose the Seymour Duncan route, I guess Jazz/JB is most popular pick. Duncan Distortion seems favored too for the bridge.

If you are going EMGs, I would recommend staying off 85 in neck as it is too dark for an already bass heavy guitar.
81 goes well in neck and bridge. It has lots of bite and cuts through the mix well. It is amazingly tight for hi-gain rhythm but cleans suffer terribly.
60/60A is a winner for the neck. The cleans are amazing on these and has a nice bluesy lead tone too.
You could also try out the 89, 85TW etc if you need coil tap options and stuff.
I have used 81, 85 and 60 and I love the 81/60 currently in my guitar.

Let me know how it goes if you do make the switch. I'm looking at experimenting with DiMarzio/SD too.

 

Here's a link to a video I had posted earlier if you need to hear my tone:
ReTurn 2 Serenity CoveR - BLACK REGIMENT - YouTube

Yeah, I am the fat dude playing the solo...

 

I dont think i will buy Dimarzio or Seymour duncans for the bridge. I have decided to go with Bare Knuclke. Absolutely superb hand-wound pickups. Maybe the nailbomb or the painkiller. For the neck i may go with the evolution as that is what i exactly want, but if i get something similar in Bare Knuckle i'll go for it.

And sorry but actives simply are not my cup of tea.

 

Since you are looking at a very vast range of tones, I suggest you pick more generic pickups that have medium output and mate well together. Otherwise you might have problems with one pickup being too bright/dark/loud/hot etc for the other.

 

/thread...

 

I havent decided a pickup yet i have only narrowed down the brand that too for the bridge so, this thread is still open.

@wylder
I know but people told me to go with pickups for the kind of music i play most and matters the most because i will have to compromise somewhere and if i go with medium output pickups just because i feel like playing Pink floyd once in a month or something like that my main forte that is metal will suffer. I should have mentioned this, i play metal in my band and the rest are like cravings. What i feel is i dont want an exact tone like the sultans of swing that mark knopfler uses, some thing i can play along will do. But what i do positively want is a nice metal tone with great response to fast riffing and picking, nice tight bass for the bridge pickup and a nice singing aggressive tone with loads of sustain and harmonics, along with fluidity for shredding and sweep picking stuff.

 

the fluidity comes from u not ur guitar
if u need sustain and good harmonics the breed is a good pickup for the bridge

 

I had shortlisted Dimarzio breed DP166 but didnt buy coz of the Humbucker shape.

Certainly if you go with extremely high output pickup ur clean tone will suffer a lot.

I ended up buying Dimarzio Fasttrack2. Its a humbucker in the shape of single coil. Might not be suitable for u coz of the shape.

There is a link somewhere on the net which describes all the P'ups and gives u the output of each and every pickup. I am talking about Dimarzio ones. It was helpful for me in comparing and choosing Fasttrack 2.

try this link
https://www.aqdi.com/cgi-bin/databa...+Skatterbrane+Yinbrane+Humbucker+(bridge)&B=1

 

I use SD Live wires on my Dean which is a versatile set... You can have the SH-4 JB humbucker and an SH-2N Jazz Model if you want the passive pickups.
Other option for the bridge position are:
Dimebucker SH-13 or Bill Lawrence version of the same pickup (forgot the model, much cheaper)
DiMarzio DP207 Dropsonic
DiMarzio DP102 X2N

 

actually it is on the dimarzio website itself

 

Thanks but those characters i am looking for in the neck pickup not the bridge one. Infact while checking on it i noticed the D-Activator X which would complement the mahogany body nicely.

What i am currently thinking is that to buy the bridge humbucker suited for metal, I wish you guys could try BKPs they simple outclass the dimarzios and SDs, though they are a bit on the expensive side. For the neck i'll buy a pickup that will give me great metal and Satriani-Vai soloing tone and then later upgrade the middle single coil pickup for the cleaner stuff, that way i'll have all the range of tones i am looking for. What do you guys think?

 

why dont u buy the paf pro for the neck(it is used by joe satriani
and steve vai uses the breed in the neck

 

If you have done enough research on the pickup you want I would suggest that you pick them up as a pair. Look for online reviews on what goes well with the BKP. Mixing two different pickups may not be a great idea because of eq voicing differences and volume drops because of impedance differences.

Eg: 2 bright pickups are better than one super dark and one super bright. This is because while the choice might seem versatile, one of your pickups become useless as either the dark pickup won't cut through the mix or the bright one will squeal and feedback like crazy on stage for any one tone you set. In the first case, atleast your eq might be able to correct them.
Instead check for reviews of people who have used that pairing in a mahogany guitar. So don't pick a Steve Vai pup and a Satch pup to make a versatile pair. Steve's tone has a lot of hi-mids and treble to cut through the mix while Satch's are more of warm lo-mids with a eq that sounds like a wah stopped halfway for overtones.

 

Hmmm thanks for the concern, i asked on the BKP forums and one of the guys said that he has mixed bkps and dimarzios in past and they shouldnt cause any problem unless the output levels of the two arent too different.

Anyway i contacted bajaao and they say a new shipment of BKP is expected around third week of april so i still have some time to contemplate and decide.

I also emailed Tim(the guy who makes the BKPs) and lets see what he has to say.

 

bkp warpigs will cost between 20-25k
go for warpigs if you are into metalcore and stuff and aftermaths if you are into progressive/djent
a friend of mine imported a bridge bkp aftermath pup it costed him around 12k including duties

 

I got a reply from tim he says they will work fine together. He suggested the painkiller calib. set. He said the closest one they make to the evolution is painkiller neck humbucker, but if i choose the evolution there wont be any problem. And yeah i saw the warpig calib set at bajaao for 20,000. The painkiller set is costing around 250 pounds(220 for pickups + 10 for cover + 12 for carriage) including carriage which is approx 20,000 too. So is this including customs?

 

would there be customs on a pickups as well???

 

I dont know thats why i asked, also other duties like excise,VAT, octroi etc