Illuminator Pickups

[drew365]

I've had my Blueberry Burst JP15 for about six months. I love playing the guitar. But I tend to A/B guitars a lot when I'm working out new songs to see which one sounds the best for that song. I've noticed that the Illuminator pickups seem to be much more compressed than the low output hb's in my other guitars. It's actually starting to bother me to the point of thinking about changing the Illuminators out.
I don't play metal. I play classic rock, mainly leaning towards ZZ Top, Zeppelin. A/C D/C would be about as heavy as I get. I have a Helix, and the 2204 is my favorite amp to use.
So I'm looking for opinions about the Illuminator's. Are they biased towards a certain type of sound and playing. Or, do I not know how to dial them in? When I A/B them, I make no changes to the setup, so it's pretty much apples to apples.

 

[Slater]

High output ceramic pickups tend to have that compressed tone/feel. Some more than others. I haven't tried the Illuminators, but going by your post, it seems that the Illuminators are not an exception. For the type of music that you play, and if you want to stick with Dimarzio, I would try a set of 36th Anniversaries or PAF Masters.

 

[drew365]

The 36th Anniversary's sound interesting. I wonder if the JP15 is standard spacing or F spacing/ I'll have to compare the bridge to my Stat's.

 

[PeteDuBaldo]

The bridge pickup is F spaced on the Petrucci models.

 

[drew365]

Thanks, I'm going to try lowering the Illuminators before I decide to do a pickup swap. I like this guitar too much not to play it.

 

[agt]

I have only experienced the Illuminators in my Majesties. I play classic rock and not metal. Clean or slightly crunchy amp much of the time (Deluxe Reverb). They are definitely hot pickups ... hotter than I would prefer when the volume knob is full up. Even though they are hot, they are expresssive and articulate. I pretty much never use the boost switch on the volume knob.

However, roll the volume knob back and all sorts of wonderful tones appear. Dial it back 1/5 or 1/4 of the volume knob's travel and they start to clean up beautifully. Very expressive, chimey, and dynamic, not compressed.

I am reminded of how one of the early 90s EBMMs had a "Tone" knob on the volume pot. So true.

IMHO the Illuminators are brilliantly designed - you get a hot modern sound if you want it and you can get a whole range of more subtle sounds too by using the volume knob.

Give that a try before changing pickups.

 

[drew365]

Thanks for your insight. I'm definitely going to spend some serious time playing the JP15 to see what I can do short of a pickup swap. I was happy with the Illuminator's until I put Fishman Fluence Classic Humbuckers in one of my other guitars. Suddenly the Illuminator's started paling in comparison. It's definitely a tight compressed tone compared to the Fishman's. I don't want to do a pickup swap and selling the guitar isn't even a consideration. So I may have to relearn my thinking on how to best use these.

 

[LesPaul]

All I can say is, with my old cheap guitar, channel 2 on the mark iv was pretty underwhelming. With my Majesty 7 and the Illuminator, channel 2 is great for a crunch tone. Not super high gain mind you, but very, very usable.

 

[luiscesaripad]

Dimarzio Transitions will be perfect. After purchasing my Luke 3, i decided to replace all the humbuckers in my guitars with Transitions.