Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

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cuffers65240
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Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by cuffers65240 »

Good Day Crazy Internet World!

I am opening a can of worms but I will attempt to put some guardrails on this topic. I have an Ibanez AS-83 Artcore guitar that is a copy of an ES-335. I think the build quality is excellent and have had a reputable luthier do the setup on it.

I went to concert the other day, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. I highly recommend, Jason and the other guitar player are both stone cold assassins on the guitar. At any rate, I went home and went full on alt country/rock with my TMB 18watt and was left, lets say, less than satisfied. I know, I have a problem, the search for tone will never end. I have done what I can, am really satisfied with what is added by my Keeley Compressor and my Ibanez TS9DX Turbo TubeScreamer but am thinking of my next project.

Is the next lowest hanging fruit to look at new pickups? I just do not think the stock pickups are putting out the fullness that they should (purely uneducated opinion). They are darker than I would like for humbuckers and for lack of a better term, do not seem to bring the fullness I am looking for. My assumption is that I am using my compressor to try and raise the floor to make up for this.
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Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by JMPGuitars »

I swap pickups on $500 or $5000 guitars. It doesn't matter, go for what you like. I usually prefer Lace or DiMarzio, but I recently tried out some Bare Knuckle Pickups, and they seem to be really good too.
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Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by Bieworm »

IME the guitar itself is mostly a shell that has to be appealing to you. It should be solid and stabile and reliably equipped and constructed. The pickups determine at least 90% of the sound. I never buy guitars for their pickups, but it's often the other way around. Always eager to try new types...
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Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by BlueBoozer »

There’s more than the pickup involved in the tone of the guitar. If you’re noticing the pups go muddy after you turn the volume down just a tad you might just try adding treble bleed to the volume pot. You can also adjust the tone cap to a lower value to drop less high frequencies. Adjust the pickup height in relation to the strings, or the individual pole pieces on the pickup.

I agree with Josh. Feel free to replace away. I have an Epiphone SG 400 that the neck is sweet and plays crazy easy, so I installed a Floyd Rose FRX, Gibson 490’s and Emerson custom controls in it. Now it’s one of my main go to guitars.
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Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by Bieworm »

BlueBoozer wrote:
Fri 10/22/21 2:45 pm
There’s more than the pickup involved in the tone of the guitar. If you’re noticing the pups go muddy after you turn the volume down just a tad you might just try adding treble bleed to the volume pot. You can also adjust the tone cap to a lower value to drop less high frequencies. Adjust the pickup height in relation to the strings, or the individual pole pieces on the pickup.

I agree with Josh. Feel free to replace away. I have an Epiphone SG 400 that the neck is sweet and plays crazy easy, so I installed a Floyd Rose FRX, Gibson 490’s and Emerson custom controls in it. Now it’s one of my main go to guitars.
Pickup height still relates to the pickup. And that's about the only perceivable factor. Corksniffing headphone players that can hear the difference in brands of pots... give me a break! In a live setup it all comes down to the amp and the pickups.. that's what matters to me.
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Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by JMPGuitars »

Bieworm wrote:
Fri 10/22/21 3:30 pm
Pickup height still relates to the pickup. And that's about the only perceivable factor. Corksniffing headphone players that can hear the difference in brands of pots... give me a break! In a live setup it all comes down to the amp and the pickups.. that's what matters to me.
Well, there is a difference in pot quality. Though that's more for performance and durability. Pot value does affect tone (depending on the pickup though, some pickups care less). Though I don't think you'd be able to pick one good brand vs. another of equal resistance/taper.

Good pickups should still sound like the guitar you're playing, though good pickups will make a mediocre instrument sound better. I've put the same set of pickups in different guitars and got similar but still slightly different tone.

In a live setting it all comes down to your fingers. ;)
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Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by colossal »

IME... pots, their value, and specifically their taper matter greatly to the performance of a Les Paul (or 335) with 50s wiring. It's about getting a very smooth and gradual roll-off (or on) of volume and tone, and finding the little tonal sweet spots along the way.

