[guitar2be]

Hi guys!

I'm having trouble figuring out which pickups would fit best in my Ibanez rg 970 premium. It has a basswood body with maple top and a wenge neck with bubinga stripes and rosewood fretboard. I'm playing mainly fusion jazz styles, funk, rock and I don't care about high gain too much, but still looking for versatility. Through web research I kinda got a feeling what i want and I believe that AT-1 bridge and 36th paf neck would be a good combo for me. Does anyone know maybe how would these two behave in this wood combo? Also I have no idea what mid pickup should use with these, I want to avoid drastic volume drop and hum but retain good straty guthrie like sounds for funk and leads in positions 2,3 and 4. I was thinking maybe a true velvet or vv54pro, or maybe even cruiser, but i don't know how are it's split sounds. I'm also open to other suggestions for the bridge/neck combo for my style and guitar. I had an air norton neck pup in my previous ibanez rg, but i didn't like it's character.

Thank you for your help!

Jack

[jazzfromhell]

PAFs always works for versatility; you can always step on a boost/od if you need more gain but its hard to do the opposite. 36ths, Paf Masters and Air Classics are all fine PAF-style pickups. A really nice combo is the Norton in the bridge and a 36th in the neck. The Norton is a great allround pickup, a little hotter than a PAF. The Air Zone is another killer pickup to pair with a PAF neck. Fat PAF tone for days and cleans up beautifully.

Ive harped on about these in a lot of posts but if you want PAF versatility but a bit hotter, look no further than the Transitions. Who´s more versatile than Steve Lukather? His signature pickups are awesome.

The AT-1 I really did not like, sorry.

The VV54 Pro is a very nice middle pickup, as are the Areas.

[greenlion]

I also did not like the AT-1 at all, although I love the tones Andy Timmons gets out of it. The Air Zone would be a good match for the 36th neck.  The 36th neck is very vintage PAF-like if that is what you are after. The True velvet middle will give you a volume drop in the middle position. I like the Area 67 middle, and the Cruiser bridge or neck in the middle.

[guitar2be]

How do you wire area or cruiser pickup in mid? I heard you need a super/mega switch in order to remove hum in all positions... does anybody have a wiring diagram maybe?

[greenlion]

Cruisers are already hum cancelling. You can put them wherever you want to.

[guitar2be]

I know, but i think there is a problem with positions 2 and 4 if you want hum cancelling split sound. Does anybody know more about this?

[guitar2be]

So, how good would the 2,4 positions be, with norton bridge, cruiser mid and 36th neck wired without splits, so all humbuckers? Is it possible with a standard 5way switch to wire norton and 36th so that they go in parallel mode and combined with cruiser in positions 2 and 4?

[daenius]

I don't think RG970 comes with "standard" 5 way switch. It's actually an Ibanez proprietary super-5-way switch.

The difference? Unlike most normal super-5-ways, you can't really tell where the terminals connectors correspond to the switch position as easily, and that can cause some confusions when you're soldering it all up. I myself have been a dumb ass victim of this in the past.

You definitely want to dig around this forum's wiring diagram section to see if you can find a diagram for that.

As for pickups... what amp do you use? If you're into Guthrie type stuff.. I think the guy actually uses a medium gain setting but pushes the amp pretty hard with high output pickups. I could be wrong though, haven't been keeping up with his stuff after he switched to Charvel pickups.