Just stopped playing. Today I had my Ibanez S540 for company, plugged into my Peavey XXL combo. 3 reasons why I dig this guitar...
1. Seymour Duncan: PATB Distortion My Ibanez S540 had seen different pickups in the bridge position, many failed to capture the depth & clarity of the guitar until I had the PATB. Initially I was skeptical as this humbucker is devoid of the regular, circular pole pieces. I thought these smaller, parallel whatever pieces the manufacturer calls them, were incapable of capturing the string vibrations effectively as opposed to its aforementioned counterparts. But back then, I was too judgmental & dismissive just because things were not made they way I wanted them to be. Never, never judge a pickup by its pole pieces. Lesson learned.
2. Seymour Duncan: Hot Rhythm
Many of us are bothered by the need for our single coil- in an HSH pickup combo- to be on par with its neighbouring humbuckers. This defeats the point of having a single coil pickup in there; it's supposed to differentiate your predominantly humbucking tones. My choice for the Hot Rhythm was indeed a blind pick; I was reliant on the manufacturer's product literature as no guitars at the time of purchase featured this model as default. There was no way of hearing it in action to influence my decision, I went with gut feelings. But it was a rewarding plunge as the HR manifested one of the best clarity/ twang, this side of Fender & it's noiseless to boot. It responds tremendously well to (guitar) volume play even when there's excessive distortion in use.
3. Seymour Duncan: Full Shred
This was a particular pick to address the neck voicing; I previously had the '59 in there but it lacked the poke for clarity under intense distortion, despite that unrivaled warmth. It don't want excessive output either as this would affect the neck's 'wooliness'. Was it too much to ask for the best of both worlds? The Full Shred gave me what I wanted & remains as one of my favourite neck humbucker.