For humbuckers, I prefer unpotted, slightly underwound, and with the pole pieces set for each string (to get balance, desired drive and clarity). I also prefer a bit of distance from the string to the pickup to minimize magnetic string pull.

I am not very familiar with Jason Isbell but looked up Honeysuckle Blue as a tone sample. The rhythm sound in that song would be very doable with an 18W and a 335. Maybe a single G12H30 or mix of a 30 and 20 or 25W Greenback. You could get that sound with a cranked Normal channel.

For your Epiphone, I would probably look for a PAF type from Seymour Duncan or Dimarzio. You don't need a chainsaw of a pickup that just squashes the sound, compressing everything (well, unless that's your thing). Once you've done that, you can't undo it. It's the opposite....less power, more clarity, clean technique, and a very touch sensitive and revealing amp (18W amp) is the way to get that sound. The semi-hollow guitar is going to add a lot of overtones as well, so too hot of a pickup just makes a mess of all that information.
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Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by JMPGuitars »

colossal wrote:
Sat 10/23/21 7:48 am
The semi-hollow guitar is going to add a lot of overtones as well, so too hot of a pickup just makes a mess of all that information.
Unless you roll-off the guitar volume a bit. Then you can punch it up when you want it to sound crazy. ;)
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Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by colossal »

JMPGuitars wrote:
Sat 10/23/21 7:53 am
Unless you roll-off the guitar volume a bit. Then you can punch it up when you want it to sound crazy. ;)
Sure, there will be many shades and combinations depending on what you want out of your sound. For me, I like a very open, horn-like, singing, and vocal quality to my sound. I'm chasing the dynamics, the woodiness of the instrument, the honky clarity. I don't want too much gain or compression. That's just my preference though. Dave Grohl using a Trini Lopez 335 might be an example of more of the full-on, semi-hollow smashing the front end of an amp sound (think Monkeywrench).
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Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by JMPGuitars »

colossal wrote:
Sat 10/23/21 9:49 am
Sure, there will be many shades and combinations depending on what you want out of your sound. For me, I like a very open, horn-like, singing, and vocal quality to my sound. I'm chasing the dynamics, the woodiness of the instrument, the honky clarity. I don't want too much gain or compression. That's just my preference though. Dave Grohl using a Trini Lopez 335 might be an example of more of the full-on, semi-hollow smashing the front end of an amp sound (think Monkeywrench).
I hear ya. I think with really good pickups, you can get those things in a variety of gain levels. IME only mediocre pickups lose that in higher gain. Like EMG active pickups all sound the same (I hate them on guitar), and you could install them on a 2x4 and they'd still do their 1-trick-pony thing okay.

I like a wide variety of sound, though I do tend to lean towards a balance of cream and crunch. From DiMarzio, my favorites are FRED in the bridge and Gravity Storm in the neck. From Lace my favorites are the HEMI humbuckers. But there's a lot of other stuff from both companies I really like.
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Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by colossal »

I remember the FREDs from my pointy guitar days! Great sounding pickups.
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Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by JMPGuitars »

colossal wrote:
Sun 10/24/21 8:59 am
I remember the FREDs from my pointy guitar days! Great sounding pickups.
They are great. I have FREDs in a couple pointy guitars, and a PRS and a semi hollow. Sounds great in all of them.

FRED and Gravity Storm:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CCUXXOmnrUs/

FRED and Vinting Mini Humbucker:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B8rY9YOHZTC/

FRED and Gravity Storm (again):
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2SldQngqc1/

Lonely FRED:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BcpwH8GBWoB/
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Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by cuffers65240 »

Thank you everyone for the sage advice. I will round up some reply's to comments below.

Thanks for the suggestion to raise the pickups, I did previously mess with this and initially adjusted the neck pickup too high, the strings were buzzing it and had to back off. The neck pickup noticeably increased in volume but is still my most disappointing tone. Bridge is not so bad, definitely more dynamic and much more output than the neck.

I am looking into the Dimarzio options for replacement and will likely change pots to push-pull switched pots for coil tapping since these are 4 wire pickups. I am setting up my USB mic and Garage Band on my Mac to record some before and after.

