Seven String pick ups

[Flying Whales]

Hey guys, so I got this seven string guitar and was wondering if some of you could help with a pick-up situation I have.

I got a seven string Charvel San Dimas style 2 and the body is made up of ash wood and the neck is made out of Maple. My situation is that the guitar sounds too muddy and I have to lower my lows, and mids on my EVH head and raise the presence as well so the sound can cut through better. I even tried lowering my gauge size for strings but still having that problem. I'm looking for a Heavy Metal sound and not have the guitar sound too muddy because with my 6 string, I have to dial on my tone a complete different way (easier way). The Charvel I have has Direct Mount Seymour Duncan Nazgul for the bridge pick up and SD sentient for the neck. I need help looking for the right pick up for me guitar as the SD I have in them aren't really cutting it for me. I was thinking instrumental pick ups but I'm not sure what really goes well with ash wood and metal sound. I'm looking for passive not active if that helps. Thanks guys, please help!

 

[mastapimp]

I have 3 seven-string guitars with ash bodies, and two of them have maple necks. For my EQ FT7 and Mayones Regius, i have a BKP cold sweat in the neck and BKP nailbomb in the bridge. I think they sound great through EVH 5150III amps. My Jackson WR7 has a set of Dave Davidson's signature imperiums by DiMarzio in them. Not quite as bright as the BKPs, but well balanced. All pickups I mentioned are passives.

 

[Flying Whales]

I have 3 seven-string guitars with ash bodies, and two of them have maple necks. For my EQ FT7 and Mayones Regius, i have a BKP cold sweat in the neck and BKP nailbomb in the bridge. I think they sound great through EVH 5150III amps. My Jackson WR7 has a set of Dave Davidson's signature imperiums by DiMarzio in them. Not quite as bright as the BKPs, but well balanced. All pickups I mentioned are passives.

I heard many great things about dimarzios like the x2n and others. The imperiums sounds pretty sick I'll look more into that. I love the nail bomb and aftermath but not really looking for that sound with this guitar. Any other dimarzios that would go good with ash?

 

[akinari]

I like the D-Activator neck model in the bridge, and the Evolution 7. The D-Activator neck works really, really well for low tunings and has insane clarity, separation and tightness. The Evolution is more surgical and crispy feeling with more output. It feels more like active pickup compared to the D-Activator.

 

[c7spheres]

An easy thing to try is to just lower the pole pieces too. Start off slamming them all the way down on the low strings. Since you're happy it sounds like with your 6 string sound put the amp back to that and adjust the pole pieces on the 7 string to try to make it close. It's often overlooked and nobody ever seems to talk about it. This is how I dialed in my rg-7620 stock pickups that were super bass heavy too and it worked really well. They are the Dimarzio Blaze pickups version, not the New 7's btw.

 

[Flying Whales]

An easy thing to try is to just lower the pole pieces too. Start off slamming them all the way down on the low strings. Since you're happy it sounds like with your 6 string sound put the amp back to that and adjust the pole pieces on the 7 string to try to make it close. It's often overlooked and nobody ever seems to talk about it. This is how I dialed in my rg-7620 stock pickups that were super bass heavy too and it worked really well. They are the Dimarzio Blaze pickups version, not the New 7's btw.

Nice I'll give it a try! I thought it was better that the picks star parallel to the strings because of sound but never thought about lowering just one area. Having the pick up slanted like that wouldn't be a problem?

 

[c7spheres]

Nice I'll give it a try! I thought it was better that the picks star parallel to the strings because of sound but never thought about lowering just one area. Having the pick up slanted like that wouldn't be a problem?

No, That's what all those adjustments are for so you can dial it in how you want. No problems slanting the pickup either. Just be careful of the wires underneath and stuff like that. Sometimes you may need to put foam or a spring underneath to get it to slant how you want it. I've never owned either pickup but I'm going with the assumption they have adjustable pole pieces like other pickups do. It's when you raise them up for more gain on a string you need to be more careful because they will start magnetically pulling on the string. It can really make a huge difference sometimes, like getting a new pickup almost.

Edit: Ok, So I checked and they do have adjustable poles pieces. Apparently they are long poles that can stick out the bottom of the pickup even so they will only go so far down. If put them all the way down and it's still not enough, you can still raise the pickup hieght so you can lower them more if needed. It's usually doesn't take a ton of movement to get them to cut out the lows. On my 7620 I lowered the low 7th string about 3-4mm, so there is a little hole there. It's not annoying or anything. I was going to fill the hole with paper or something but thought then it would be a pain to get out if I ever wanted to adjust it again so I left it.

 

[Zoobiedood]

The Sentient & Nazgul aren't generally muddy pickups, especially with that wood combo, so I might start by looking at other parts of the signal chain first.

 

[Chris Bowsman]

The DiMarzio Imperium was mentioned above, but I’ll mention it again. It’s the best bridge pickup I’ve ever used.

 

[Flying Whales]

The DiMarzio Imperium was mentioned above, but I’ll mention it again. It’s the best bridge pickup I’ve ever used.

Why so? I think I made up my mind, I looked into a SFTY4 for seven string and I think that's the right fit. I was really leaning towards the imperium but I already had a very compressed pick up and the instrumental SFTY4 is less compressed but has better attack on notes. If you haven't heard of them check them out! You can only purchase them though through the guy who makes them and not in stores.

 

[Chris Bowsman]

I haven’t tried Instrumental. What I love about the Imperium is how it sounds very big and full, but super clear. It’s got a decent amount of output, but still really dynamic. Crazy harmonics, and it cleans up with the volume knob really well.