Jim Wagner Ironman, ToneNerd Psykes, or ToneNerd Whiskey?

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buller

buller

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Considering upgrading from my SD Custom in my Epiphone Elitist LP and I think one of these three would be what I'm looking for, but after all my reading I haven't found any comparisons of them and how they feel to play.

I like my bridge pickups saturated, chewy, and forgiving feeling. I like it to have some grind, but I lean more towards scooped tones than mid-focused, hence why I went with Custom over JB. I don't really do high gain leads, mostly just big chunky rhythms and some tremolo picked stuff. Does one of these pickups fit that description better than the others?

(Also if anyone is looking to sell a Whiskey or Psykes please let me know!)
 
buller said:
Considering upgrading from my SD Custom in my Epiphone Elitist LP and I think one of these three would be what I'm looking for, but after all my reading I haven't found any comparisons of them and how they feel to play.

I like my bridge pickups saturated, chewy, and forgiving feeling. I like it to have some grind, but I lean more towards scooped tones than mid-focused, hence why I went with Custom over JB. I don't really do high gain leads, mostly just big chunky rhythms and some tremolo picked stuff. Does one of these pickups fit that description better than the others?

(Also if anyone is looking to sell a Whiskey or Psykes please let me know!)
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The ironman is not the one for you. I have just put that back in my bridge, and it is fucking tight, open, and clear as shit. But it is not saturated. However, I have made an IR to give it saturation.... But I am loving it otherwise. It is really doing it for me right now. If you can get a wicked 8, that has more saturation naturally, and is very musical. I will make you a comparison real quick of a few.
 
Fiesta Red said:
Pariah Psychonaut
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Interesting, hadn't come across Pariah. Have you compared it to any of the Jim Wagner or ToneNerd stuff?
Smash said:
The ironman is not the one for you. I have just put that back in my bridge, and it is fucking tight, open, and clear as shit. But it is not saturated. However, I have made an IR to give it saturation.... But I am loving it otherwise. It is really doing it for me right now. If you can get a wicked 8, that has more saturation naturally, and is very musical. I will make you a comparison real quick of a few.
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That would be amazing if you get a chance, thanks!
 
I did a terrible job with the ironman, lmao. I clipped the mic, but still gives an idea. Thing has a 22k output.

so all these are same guitar, and mic'd with a less than optimal mic, but it gives an idea of the differences
 
Smash said:
I did a terrible job with the ironman, lmao. I clipped the mic, but still gives an idea. Thing has a 22k output.

so all these are same guitar, and mic'd with a less than optimal mic, but it gives an idea of the differences
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This is great, thanks so much. I honestly really like how the Ironman sounds here. Maybe my description of what I'm looking for wasn't that accurate after all? The stuff I play on the bridge pickup is mostly atmospheric/post metal stuff (Amenra, Cult of Luna, Isis, Deafheaven, etc). It seems like the Ironman's openness and harmonic richness really nails that sort of thing. I guess the struggle for me is I also like playing some old school, brutal, and dissonant death metal (Suffocation and Immolation and that sort of stuff, nothing really modern sounding), and for that some saturation and chewiness is nice. But maybe open and clear would still work really well. I just don't want anything very modern and sterile and geared towards djent and similar stuff.

Do you have a ceramic magnet in the Ironman? I wonder if an alnico 5 Ironman could be a good compromise for me, although I don't think I've seen anyone using that - always seems like ceramic or A8
 
Yes. I am fairly certain i have the ceramic in the ironman. It is kind of what it is famous for and I hadn't tried a ceramic, so I wanted to give it a go
 
buller said:
I just don't want anything very modern and sterile and geared towards djent and similar stuff.
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it is hard, because I am so bad at these descriptions. I would say that it is very amp dependent. If you have an amp with tons of gain, you can sometimes get away with a more musical pickup like a custom/59 hybrid, or a PAF style. The PAF style is noisy, and ultimately made me go in another direction, but I really think that the ironman is a bit sterile...but not a deal breaker. The wicked 8 spoiled me because it is almost perfect. The only problem with it is it is just a bit too much. If you roll your volume knob back just a hair, it is perfect. However, this is an in the room thing as a properly mic'd close mic, it will be perfect.
 
Yeah, Iron Man is like Smash mentioned. Its fairly mid forward, tight, open, not much saturation.
 
Of these 3 options I’d go with the Psykes, but if it were me I’d go with a real vintage Dirty Finger, ‘80’s Schaller Blade or maybe a ‘70’s Bill Lawrence L100

The 3 pickups you mentioned are very good choices for recent made stuff, but for me just can’t compete with the more lively, raw, organic, harmonically rich quality of these older pickups and other than the Dirty Fingers they’re not any more expensive. Just more inspiring, fun to play
 
buller said:
Interesting, hadn't come across Pariah. Have you compared it to any of the Jim Wagner or ToneNerd stuff?
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No, but I have an original Dirty Fingers and it sounds very close to it.
 
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