Ibanez RG570 1989 - basswood body, rosewood neck
LoPro Edge bridge
Dimarzio Crunch Lab F - bridge
Dimarzio Fast Track - middle
Dimarzio Liquifire F - neck
I built the RG570 from the ground up, the carcass i.e. neck, neck plate and body were complete however I had to source the hardware and electronics, that's where some thought came into what I wanted out of the guitar. The LoPro Edge just warbles and flutters like crazy, very very expressive, I wanted pickups that would be able to handle drop tuning, clean and overdriven sounds and be able to pick up on the expressive nature of the guitar.
I chose a Crunch Lab and Liquifire for the full size humbuckers at the neck and bridge with a Fast Track in the middle position. As you are aware, the Crunch Lab and Liquifire are the pickups used by John Petrucci from Dream Theatre, I haven't really heard much of his playing, I tend to favour a lot of Japanese bands along with anime soundtracks rather than western music these days.
Upon wiring up the guitar, the Liquifire was stunning, it sounds great either through heavy gain or clean/chorused sounds. The RG570 goes into a Digitech Whammy DT, then into an Avid Eleven Rack and straight into Pro Tools, the pickups respond well to modelling for a change or should that be the other way round? The drop tuning function on the Whammy DT is always a problem on certain pickups, at the lower registers i.e drop C, the pickups lose definite, not the case with the Liquifire and Crunch Lab, I'm able to shred away with complex riffs and not have to worry about the sound going to mush.
I've been through quite a few pickups, mostly Seymour Duncan or custom wound pickups by Dimarzio for manufacturers such as Peavey, Hamer USA etc. The Dimarzio pickups never fail to impress, with super speedy service from Thomann and amazing prices, I'll be shopping for more Dimarzio pickups with Thomann shortly!
