Dark sound on a Ibanez RGAIX7FM

[Icedfirefly]

Hello guys, i hava a Ibanez RGAIX7FM and it sound quite dark, same strings, tuning and amp than my other guitars.

I don't know much about electronics, the volume have a 500k pot, and the guitar have no tone knob, it have also a coil tap switch.

Since everything seems to work fine, just the sound is dark, is there anything i could check with a tester to see if there is something that could be affecting the tone or something that i could add in the circuit to see if it does any difference?

Thanks!

 

[Asdrael]

With just that much info, I would say fresh strings + setup pickup height.

 

[Crungy]

If that doesn't help, try a 1 Meg pot. That should make it brighter.

 

[Edika]

I'm guessing this has the Fusion Edge pickups. Not sure how bass heavy these are, but it they're darker pickups, fresh string and finding the correct height will help. Maybe go one gauge thinner for the specific guitar, that will brighten it up. Raising pickups will increase output and produce more highs but will also congest the sound more. You'll get more of everything but if the signal is compressed then the lows might be tighter.

Electronics do not make as much difference as people claim. Theoretically only volume and a 1M pot should brighten the sound but personally I didn't hear a significant difference. Thinner strings helped the sound more than different electronics. But, if the above don't work, then going for different pickups, that are brighter, will help. The character of the guitar won't change dramatically, but the sound will be more sculpted.

 

[SalsaWood]

It's a mahogany body RG, they all sound that way. There is nothing wrong with it. If you want something different get an Ash or Basswood body, they will sound more like a trademark Ibanez.

I'd suggest D'Activators. Stay away from more bassy pickups, you're already in that hole obviously.

 

[Icedfirefly]

Thanks guys, tomorrow i will have new strings, and will try different pickups high and see if there is any change, if not just in case will try a 1k pot.
Now, if the problem are the pickups or the mahogany body, i think i will have to live with that...and do what i can with the amp tone controls

 

[SalsaWood]

I have a J Custom and have owned and always loved the heavy body RGs. They're one hell of a dance partner, but not something you can plug in like a Fender strat and just go for it. You're gonna have to redial your levels on everything or else you're gonna have sub and near-sub clipping or woofing, and in general you're going to have to learn how to use more of the speaker at once compared to other (thinner) sounding guitars which seem to just fit in a mix/soundscape. This is a problem you want to have, you can fix it. You can even embellish it and go into doom tones if you want. It's a tool, you have a lot more to work with than most people is all, there is nothing wrong with the guitar. Dialed in properly it will sound bigger than your mom.

Granted, I don't prefer my dark sounding RGs for this reason anymore, it's easier to use one of my four other guitars which all use the same settings well, but it's for strictly practical rationale. Not tonal preference.

 

[soldierkahn]

My RGAIX6FM is dark as well, FIshmans Fluence Moderns helped that a lot.

 

[TheWarAgainstTime]

What are your other guitars and pickups?

Some guitars just naturally sound bassy/dark and others bright/thin, but the right set of pickups can at least help keep the extremes from being too overbearing. Fresh strings and a height adjustment are always the best starting point, though. I've found that backing the pickup away from the strings a bit helps to keep the low end from overpowering the rest of the signal, sort of like speaking into a microphone a few inches away vs right up against the capsule.

 

[Icedfirefly]

After change of strings sounds a bit better, but still a darker than my other guitars, a Strandberg Boden and an old RG550, both with stock pickups, need to experiment a bit more with pickup heigh and tone controls on the plugin i'm using right now, Archtype Nolly, so i will save the same presets i use on the other guitars but with a different tone controls setup, i bought the guitar brand new but with a discount for visual imperfections, so if i sell it i would have to sell it cheaper that i would like.

Thanks for all the anwers!!

 

[Neon_Knight_]

After change of strings sounds a bit better, but still a darker than my other guitars, a Strandberg Boden and an old RG550, both with stock pickups, need to experiment a bit more with pickup heigh and tone controls on the plugin i'm using right now, Archtype Nolly, so i will save the same presets i use on the other guitars but with a different tone controls setup, i bought the guitar brand new but with a discount for visual imperfections, so if i sell it i would have to sell it cheaper that i would like.

Thanks for all the anwers!!

You should expect your mahogany RGAIX7FM to sound darker than your basswood RG550.

Obviously no two pieces of wood sound identical, but in general mahogany is darker than basswood. Maple is brighter, so a thick maple top balances out the darker mahogany tone, but I believe the 'Standard' & 'Iron Label' RGAs have a relatively thin maple top (your RGAIX7FM is from the Iron Label line) - compared to a Prestige RGA.
For reference, the maple top on my RGA321F is 15mm thick at the neck pocket (thinner towards the edges due to it being an arched top). I anticipate that the maple top on your RGAIX7FM is more in the ballpark of 2mm thick. My RGA321F sounds darker / fuller than all four of my basswood RGs, and I would expect your RGAIX7FM to sound slightly darker again.

If you like everything else about the guitar, then I'd definitely recommend playing about with the set-up some more and then, if needed, trying some simple mods.

 

[Neon_Knight_]

What type of strings do you use?
Changing to a different brand / different range from the same brand can make a significant difference.
For example, switching from D'Adarrio EXLs to D'Adarrio NYXLs would brighten your tone up a bit...plus they'd stay sounding new for longer. Pro Steels are even brighter again. Coated strings, like Elixirs, are inherently darker in tone than uncoated strings.

What gauge of strings do you use?
Ibanez installs 10-gauge strings on their fixed-bridge models (like your RGAIX7FM) and 9-gauge strings on their double-locking tremolo models. I personally prefer the feel / tension of 9-gauge for standard tuning, irrespective of the bridge type, and this sounds brighter than 10-gauge. You could even try 8-gauge (might seem excessively light, but Malmsteen, Iommi & Hendrix have all used them to good effect).

In addition to playing about with the overall pickup height, adjusting the height of the pole pieces effects the tone. If you lower the overall pickup height but raise the pole pieces by an equal amount, such that the distance between the tops of the pole pieces and the strings remains the same, you should notice the tone brightens up a bit (without the same loss of output that you'd get from simply lowering the whole pickup). To go one further, you could set the pole pieces on one coil to be slightly higher than the other (if the two coils are identical, raising the bridge side pole pieces will brighten it up, but a lot of humbuckers don't have a pair of identical coils, so you'd want to raise hex pieces on whichever is the brighter coil).

I've only tried the 6-string Fusion Edge variant, not 7-string, but I didn't find them to be particularly dark. There are certainly brighter pickups available though, for a much lower cost than a replacement guitar!