DiMarzio pups
- Thread starter lafromla1
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I had gotten very used to Bill Lawrence pickups, from three builds. They pump out a lot of bass, midrange, and treble... which lets you choose the midpoint and width of the resonant peak with what else you do in the setup - woods, capacitors, amp settings, speaker choice, stompboxes etc. I couldn't get seven-string Lawrences, so I went with a DiMarzio Blaze bridge and PAF neck. My impression after the Lawrences was that the DiMarzios were ALL midrange, with some bass. But, no highs to speak of, even wired parallel rather than series.
Midrange is the "classic" sound of humbucking pickups into a Marshall amp, and midrange is what the human ear likes the best - but I have to re-jack all my tone settings to get even close to what I want out of the DiMarzios, and they could never be called crisp, glassy, bell-like or anything like that. This is with entirely normal woods and construction, alder, maple neck with pau ferro board, and the guitar sounds balanced acoustically (wee-ll, as "balanced" as an unplugged electric solidbody can, I actually like that sound after all these eons). But the pickups assassinate every frequency over about 3.2K. I can split the bridge PU coils, but it just gets softer, not much toothier.
With the exception of a splittable, series/parallel switchable Lawrence L500, I think I've turned into a single-coil kind of guy.... :hello2:
Midrange is the "classic" sound of humbucking pickups into a Marshall amp, and midrange is what the human ear likes the best - but I have to re-jack all my tone settings to get even close to what I want out of the DiMarzios, and they could never be called crisp, glassy, bell-like or anything like that. This is with entirely normal woods and construction, alder, maple neck with pau ferro board, and the guitar sounds balanced acoustically (wee-ll, as "balanced" as an unplugged electric solidbody can, I actually like that sound after all these eons). But the pickups assassinate every frequency over about 3.2K. I can split the bridge PU coils, but it just gets softer, not much toothier.
With the exception of a splittable, series/parallel switchable Lawrence L500, I think I've turned into a single-coil kind of guy.... :hello2:
I"ve used a bunch of DiMarzios over the years. I've come to really like the combination of an Air Norton in the neck and Super Distortion in the bridge in my LP's. I also use Seymour Duncan's "spin a split" wiring- so that my tone pot rolls from humbucking to single coil. Both of these pickups split very well.
I had a similar experience with Dimarziosstubhead said:
I went through a Dimarzio 'phase'. I used to have a 4 string bass with the Jazz pickups they make, and had a PAF Pro in the neck and a Super Distortion in the bridge of a friend's SG. We were content with the sound, but it never quite nailed it. :dontknow: So much mids and a thick top end convinced us for a while but it always sounded like they were holding back. We switched the bass pups to Duncans and then it got stolen...no review there. :sad1:
Once I got the hip to the Lawrence's, it was like a blanket was taken off the speakers. No offense to you Dimarzio guys, but they didn't deliver for our band.
lafromla1 said:
I've got the PAF Joe and the Mo Joe sitting here with me, but I'm still waiting for my body, neck and parts to be shipped to me. I did have the Fred and PAF Pro installed in a JS100 model years back that I liked very well, and the PAF Joe and Mo Joe are suppose to be similar, but could be alot different. My only advice is check out the new Chicken Foot CD. But that's not going to really tell you too much either. Alot of the sound you'll get from any of those pickups will have alot to do with your rig/amp. And alot more to do with your playing style/technique.
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