Indus maple neck pickups

[evazquez]

Hi!!

This is my firs message in this forum, so greetings to everyone! Nice guitars and nice forum...

I have a Excalibur Indus with maple neck and I`m very hapy with it. I usually use it to play from blues to rock, but I have recently joined a metal band... I'm looking for a sound similar to bands like Tool i.e. I know a Les Paul style guitar would help (mahogany, rosewood fretboard, etc.), but I love the confort and feel of the Vigier (and also its sustain). This maple neck is amazing!!

Could a pickup change let my Indus get closer to the low end and metal tones I am searching?

In this case, what kind of pickups do you recomend?

Thank you very much for your help.

 

P.S: I forget to say I tune in Drop Db...

[Ben]

Hello and welcome to the forums! I have an Indus with a Maple Fingerboard I also tune Eb or Db depending what songs I am playing...I have no problem getting a massive sound from any of my Vigier guitars. I have got an Ultra that is * with Seymour Duncan JB and Jazz pickups and sounds HUGE!!! The tone of this guitar is more cutting and brutal than any other guitar I have ever heard (and the reason I sold my Les Paul). What amp do you use - you can manipulate your tone a lot with the right amp to match your Indus.

[evazquez]

Hi!! Thank you for your comments. I'm playing thru a Mesa Express 5:50 connected to 4x12 cab. I know this is the best amp to get metal tones, but it's relatively easy to me to obtain this sound when I plug my Les Paul. Whit the Indus, the sound is a bit weaker and and maybe to brilliant. However, when I play the Vigier unpluged, the sound is here (the woods sound really good), so I think the problem could be the pickup (PAF classic are maybe to "classic"...). I was searching the seymour duncan web... How about SD Custom (SH5), SD Custom Custom (SH11) or alternative 8 (SH-15)? Thank you.

[Ben]

I have an Ultra with a Maple fingerboard with a Seymour Duncan Custom Custom in...it is close to the sound of the PAFF Classic. The JB has by far the best tones for bone crunching riffs imo!! 

[Godhell]

Hi! On my other guitar (which is used for rock and metal mainly, it's a strat with very nice middle frequencies and less lows and highs), I have the following experience - maybe that could help. SD Hot Rails mini-humbucker rocks in neck&middle - the sound seems complete, fat and...nice for rock/blues things. They have a very high output really. Haven't tried that in bridge position. And I think it only goes on models with singles. For bridge, I use SH-13 Dimebucker - I don't like too much lows and highs and it gives me exactly what I want - solid middle frequencies with lots of harmonics, nice lows and highs, great for solos. For rhythm - I gain additional lows from tubes... It seems you can get as much extreme out of SH-13 as you want, lots of output. I would only change it for Blackouts only, I think...If I ever do this... On my Vigier Custom I'm satisfied with factory H-S-H set up, I guess it's perfect. Very solid and clean, well readable sound...I like it very much and don't want to change it currently. The pickup selection is great for me! Hope this helps in some way...

[evazquez]

Thank you for your comments. I also have a JB ina a Jackson soloist and it sounds good (but it's a neck throu...). I think in a bolt on and maple neck vigier could be too mids. I think something similar happens with the sh-13... I think I should try. The problem is I can't play hand on hand with the different pickups... I'm also interested in the SH-5... thank you.

[Godhell]

Hi! Yes, I think the same way - Hot Rails and SH-13 are "middy", that's exactly what I like about them. As far as I know, some technicians do install pickups with connectors. This way, you put connectors on your Vigier wirings and them you don't have to seriously dig into your guitar when replacing pickups - you just put the same connector on pickup endings, and then changing a pickup for you is just a matter of unscrew-screw. I've never tried it myself, however... They say it's good to try several models out (when you don't need to change the wiring scheme) but when you choose something particular - the soldering iron is your best friend here, to achieve the best possible sound. For me, SD site has nice samples and it worked out 100% - you need to understand the advantages of your guitar and it's natural sound and choose the pickup setup against that - that's what I did on my other guitar, it worked for me. For my Vigier, as I've written above, I think it has the best sound and pickup setup - I wouldn't change it for anything... Hope this helps somehow...good luck! P.S. I think the Vigier team has tons of pickup experience...maybe somebody will give you a much better advice here...don't hurry - good ideas come with time, I think.