One question, what is the meaning of "standard" and "F" spaced? I am assuming this has to do with strings but don't know what to measure.
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Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by JMPGuitars »

cuffers65240 wrote:
Mon 10/25/21 10:26 pm
One question, what is the meaning of "standard" and "F" spaced? I am assuming this has to do with strings but don't know what to measure.
F-spaced is wider spacing, usually for "tremolos" - standard should be fine on your 335 copy, but you can measure the string distance if you want to be sure.

They have a printable to help with that:
https://www.dimarzio.com/node/1739
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Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by Pressed_Rat »

A really good aftermarket neck humbucker is the Seymour Duncan Jazz model. Electric Velvet. I got it with his Hot Rodded Humbucker set. The JB bridge is too much, but the Jazz in the neck - very cool.

My son's SG has Gibson 490s. Also very nice sounding pickups.
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Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by NickF »

I've wound a few pickups in my time.
It sounds to me that what you're after more than anything is mismatched coils. Why not get an old sewing machine and hit Mojotone for a kit to build. It's really rewarding. The day you hit an amp with the first pickup you made is utter bliss. If you made the amp yourself too it's even better, probably, I dunno. It's a once in a lifetime experience so you don't get to assess that initial feeling twice.

Mismatching coils is pretty much the secret to the PAF's that actually sounded good.
You're going for around 5000 winds of 42g copper around each bobbin on a balanced pickup. So to mismatch that, I'd be looking at a 15% difference in the number of winds. Say 5500 on your polepiece bobbin and 4800 on the slug bobbin (just to take you over a bit) It seems to edge a humbucker towards what they lose from the single coil sound. Much more than 15-20% and you start introducing noticeable amounts of noise. While that ain't the end of the world. Cos lets face it, single coils sound great, it's enough to make you question the pickup. Dimarzio do this a lot, though they have some mystical way of working it out based on the inductance of the coil. And use the mismatching to shape sounds/character of their pickups to a degree that's beyond me.
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Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by cuffers65240 »

Just what I need, one more guitar based hobby! It is actually very interesting that the humbucker windings can be unbalanced. I have been wondering what all the variables were that make up the sound of a pickup lately and wondered if there were more variables than magnet type and total number of windings. I wonder if Dimarzio is adding some shielding to the pickups to reduce hum when they are very unbalanced. After all, the pickup itself is not the source of the noise but rather the EMI that it picks up.

I haven't actually changed out the Ibanez pickups yet but rather took on another project. I bought a Squier bullet strat a set of Fender locking tuners (word to the wise, the fender tuners do not fit without modifications) and a set of Fender Tex Mex pickups. I got all of that rebuilt last night and holy $%&# is the tone better. These pickups have a lot less hum in the 1, 3 and 5 switch positions and sound so much clearer and more dynamic. My doubts about the tone from my 18watt are gone, it is amazing with a strat tied to it.

This has strengthened my resolve to rebuild the Ibanez now with some new goodies, namely new pickups. I will definitely replace the nut (strings are getting held up in it) and add a set of locking tuners to go with it (it is very hard to tune compared to my Taylor acoustic and my franken-strat). Now that I have heard the clarity that comes with better pickups I now am convinced that the stock pickup set is garbage.
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Re: Ibanez ES-335 copy pickup suggestions

Post by JMPGuitars »

cuffers65240 wrote:
Tue 12/07/21 9:30 pm
This has strengthened my resolve to rebuild the Ibanez now with some new goodies, namely new pickups. I will definitely replace the nut (strings are getting held up in it) and add a set of locking tuners to go with it (it is very hard to tune compared to my Taylor acoustic and my franken-strat). Now that I have heard the clarity that comes with better pickups I now am convinced that the stock pickup set is garbage.
I can't tell you whether the nut is bad or not, but if the strings are getting caught in it, that means the slots need to be filed better. I'd also use some nut lubricant in there after filing (careful not to file down the slot height if the action is good). Of course, a new nut costs less than nut files. I'd take a look at GraphTech and make sure you measure the nut well.
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