I have an Ibanez Iceman (ICX-120) that I love. The neck is INCREDIBLY comfortable and I love the shape and playability. The pick-ups though, are pretty weak. I use a Marshall 8100 half-stack, so I can get alot of distortion, but I play alot on the high frets and it gets really weak up there. My clean tones suck. Also, the guitar comes only in black, so I am getting a custom finish (changing the Ibanez logo to baby pink and the body to artic white). I can't really think of any other mods I might want besides changing the pickups, which is a must. I was thinking about a dimebucker in the bridge and a pearly gates in the neck, or maybe a fernandez sustainer in the neck, but I really can't decide. I use this same guitar for all 8 of my bands (3 death metal, one black metal, one shred-ish, one where we play sorority parties with alot of pop shit, and 2 alternative bands). As you can tell, I need something pretty versitile. For when I play clean stuff, I normally use a fender combo to bring out my clean tones a little more, but they still aren't great. My top priority is my distortion though. I love Dime's, and EVH's, and was even thinking of making one like EVH's..... anyway any input would be apprechiated.

ooooootay. heres the thing about the fernandes sustainer, its high gain, and its fairly muddy as a neck pickup. Its more meant for shred and rhythm than cleans. I'd only reccomend it if you do more progressive or experimental stuff. For cleaner sounds, go for a lower gain pickup, like any dimarzio PAF/hotPAF/virtualPAF or the duncan '59, if those are too low on gain, duncan jazz. Now, assuming you use your bridge for distortion more than cleans, and you say you want it versatile, i'd have to reccomend a duncan JB or a dimarzio x2n... jb has lower gain so it has more expansive use, and the x2n just rips if thats all you're guna use it for, so all you'd have to do us lay off the gain knob.

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how gay is baby pink? Paint the logo black! Anyway for the pickups, what wood is the iceman made out of?
For basswood how about a DiMarzio X2N in the bridge and a Seymour Duncan 59 in the neck? The x2n is fuckin hot and with the 59 in the neck, thats a very versatile combo

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or an x2n with a PAF pro, or if you dont want to go with dimarzios, i hear the seymour duncan JB/59 combo is quite versatile. Actually I think the JB/59 combo is a little more versatile than the x2n/PAF pro since they are lower gain than those dimarzios.

f0r t3h w1n paint your logo black, pink would look gay, the white looses its br00t3lity if you paint it pink.

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no offense or anything, but 8 bands? Why? How do you make time?

How about a Super Distortion? Everybody forgets about the SD - kind of like corn flakes - but it's a versatile pickup.

Ok, I put a Duncan JB in my bridge and I was going to put a 59 in the neck, but when I played on both pickups with my stock neck pickup and the JB in the bridge, The tone I got on my clean channel was unbelievable. It is so glassy that it almost makes you forget that I am playing a through Marshall 8100. The JB is plenty hot enough and really brings out my sweeps and other stuff on the really high frets. Thanks for the help, I am pretty satisfied. Oh, and about the 8 bands, now it is 7 lol. I keep a pretty tight schedule and mae sure I play with all of them at least once a week. I am going to try the JB out with my favorite metal band tonight, and I think they will be impressed at the new clairity I get in my sweeps.

sorority parties?? FUCK THAT SHIT!
(sorry, having a Blue Velvet moment)

Good to hear.

i hate the ICX

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