Sunday, August 5, 2012

Ibanez: RG3XXV (Part 2)

These are the default DiMarzio pickups in the Ibanez RG3XXV: D Activator (bridge)/ Air Norton S (neck). A quick character reference:

D Activator
It's a treble rich pickup, it was designed to be this way to manifest an accurate active pickup voicing. I'm not a treble fan but this pickup works for me when I turn down the treble over at the amp. It's a magnificent worker for distortion settings. In clean mode, it lacks warmth but gives off a great boom; not for the vintage aficionado, definitely.

Air Norton S
The ANS is a wonderful neck unit, it's one of those eccentric high output, ceramic-based performer that sounds different from what you'd expect it to be. EQ-wise, this pickup is migrange rich with lots of supporting bass response & a curbed treble response- one of the smoothest neck tone could be heard here. This is my kinda pickup, lots of midrange accentuation, lots of warmth, lots of punch without losing definition in any way.

Yes, I'm a Duncan fan through & through but I'm not averse to DiMarzios or any other pickup brands (even EMG, mind you). I just hear more usable tones from Duncans than any other brand names out there, I think it's purely coincidental; they have what I wanna hear. 

Coming back to the RG3XXV performance; I must say that these 2 are the deserving pickups in there. They bring out the best from a basswood unit coupled with a locking, dual-action whammy bridge with lots of potential to sound bad. But not this guitar. The bridge handles all out distortion while the neck gives you one of the best, contemporary neck tones out there.

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