First and foremost know that this is the first gu
itar I ever owned. I've had it for more than ten years and I'm really sentimental. It's an Ibanez AX120 and is one of those really-quality-but-ine
xpensive guitars. I've recently thought about putting better pickups in to make it even better. Right now I have the standard Axis AH1 at the neck and AH2 at the bridge. If I swap out, I'm more than likely going with Gibson humbuckers (at least that style, anyway). There are several layers to my question:
1) Are there any dangers in doing this? Do I risk really screwing up my %26quot;baby%26quot;? And by %26quot;screwing up%26quot; I mean both the performance of the guitar (risking electrical proble
ms? Does the design of the guitar influence how a pickup will perform?) and the appearance of the guitar (I don't want it to end up looking like a tinkering high schooler got a hold of it).
2) Is this easy enough to do on my own? I'm not a mechanic or luthier, but I'm no dummy either and would prefer to save the money if its difficulty may be equivalent to, say, changing an alternator in a car.
3) I'm open to brand and product suggestions. What I have in mind is the standard Gibson Les Paul- or SG-style humbucker, in a silver/chrome plating. Actually . . . it has to be chrome or black in color, but that shouldn't be a problem to find. Any other brands I should look into for that style humbucker? (I'm not interested in single coil--I already have a telecaster for that).
4) It appears that the two pickups on my guitar currently are slightly different (AH1 vs. AH2). Does this mean I need to buy two different kinds of pickups? Or can I just buy two of the same kind, and then their position on the guitar will make all the difference?I'm thinking about changing pickups on my guitar. Any advice?Okay, let's do this point-by-point.
1) There are some dangers, as in everything else, but not many. You don't actually have to damage the guitar or the pickups to change them out. The only real risk is if you don't connect the wires properly, in which case it could suddenly lose the connection and go silent.
2) It should be. All that really has to be done is to take off whatever cover in on your particular guitar (I'm not totally familiar with that model, but I think it's just the pickup ring?), pull the pickup out far enough to work with it, and either de-solder the pickups leads from the selector switch and ground or cut the wires. Then you put in you new pickups, either solder the leads where the old ones went or splice the wires (by twisting them together, soldering them, and covering the connection with electrical tape), and reattach the cover/pickup ring. If you don't have a soldering iron, and can't borrow or buy one, then this is probably not a good thing to do yourself.
3) I recommend you check out seymourduncan.com. They have a section of their website called the tone comparison chart. Find humbuckers in the list, and look at the options. It will tell you the impedance of all their pickups models, and a simple tone guide. The impedance is how %26quot;hot%26quot; the pickups is; the higher it is the more output power the pickup has. As for the tone, each pickup will show a Bass/Middle/Treble chart. Very straightforward to compare. For example, I'm looking into getting a Duncan Distortion pickup, which has a readout of 7/8/9 by that chart, meaning it has strong highs, softer mids, and lower but still strong bass presence. See? So if you wanted, say, a lot of midrange, find one that says 5/8/7 or something. I don't know your preferred tone, but I usually recommend the Duncan JB for people who play clean to mid-gain, then Duncan Distortion to people who use a lot of distortion, and the Duncan Alternative 8 for people who use fuzz effects. DiMarzio also makes
excellent pickups, but I don't know much about them, so I can't make any recommendations.
I think the chrome cover is actually a separate piece, so you can keep the ones you aleady have and just change the pickup under it, but I may be wrong about that.
4) Usually, neck pickups have lower output, because a pickup closer to the middle of the string has more to pick up. But most of the tone difference you hear is because of the position relative to the string, so if you put two identical pickups in the bridge and neck positions, they aren't going to sound the same. Most pickups (including Gibsons and Duncans) come in a bridge version or a neck version, though.
I hope this helped. If you have any more questions you can reach me at zephirwynd@yahoo.com.
