The last thing I need....

[Dante]

Weeeeelllllll....how the turntables have...

....I broke open the guitar today to see what pickups are in there.....dun dun dun

They are both GUITAR FETISH PICKUPS, my guess is they are PAF copies because the bridge is 8.6k and the neck is 7.6k and they sound totally "brown" with a bunch of gain. I am now considering something other than my spare SH-1...like a really hot PU, like a GFS Power Rails for the bridge.

That got me thinking...I have another Ibanez AM model (actually, I have two) that has some HOT pickups in it, made by Dimarzio. They are IBZ pickups and they look like EMGs but they are passive. I found one on Reverb for $40 with shipping, I'm going to put that in. I love those pickups and I've been using them for over 25 years now

[Harley Hexxe]

I have a set of passive EMG's

They look like standard humbuckers, but with black covers instead of chrome. They came with the quilted maple top guitar I have.

[Dante]

Well, I went and done it.

I pulled the existing PUs, put the P90 in the neck. Put the SD Sh-1 in the bridge, replaced the crappy little pots. Here are some pix for posterity - she sounds pretty dang awesome already. I will still put the hot PU when it arrives, just wanted to check out this combo & it rocks 

turns out, the new guitar was built in 2004 at the Samick plant (Korea). The other guitar pictured here is my go-to gigging guitar, I bring her to every gig and rotate others. She sounds amazing and plays like butter. Well, she was built at the Samick plant in 2005. No wonder

[Dante]

close ups of the new pickups, and look at those inlays!!

[rnolan]

Very nice Dante  , looks good and sounds good no doubt.  Nice to see you masking off to work on the pots, I suspect not everybody does that and a few scratches have ensued.  So have Samic got a good reputation?  I only new them as cheap and chearful acoustics here in Australia, similar to Cort.

[Harley Hexxe]

@ Dante,

     Sweet! Abalone inlaid into Mother of Pearl.

@ Richard,

     Samick had a decent reputation thanks to Blues Saraceno, who showed up with a signature plaid model in the 90's. He had quite a tone with those guitars and his custom made amps built by his father.

[Dante]

So, there are several other guitar factories in Korea. Turns out, my Epiphone Vee is from somewhere else in Korea - not so surprising, all Epiphones were produced in Korea from 1985 to 2000-something...like 1,000s every month.

Now, for some more fun...my AR200 Goldtop and my AR420 Artist are also from somewhere in Korea! I am a Korean guitar collector I guess...had no idea. In fact, I have 4 guitars that were produced within a couple years of each other and two from the same factory:

Ibanez AM77t Sparkles 11/2004 (Samick)
Ibanez AR200 Goldtop 05/2005 (Korea-not specific)
Ibanez AS83 Big ES335 size Semihollow 10/2005 (Samick)
Epiphone 59 Korina V Reissue 05/2006 (Saein)

I guess I like the feel of those guitars...I keep gravitating to them. I gig these 3 guitars regularly - they're not expensive, they play really nice and sound amazing. I bought the AS83 in 2008, the AR200 a few years later, the Vee a couple years after that...and just got the sparkly one. Just figured out I've been hoarding Korean guitars

Pix below for posterity, in order of production

[rnolan]

Nice collection Dante.  My Epephone SG is Korean though it's had a bit of work since I bought it from a guy back in early 2000's.  I had the neck shaved, new graph tech nut, new frets (one was bent at the end (go figure)), wider bridge (so E and A saddles could be the correct direction), had schaller tulip MHs fitted but the backs come off  so I put grovers on it (much better) and futzed around with PUs, tried SD JB bridge and Alnico neck, didn't float my boat so now it's got 2 Gibson 57 reissues, much more interesting PUs.  It all started when I was filing down the nut (only half the string should sit in nut slot or you loose sustain) ready to re-string and the nut disintegrated.  The wood and finish is fine but the hardware was all cheap crap, then it's built to a price point.  I think they were around $900 AUD here. 

I've never tried P90s like you have on a couple of yours.  May be a good option to try.

