Ibanez V8

When I read the reviews on this pup the thing that comes to mind is, "are most of these reviewers tone death?" I have had 5 Ibanez guitars with this pup. All but one sounded very good. That one was an RG470. It did sound muddy and too bassy with that guitar. Thats because that was a cheap Ibanez and not a real one. The other 4 were RG 570's and a RG 1570 prestige. With the 570 and prestige models this pickup does not deserve any of those bad reviews. If you use a good amp, READ "Marshall Tube amp", the v8 is the shit. The guy who had a Mesa said it sounded muddy, well, a Mesa does sound muddy! Anybody who thinks they could put a Dimarzio evolution, tonezone, or paf pro in and be blown away are just fooling themselves. I have tried everyone of those pickups in my RG. The tonezone adds nothing but just a little more bass and treble, but then lacks the ability to clean up. The paf pro sounds similar but lacks tone and some output. The evolution sounds very similar and does add a teeny weeny bit more clarity on the high end. An improvement over the V8 would be the evolution but is that little bit worth the price? The "V" in V8 stands for "vintage" this is a vintage sounding pickup. It is not supposed to have huge amounts of gain so you can cover up your mistakes. It lets the guitar player use his hands to make a good tone and is designed to work with a real amp and player. If you play thru a rolland cube 30 and are complaining about this pickup you are missinformed, you need to play thru a real amp first then decide. That's like putting a lawn mower engine in a ferrari and complaining how it doesn't have the power I need. There is nothing worse then reading reviews here on harmony central that come from tards that don't know how to play nor know anything about guitar tone. If you have only been playing for a few years please do not leave reviews, you are stil a tard. Go practice some more!

Humbucker, Passive

Came in a 2003 R1570 Japanese Ibanez
Bridge Position, Other pick-ups are S1 Middle and V7 Neck

High output. Tone is pretty well balanced, can get quite a lot of bass out of it without gettin muddy.Play mostly hard Rock with a bit of Metal. I love this pick-up, have 7 electric guitars and a love this pickup the most. I have Seymor Duncans, Fenders and Gibsons and this pickup just suits me perfectly. Distorted, it has so much bite but doesn't sound boring like my SH-13 Dimbucker. Clean it can be a bit too-bright up in the high end when strumming chords but I usually just switch to the middle S1 when doing this.

Playing for 8 years, my rig is a Boss Gt8 with an Effects loop into a boss ME-33 which is all running into a 40w Fender Deluxe amp running 6L6's with 4ohms into a Mesa Boogie Road King quad-Box. This amp has been custom tuned and biased which improved it greatly. I use ME-33 for distortion, I love this pick-up and would definatly get it again. I can understand why some people wouldn'd like it, but for the metal-zone style distrotion it just rocks.

Bridge position humbucker. 16.9K. Stock on a 92 RG550.

Replaced a Duncan Designed HB103B, (WORST p/u on the planet!) in the bridge position on a 01 Korean Hamer Archtop.

Neck is a V7, and the sound is great! Brought this guitar to life.

Hot, without being super hot. I am so in the minority here, but I think that this pickup is incredible! Bright, without being brittle. Presence, without the boominess of hotter pickups.

On thing of note here" The height of the pickup is EXTREMELY important! If it's too hight, you'll lose the dynamics. Too low, it'll become boomy. You have to spend a few minute experimenting.

I love the V series from Ibanez. It's well suited for every type of music, but you'll have to make adjustments till it's right.

Humbucking pickup
specs covered in other reviews.

Came with my RG1550
Bridge position
Replaced it with a Bill Lawrence L-100
V7, S1
I hope that nobody is using this sh*t
I changed it only because it has little to no balls.

Output is very mediocre, the tone lacks definition and bite. Really weak and muddy sounding pickup.

I've played it through my 1992 Mesa DC-5 and some other amps and on every amp it totally lacked power, crunch and definition.

Tone is mud. period. You can get some satisfactory sounds using the clean channel, but when I crank my Mesa, it just blanks out.

I play many different styles from blues to rock to metal.

This pickup is below average in any position.

I think that no one would even consider stealing it, but if someone did, I wouldn't care, because it would just motivate me to get something better.

I've been playing for almost 4 years now, besides the RG1500 I own a Mesa DC-5, a Gibson Les Paul Custom ['2000 model] a schecter acoustic, and since I started playing I've owned a sh*tload of other gear, which I sold in order to upgrade to better stuff.

