IronGear pickups

baldy

I know that IronGear pups are quite highly regarded on here.
Does anyone have the Hot Slag/Rolling Mill combo & what are your thoughts/observations on them please ?

drwiddly

Not tried the Rolling Mill but the Hot Slag bridge pickup is great. I have them in a couple of guitars and, whilst they're not as good as say an Oil City, they are very good pickups and exceptional for their price. I think the Alnico 5 magnets give them a smoothness and clarity that you don't get with a ceramic pickup. Definitely one of my all time favourites.

Grumpyrocker

I had the Hot Slag/Rolling Mill combo in my Epiphone Les Paul and it sounded superb. Those two pickups really do work well together.

abw1989

I have them in the Firebird in my profile shot. The Hot Slag is great high gain PAF pickup without heading into ceramic magnet territory. The Rolling Mill works well with volume rolled off on a crunchy amp to clean up for arpeggio chords and the like, or with the tone rolled back for a, hate to say it, woman tone sort of sound.  

baldy

Thanks for the comments so far. 
These pups will be used for classic rock/metal.

paulphoenix

Iron gear products equal great value for money. 

I recently chose the rolling mill overwound set for my practise guitar (Ibanez S1XXV) that lives at work, and overall I'm happy with the decision.

The overwound bridge pup is excellent, but I'm finding the neck is a bit woolly despite numerous adjustments. 

Wonky

I have a hot slag in a guitar and it sounds good.  Should be spot on for your classic rock/metal type stuff.
It's a lot of pickup for the cash in my opinion.

mark123

are the iron gear pick ups regarded  better than tonerider ? or about the same?

prowla

I have a Tesla Shark humbucker and a pair of Tonerider City Limits single-coils on a fat Strat partscaster.

The Tesla Shark is a good pickup, but I think I'm going to replace it with a Seymour Duncan SH4 (JB) which I have in my parts box.

The Tonerider pickups are really bloody excellent!

skullfunkerry

mark123 said:

are the iron gear pick ups regarded  better than tonerider ? or about the same?

I had a pair of Tonerider Generators in an Ibansx RG450 and they were great. The bridge pickup was really crunchy and worked well for metal & rock; the neck pickup was one of the sweetest-sounding neck pickups I've ever owned.

EDIT: I've had a couple of Hot Slags in a Sparrow Les Paul copy too, and they were great as well 

Grumpyrocker

I've currently got a pair of Hot Slags in my PRS SE.

Am probably going to put the Hot Slag/Rolling Mill combo in my EC-256.

I've even got a set of their actives that they don't sell anymore, but not got them in a guitar at the moment.

baldy

Thanks guys.
I am going to get a Hot Slag/Rolling Mill set.
These are to go into an old Yamaha RGX H/S/H super strat with trem that I am converting to H/H, fixed bridge.
I am also changing all the hardware/electrics & refinishing it in another colour.
I will do a thread in making & modding.
Pup wise it was between the Iron Gears or Entwistle HVX in the bridge & HV58+ in the neck, a combo I have in another RGX but with an Entwistle XS62 single coil in the middle.
I like the Entwistles but the Hot Slag at 17k has a bit more output than the HVX at 12k.

Henrytwang

mark123 said:

are the iron gear pick ups regarded  better than tonerider ? or about the same?

It is, of course, a matter of personal opinion. I have used both Tonerider and Iron Gear pickups, both are good but in my opinion the Iron Gear are the best sounding . In terms of build quality I’d put them up there with the likes of Seymour Duncan.

mark123

Thanks,I looked at ordering a set of Tonerider rocksong in black, no stock in any uk dealers ,no stock for knickel,few other single coil and humbuckers out of stock  in all outlets ..strange ???
Irongear have every pick up in stock in their stockists

BloodEagle

Irongear are great, much prefer them to Tonerider 

mark123

BloodEagle said:

Irongear are great, much prefer them to Tonerider 

Cheers, looks like irongear have the edge,It also helps that the dealers have stock ,I can't believe the tonerider stockists are out of stock of nearly 50% of the range ,sounds like something is amiss.
Possible that tonerider supplying fender classic vibe range with pick ups on all the models so cant keep up demand of the pick up only side.
me just guessing!

stimpsonslostson

I put the Dirty Torque/Blues Engine combo in my Shiflett Tele Partscaster. 
They're great, exactly what I wanted & perfect for Foo Fighters style rock. 

Dodge

I actually found Tonerider to be the better sounding product when compared like for like.  I forget the models I tiried, but they were covered vintage style PAFs and the HB-sized P90's from both manufacturers.

I'm sure I read somewhere that Tonerider were scatterwound whereas Irongear weren't or something like that.  Both sounded pretty good for the cash though, I wouldn't pay more for Duncans for example.

lysander

Has anyone got experience of the rolling overwound ?
Looking for something bright and articulate and reasonably hot but not full on metal.

For reference I dislike both the irongear hot slags and the tonerider generator thr2, found both unusably muddy in the guitars I put them in. 

prowla

BloodEagle said:

Irongear are great, much prefer them to Tonerider 

I have a partscaster with an IronGear humbucker and two Tonerider single-coils; it's rather good, but I'm going to try an SD JB for the humbucker when I get 'round to it...

roberty

Dodge said:

I actually found Tonerider to be the better sounding product when compared like for like.  I forget the models I tiried, but they were covered vintage style PAFs and the HB-sized P90's from both manufacturers.

I'm sure I read somewhere that Tonerider were scatterwound whereas Irongear weren't or something like that.  Both sounded pretty good for the cash though, I wouldn't pay more for Duncans for example.

Necro bumping this because I'm on an information binge and I happened upon this info earlier:

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/upgrading-pickups

The main difference between the Tonerider and IronGear pickups is that the former have scatter‑wound coils, resulting in a lower self‑capacitance (which translates to a slightly higher resonant peak), whereas IronGear use precision winding machines, making the turns neatly layered: which is best really depends on your tonal tastes.

I think I prefer non-scatter machine wound humbuckers for high gain, ie a big fat lump of sound. But it's hard to get that kind of detail about particular pickups