[Harley Hexxe]

Dante,

    I became curious about where these Showmasters were made after reading these posts, and it appears that Fender had been in business with the Samick factory since 1981. These Showmasters were built there, so that explains the quality of the wood craftsmanship. The electronics and hardware is still crap though, and once that's been replaced, you end up with a seriously high quality guitar.

Just sayin'

[Dante]

Yup, good wood, crap electronics. I live by that

[Dante]

UPDATE: I received the hot pickup (Ibanez IBZ) that matches the ones in my '86 AM75. Those are hot pickups - the one I bought looked brand new and clocked in at 13k ohms

Here's a pic for posterity - she loves that new pickup and the new pots really cleared up the chords

[rnolan]

Hey Dante, looking good  :whoohoo!: , and so shiny

[Dante]

UPDATE: I got a wild hair up my butt and tried a few pickups in the bridge

Seymour Duncan SH-1: Already had this in there, sounded great live and in headphones. Love the way it cleans up when you roll down the volume knob. If anything, I wouldn't mind a bit more heat on dirty tones, but it's not bad at all. Just a bit cleaner than I'd really like.
GFS VEH Vintage Extra Hot: About as hot as the Duncan, sounds great when you pound the strings. Still...I felt like I wanted more
GFS Dream 90: I put this in the bridge, despite it being a neck PU. The readings are not that far off; 8.4k for the bridge, 8.2k for the neck. It sounds good, beefier than my Vee (also has a Dream 90 in the bridge). It does snarl, which is better, but it isn't quite as good at cleaning up when you roll off and, it's a single coil...so, there is some noise in a Hollowbody. Not bad on feedback (yet).

Readings on the pickups;
Seymour Duncan SH-1 = 8.38k
GFS Vintage Extra Hot = 11.2k
GFS Dream 90 = 8.2

I reeeaaaallly like the IBZ in the neck, that's staying right there. It only reads 8.3, but is sure sounds hotter...not sure how that works. I also have an Ibanez? V7 sitting in my parts bin coming in at 9.42k ohms, I'm tempted to try that too just for fun, but I'm thinking it probably doesn't clean up so great...I don't really know, it's just a presumption on my part

Here's a pic of how she sits right now...which may change, but I'm going to try her like this for a while first...I think ;)

[Harley Hexxe]

You know,

     I admit I'm a bit surprised these days as to what's being referred to as a "Hot" pickup.
     I've got single coils from Fender that have more DC resistance than these humbuckers. For example: the bridge pickup in my 1980 "STRAT" measures out at 8.3K. The bridge pickup of my set of Texas Specials measures 13.6K.
     These pickups are wound at 7800, and 9600 windings respectively. Obviously, they are using far fewer windings with the pickups made these days, which is indicated by the DC resistance.

    The Screamin' Demon pickup I have isn't a hot pickup at all at 10K, but it does snarl, and with my MP-2 set at the higher gain tube voicings, it does retain a lot of clarity. You can back the volume knob off with this pickup and it does clean up, but it still has some of that snarl to it when you do.

    The DiMarzio pickups I use in my Showmaster guitars come in at 17.48K and 12.58K (Air Zone & Air Norton), and both of those are considered medium output pickups, but I do like those compared to their standard counterparts. They have a more vintage tone to them than the Tone Zone and Norton pickups do, and better clarity IMHO. I wonder how these would work in a semi hollow body guitar?

[rnolan]

Probably need to be careful just comparing DC resistance.  If the PUs are the same in all respects except for the number of coil winds, then it probably holds, but as soon as you start comparing different makes and models etc. a whole bunch of variables come into play.  I went to the edge of this rabbit hole a while ago when I was wondering what difference magnet pole (Nth/Sth) orientation makes.  I quickly found there are shit loads of variables to consider, and walked back from the rabbit hole (for now).  So magnet properties (strength, orientation, type (Alnico, Ferris, Neodymium)), pole pieces (strat style (individual magnets per string) vs humbucker, (metal screws magnet(s) at the bottom), wire gauge/thickness, number of turns, wire insulation/coating material; all these things make a difference.  E.g. the same amount of wire (same DC resistance) but with different strength magnets will have different output and sound.