I hate the pickup's tone, it's just not good enough for my Mesa XD

Of course I am still searching my ass off for THAT sound, but I think I am slowly getting close to it. I am a big fan of Zakk Wylde, so basically the tone I seek is that "LP plugged into a powerful tube amp" tone. :)

humbucking and passive as im sure you know

came in the bridge of my rg 1570 which seems to be were most people are finding it.

okay you obviously know that by the other reviews that this is not a good pickup. it is incredibly muddy and has no definition. muddy on low and harsh on high.

this pickup was almost unusable until i did one thing, LOWER IT!, it loses its muddiness(most of it) and regains some tone and definition. once i did that i realized.. it ant that good anyways. lol. it still is a very mediocre pup. i suggest just lowering it so its usable till u can replace it. i highly suggest replacing it but u will need no modivation to do so. i now have a large dilemma of which pickup to buy. duncans can get more tone with metal and hard rock(although dimarzio can two, just not the same tone) and dimarzio are better for heavey metal and instramental stuff like vai and satch. i play both so im kinda stuck:(

Humbucker, passive. Specs are kinda hard to find

Its on an Ibanez 1570. Its not mine but I really hate its sound. It is in the bridge position with the other stock pickups. I know the guitarist of six feet under is using the 7string version of this pickup (thats why he sounds shitty)

It has a medium output level, maybe kinda high but the tone qualities of this pickup are so poor that the output is hardly projected. It has been used with a tone blaster and a framus cobra. It made the cobra sound shitty, can you imagine that???? The eq-ing of the pickup is pretty hard to be defined and thats cause the pickup sounds so ompressed and so muddy with no definition at all. This is probably no match for any kind of music, (maybe psyco-styled music will tolerate with its sound!!!!)

If it was destroyed i would buy the same and destroy it all over again. The only thing I like about it is that it makes any other pickup sound pretty good compared to it. As I said it was a stock pickup but anyone considering to replace it should really check the Evo2 from dimarzio.

HSH -Ibanez
HH -Jackson
HSS -Hamer

8K neck 16K bridge

Mod: (1) ( adj. pole piece) tonezone coil + (V8 coil) ****Amazing***
and (2) use the other coils left over for your next Humbucker.

When I say Stock V7 & V8 coils are really good. It's
because I know what's wrong with them.

the S1 pickup or middle single coil magnetic field will upset any
guitar humbuck pickup.Just take it out and split coil your hummers.

The V7 has a ceramic magnet which I have now put in the V8.

The orginal V8 only sounds like shhhhh*t because the alnico magnet in it is Shhhh*t and muddy fart sounds come through on low notes especially.

Put a new Alnico V or Ceramic... then everything sounds
better than some Dimarzio pups.

===
you can adjust the sound you want on most pickups by adjusting
the pole pieces relative to the other coil.
(1/8) of a turn CW or CCW can make a difference on clarity, tone and harmonics coming off each string.

Some complain of the cardbordish sound...adj the pole peices my friend
or drop the DC of one coil withn a resistor.

The V7 & V8 coils have an almost 3D echo quality that very faintly comes through.

adj pole peices slightly 1mm below (other coil poles) for more santana
blues smooth. or slightly 1mm above for sharper piercing sound.
Too low or too high the fretted note will sound fuzzy.


Pickup height: Have atleast 4mm from high E string and 6mm from Low E
====
WHAT I HAVE NOW...YOU CAN@T BUY ANYWHERE>>>ANYWHERE !!!!

I like the open wha-wha rounded warm bright sound of the tone zone
The tone zone lacks some harmonic power and sounds like the footloose soundtrack or some ZZ Top tracks.

The V8 has good harmonic power and string clarity with a slight echo quality.

So I combined the coils and got the open wha-wha rounded warm bright sound with extra growl of the tone zone, amazing harmonic power and string clarity with slight echo 3D big sound when playing chords.

Better than some Dimarzios, Bill Lawrence, Seymour and bare knuckle

I have kept the V7 as is with Alnico 8 magnet and adjusted the pole pieces.

The Bridge has the 1 coil of the ToneZone combined with the 1 adj-coil of the V8 and Ceramic magnet.


The other guitar has the other coil combination left over with Alnico 5 magnet and I can not decide which one is better.

-I would make my own TZ-V8
-playing 20 years now - know what is - is
- already explained

I HAVE NOW GOT MY SOUNNNNNNND. - took 20 years

This is a passive humbucker. I'm afraid i don't know the specs. It came stock in an Ibanez RG1570MRB.

