DiMarzio LiquiFire DP227F WH

Ibanez RG570 1989 - basswood body, rosewood neck
LoPro Edge bridge
Dimarzio Crunch Lab F - bridge
Dimarzio Fast Track - middle
Dimarzio Liquifire F - neck

I built the RG570 from the ground up, the carcass i.e. neck, neck plate and body were complete however I had to source the hardware and electronics, that's where some thought came into what I wanted out of the guitar. The LoPro Edge just warbles and flutters like crazy, very very expressive, I wanted pickups that would be able to handle drop tuning, clean and overdriven sounds and be able to pick up on the expressive nature of the guitar.

I chose a Crunch Lab and Liquifire for the full size humbuckers at the neck and bridge with a Fast Track in the middle position. As you are aware, the Crunch Lab and Liquifire are the pickups used by John Petrucci from Dream Theatre, I haven't really heard much of his playing, I tend to favour a lot of Japanese bands along with anime soundtracks rather than western music these days.

Upon wiring up the guitar, the Liquifire was stunning, it sounds great either through heavy gain or clean/chorused sounds. The RG570 goes into a Digitech Whammy DT, then into an Avid Eleven Rack and straight into Pro Tools, the pickups respond well to modelling for a change or should that be the other way round? The drop tuning function on the Whammy DT is always a problem on certain pickups, at the lower registers i.e drop C, the pickups lose definite, not the case with the Liquifire and Crunch Lab, I'm able to shred away with complex riffs and not have to worry about the sound going to mush.

I've been through quite a few pickups, mostly Seymour Duncan or custom wound pickups by Dimarzio for manufacturers such as Peavey, Hamer USA etc. The Dimarzio pickups never fail to impress, with super speedy service from Thomann and amazing prices, I'll be shopping for more Dimarzio pickups with Thomann shortly!

I bought the Dimarzio LiquiFire for my Ibanez RGA42, which has a solid mahogany body. I installed it in the neck position of the guitar and it sounds really good. The clean tones sing with this pickup. I coupled it with the Crunch Lab in the Bridge position and it is a quite versatile pickup.

Regarding the dirty tones it handles quite well and the sound is very articulate and fluid, especially my lead sounds. However, I would not recommend this pickup for modern metal and heavily down-tuned guitars. The sound of the pickup is quite dark sounding on the mahogany body. But I bet it will be better sounding on a basswood body.

However, I was deceived by the quality of the pickups as the ribbon around the coil seems loose and threads were hanging. This was the same with the Dimarzio Crunch Lab that I bought. For the price that I paid and from such a renowned brand I was expecting more quality wise.