[sveto]

Well, as promised (and requested as well), here my impressions of the Ionizer 7 bridge. I had it for a short time in my Apex100 and didn't like the sound, so i wasn't very thorough.

I play through a Kemper and i'm more of a fusion guy, though i love and want to play a very broad spectrum of music styles. Tonally i'm a fan of Vai, Jens Johansson and Alex Argento. I'm not into vintage stuff and not a purist either. What sounds good and gets the job done, is good. Period. One of my all time favorites and maybe the best guitar sound ever recorded to date is Vai's "The Riddle". Since i love the frequency response of basswood  but hate the dynamics, and i love the dynamics of alder but don't like the frequency response, i'm trying to create a basswoolder guitar by using 010 strings on alder and fat humbuckers. [EDIT: I'm using .095 strings now, and it seems to work better. The 010 were too punchy/rough in alder.]

I want my guitar sound to be a mix of synthetic qualities and guitar dynamics. And since Tosin Abasi sounded quite synthetic with his solo sound on his recent record, and i liked the Gravity Storm bridge, i ordered the Ionizer 7, because DiMarzio said it would sound similar to the GS. It didn't. 

Alongside the fact that it was a shortsighted decision, i found it to be a poor choice for alder. Too much high mids, too little low mids. It lacks body for the sound i crave. I wanted a focused sound with a strong fundamental, but lots of overtones, but it seems these are contradictory elements of a pickup's sound (better to enhance the fundamental with plec choice). The Ionizer 7 was too rounded and lifeless, too little crunch and growl. Too cold and grating, boring pinch harmonics. It seems that this string separation thing is not my cup of tea. I need fatness.

The thing i hated most was the high frequency focused pick attack. But tight it is, this Ionizer, for sure.

Interesting fact: i played ca. 40-50 of my favorite high gain sounds with the Ionizer 7 and the only one that sounded good was a Meambobo-modified Djemass-MesaBoogie profile. After i switched back the Blaze Bridge, almost all of these sounds sounded great again. Smoothness, crunch, warmth (despite the ceramic magnets), very responsive, growling and chunky. The attack is more in the mids, like i prefer, and it has some subtle gritty and searing qualities that i like, without being grindy or raspy.

That's all i can think of, for now. If someone has questions, shoot. 

[EDIT:] The story continues below...

[5150]

What kidn of amp are you running?

[sveto]

Oh, yeah, the Kemper runs through my near field monitors (Event 20/20bas). But it shouldn't matter for you.

[sveto]

Well, as it turns out, this is not the end of the story.

Part of the quest for tone, it seems, is realizing what one really wants. Long story short - i found out recently that i can't be friends with this dual resonance thing. Now i understand why i didn't like a few of the DMZ PUs that i had in the past. Unfortunately, the Blaze PUs have it too, and the constant buzzing and double notes got on my nerves.

So here i am again, with a pair of Ionizer 7's and this time i'm loving the sound. The devil seems to be in the details. Now i have a tone pot in there and because of this the whole frequency spectrum is shifted a bit down. I have the pickups closer to the strings, and i'm using a different pick.

The pickups are very dynamic and responsive. I would say way more "allround" than the Blazes. Playing with the volume pot gives very usable sounds (with the Blazes it was not quite there). The neck pickup is not as dark as the Blaze Neck and sounds more lively. The bridge Ionizer 7 is warm like a Gravity Storm but has more attack, more crunch, more clarity and more low mids (which where missing a bit in the GS bridge).

Somebody on Sevenstring.org said that the Ionizers 7 are going in a similar direction like the Transition set. And i have to concur. With the exception that the Ionizer bridge sounds noticeably more juicy than the Transition bridge impression i had from listening to Luke and others, at least in my preliminary tests.

Strange thing: the bottom plates of the Ionizers are a bit wider, so i have a little problem with the neck PU touching the neck. I'll have to sand down the sides a millimeter or two.

One thing i loved with my Gravity Storm set: i could play clean for a while, and then switch to distorted and i would not be disgusted by the sound like i was with the Breeds (or now with the Blazes). The Ionizers keep the sound musical even with distortion - that's a giant plus in my book.

[buddroyce]

Thanks for the updated review man!