As said above, it was stock in my Ibanez RG1570 - bridge position. The other pickups are the V7 and S1. Regarding artists, i hope they don't use it for their sake :P.

The output is my first and foremost gripe with this pickup. In few words, it sucks. When i switch to my bridge pickup, i like a bit of boost. Some nice "scream-power". A good example of what i'm talking about is in "i know you're here" by the great Steve Vai - watch the video, it's pretty obvious. Anyway, there's none of that with this pickup. It's undynamic and lifeless as a result. Tone-wise, i'll give a more favourable review - I have not found it to sound muddy, the highs and mids cut through quite nicely. There could be more bass though. One other thing i do like is the harmonic sustain, which is good, or maybe that's because i was previously a 100% S/S/S strat user :P. The natural sustain is unfortunately rubbish. As for application, tone wise it suits high gain stuff really quite well, as i can crank the gain and it isn't noisy. As said before, the main problem is the output, followed by the sustain.

after what i've said, as you can expect, i will be changing this. It'll probably be a super distortion or evolution that replaces this. I've been playing for a while. I play this guitar and a squier strat into Marshall mg amps, (will upgrade one day!), usually with an overdrive, distortion, and then compression and a subtle delay to top it off. Beautiful. As said above, whilst i don't love the tone, it's the output and sustain that i hate :P.

tis a passive humbucker

RG570
Bridge
I'm not
V7 and an s1
Me?
I'm not

mediumish
I will have it in a Peavy Rage 158
it's a lot clearer than my vintage bladed humbuckers and a lot hotter not really muddy and once it gets on the peavy it will most likely have no bass whatsoever...
I play a lot... from soundtrack songs to epic metal to blues... for me it is
I don't think I'd recommend it to a folk guitarist... mind you I saw a folk guitarist with a jackson so...

I'd go out and buy the dimarzio fitted rek I'm planning to, no real regrets...
a year and a half. Vintage Raider, BCRich mick thompson sig, Ikea acoustic guitar, Hello kitty fender squier, Dunlop cry baby, bherringer od dist.
it has seperate poles. nothing... yet
A fender super strat, this guitar was much clearer in sound and also smoother to play
THAT sound isn't out there I don't think... I've even tried TWO sets of distortion at the same time... but it's a good pickup for me
Angelsound guitars is a real bargin mine sometimes. go there... buy strings XD

Pickup features: Humbucker, passive.
Impedence or other specs: Uh...

Model of guitar or bass: Ibanez RG1550. Basswood body, maple fretboard, Floyd Rose.
Position: bridge
Pickup being replaced: None.
Other pickups on guitar: Ibanez S1, Ibanez V7
Artists using this pickup: I hope none!
You musical style(s): Hard Rock, Metal.
Reason for pickup change: It came stock. It won't last for too long there, though.

Perceived output level: Medium.
Tone: Muddy. Very loose basses, decent mids and poor highs.
Sonic evaluation: I'm plugging my Ibanez RG1550 straight into a Roland Cube 60.
To begin, I'm not biased against Ibanez' pickups. In fact, I reviewed the Ibanez V7 recently and gave it a good score...
But I don't like this pickup. AT ALL.
It's just helpless. For distorted rhythm stuff, I even tried setting the pickup as far as I could, having anemic output, then very close to the strings, having some nasty string pull and being very conservative on the gain.
No matter what I did. MUD. Very loose sounding, zero attack and zero focus. The riffs to Holy Wars sound like an endless sucession of wet farts. Leads sound ok, albeit a bit on the thin side. And the clean are terrible, they sound very honky and nasty, but that's what the neck pickup is for, I guess...

For which styles and positions is this pickup (un)suitable: I play Hard Rock and Metal mostly, and it sure isn't a good match.

Comments: I've been playing guitar for over 8 years. I used to have a Jackson KV4 with a Duncan TB-4 in the bridge, and it was a much better pickup. Even while the TB-4 isn't one of my favorites! But it was GOOD QUALITY, good stuff, even if not suited for me.
Sure as hell I'm still searching for *that* sound. And sure as hell the V8 won't be taking me there. It lacks output, it lacks focused bass, it lacks decent highs. For leads it isn't that bad, but it's not like it justifies having it there.
I'll be getting a Duncan Custom to put it on the bridge on this guitar. The V8 doesn't do it for me, and I'd say it's a very poor product. I don't recommend it.