marnold
February 21st, 2008, 01:43 PM
I just got my DiMarzio Area '61s installed in my Floyd Rose DST-3 last night. Over the next several weeks, I will give my continuous review of these pickups. I'm sure you'll be thrilled. Note that my DST-3 only has one pot: a 500K Alpha volume pot.
First of all, a minor point about cosmetics. I think the black-pups-on-white-pearloid-pickguard looks good. I'm glad I went with that. Also the pole pieces have a slightly wider spread than my Floyd's do. The only place where that is a "problem" is that the low E string just barely goes over the bottom of its pole piece. That doesn't seem to affect anything at all.
I've only had about an hour's playing time on these so far, so I've only run them through the basic paces. The first thing that strikes you is how quiet they are. They are dead quiet--humbucker quiet. They are so quiet that I initially thought something was wrong when I plugged my guitar in. I thought I had miswired something until I stuck a string and sound came out. If I turn my AD30VT to the Numetal setting and face my CRT, there is no noise. If I try the same trick with the neck pickup on my '51 it sounds like a bad walkie-talkie.
On to the sound. I must confess that my first listen was not a "sky opening and angels singing" moment. It's not that they were bad. It's just that the general tone was quite similar to my old pickups. I also couldn't crank it up at the time because the kids were sleeping. My frustration with getting the ground to solder to the Floyd claw didn't improve my disposition at the time either.
Today, I've had a chance to play louder and listen more closely. One thing that struck me right away was how much more articulate they are. What I mean by that is the old pups would get lost in mud quickly, especially playing chords with the middle and neck pickups together. There is no such mud here. They are a little brighter than stock. The bass is more well-defined and less likely to mud up.
While the neck sounds similar to the old ones, the middle sounds quite a bit different. I don't know how to define it. Punchier midrange maybe? The quack position is decent, although they are by no means the quackiest pickups out there. Right now, I've got the neck pickup raised a little less than 1/8 inch over the pickguard. The middle is only slightly over the pickguard. I'm sure playing with the heights will produce some interesting changes.
Then I added my TO800 into the mix. I think I found what these pups were designed for. The articulation that I mentioned before really comes in here. The phrase "Texas blues" came to mind. They seem to really encourage me to pick hard and attack the strings.
My initial impression is that if you are looking for what I think is a "vintage" Fender clean, you might be better off going with an Area '58 or '67. If you want to play some blues, these would be right up your street. Time to turn some more knobs on my AD30VT and see what these things can do!
First of all, a minor point about cosmetics. I think the black-pups-on-white-pearloid-pickguard looks good. I'm glad I went with that. Also the pole pieces have a slightly wider spread than my Floyd's do. The only place where that is a "problem" is that the low E string just barely goes over the bottom of its pole piece. That doesn't seem to affect anything at all.
I've only had about an hour's playing time on these so far, so I've only run them through the basic paces. The first thing that strikes you is how quiet they are. They are dead quiet--humbucker quiet. They are so quiet that I initially thought something was wrong when I plugged my guitar in. I thought I had miswired something until I stuck a string and sound came out. If I turn my AD30VT to the Numetal setting and face my CRT, there is no noise. If I try the same trick with the neck pickup on my '51 it sounds like a bad walkie-talkie.
On to the sound. I must confess that my first listen was not a "sky opening and angels singing" moment. It's not that they were bad. It's just that the general tone was quite similar to my old pickups. I also couldn't crank it up at the time because the kids were sleeping. My frustration with getting the ground to solder to the Floyd claw didn't improve my disposition at the time either.
Today, I've had a chance to play louder and listen more closely. One thing that struck me right away was how much more articulate they are. What I mean by that is the old pups would get lost in mud quickly, especially playing chords with the middle and neck pickups together. There is no such mud here. They are a little brighter than stock. The bass is more well-defined and less likely to mud up.
While the neck sounds similar to the old ones, the middle sounds quite a bit different. I don't know how to define it. Punchier midrange maybe? The quack position is decent, although they are by no means the quackiest pickups out there. Right now, I've got the neck pickup raised a little less than 1/8 inch over the pickguard. The middle is only slightly over the pickguard. I'm sure playing with the heights will produce some interesting changes.
Then I added my TO800 into the mix. I think I found what these pups were designed for. The articulation that I mentioned before really comes in here. The phrase "Texas blues" came to mind. They seem to really encourage me to pick hard and attack the strings.
My initial impression is that if you are looking for what I think is a "vintage" Fender clean, you might be better off going with an Area '58 or '67. If you want to play some blues, these would be right up your street. Time to turn some more knobs on my AD30VT and see what these things can do!