Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Topics - RayBarbeeMusic

Pages: [1] 2
1
The Pickup Place / Air Norton Bridge Position
« on: November 15, 2023, 01:10:25 PM »
Anyone else do this?  I'm just loving this pickup in the bridge position.  Output wise and tonally, it's in the PAF camp even though nothing like a PAF on paper.  Very open, articulate high end but enough grunt and growl in the lows to sound angry through a Marshall, but not muddy at all.  DiMarzio lists it as having slightly less output than a 36th bridge, but it comes off as hotter in practice due to the frequency response.  Pushes a marshall style front end harder.  More open highs, less squawk, more grunt/growl than the 36th bridge. Extremely responsive to pick attack, and very shred friendly in terms of tracking speed.

Really digging the hell out of it in 2HB guitars.

2
The Pickup Place / PG-13 Middle in Bridge
« on: January 23, 2023, 04:49:23 PM »
DiMarzio intended this is a special use middle in the case that it's much lower than the neck and bridge. 

But if you look at the specs, it's a little monster for a mini.  Similar output to a '59 bridge or Air Classic Bridge.  Still has the standard mini bite and snarl due to the Neo mag, in spite of the high (for a mini) output and DCR.  Sounds like a great mini, plenty meaty in on low note chords and plenty bitey on the high notes, and with far more output than other minis. 

I've been going through options for mini and P90 routed guitars, been through 20 pickups or so for that position, this one is by far the best I've found for a bridge.  Still sounds like a mini (if you want a sound like a full sized bucker, use a full sized bucker...), but has plenty of output which most minis lack.

3
The Pickup Place / New Tone Charts!?!
« on: June 12, 2022, 03:18:17 AM »
Anyone noticed Dimazio now has new charts with mids broken into "low mid" and "High Mid"? Also, the other numbers are totally different than the new numbers. 

4
The Pickup Place / Al Dimeola Bridge
« on: April 10, 2021, 05:02:22 PM »
Anyone tried it?  Can find very little info, some compare it to an Air Zone but I find that a little difficult to believe given specs.

5
The Pickup Place / A5 in Transition bridge?
« on: January 16, 2021, 07:43:08 PM »
Anyone tried that?

6
The Pickup Place / Dimarzio tech support MIA?
« on: January 04, 2021, 08:53:33 PM »
Anyone tried to reach them recently?  I've been calling and leaving messages for over a month, no one ever answers the phone or returns messages.

7
The Pickup Place / Anyone try Satch Track in Bridge?
« on: July 27, 2020, 01:49:35 AM »
Anyone?  From the tone/output chart it seems like a slightly tighter Chopper, but we all know the tone chart can be........misleading at times. 

8
I recently had all 3 in the same guitar back to back so thought I'd post impressions in case anyone finds it useful.

Air norton S: This should be called Norton S as it does not have the very bright highs of an AN in the bridge.  Highs are rolled off and there is a very pronounced low mid and mid hump like a high output humbucker.  Still tracks fast picked runs at lower gain settings and artificial harmonics are easy.  If I were playing heavier music with scooped mids and more gain, this would be a great choice.  As it is, I'm using low to mid gain with a lot of mids, so it is maybe a tad dark and has too much of that tube screamer ish mid bump.  When in parallel with the middle pup, quack is good but not in the knopfler/ krantz range, and far better than any full sized bucker with similar tone.  This is due to the short length of string samples compared to a full size and the position/slant.

Pro Track:  Do NOT let the tone chart fool you.  This pickup has a ton of high mids and a neutral bass, which make it come across as a very bright pickup, and to my ear somewhat grating and thin. IMO best used in a dark sounding guitar with less than a 500k volume pot. 

Chopper:  Winner for me, as usual lately.  These are ending up in my guitars where I put a humbucker in a strat bridge.  Sounds like a very nice PAF, despite DiMarzios description.  Articulate but not piercing highs, solid but not overwhelming bass, sufficient mids to be vocal but no mid hump.  I've been experimenting with about 30 different PAFs lately and the chopper fits right in that tonal family, and honestly a better sounding PAF than many full sized buckers that cost multiples of its price. 
Quack in position 2 is very good, far better than any unsplit full sized bucker and right up there with a hot single coil bridge.  This is really a fantastic sounding PAF for a strat bridge position that requires no mods to routing or pickguard, and no splitting to quack right in position 2.

9
The Pickup Place / What's up with the PAF master bridge?
« on: April 24, 2019, 10:48:20 AM »
A4, 7.69k DCR, mean output 278mv. 

What?

278mv is on the hot side of PAF output.  But A4 is a weak magnet; fully charged it is weaker than A5 or A2.  7.69k DCR is a low wind on a PAF and ought to be low output given the magnet choice.  I have some sub 8k PAFs I use in the bridge, but I use A8, which is the Hulk of magnets, because even with A5 they are low output and searingly bright (and they also have a DCR of more than 7.7k).

This all assumes it is an actual PAF and uses 42 ga wire. 

So I have to conclude that it does not use 42ga wire, because there is no way to get that sort of output level with that magnet and that DCR reading with 42.  I'd guess they're using 41 or some sort of metric equivalent, because 7.69k of 40 probably wouldn't fit on the coils. 

Anyone actually disassembled one?

10
The Pickup Place / Any chance of a stickied DiMarzio Mods post?
« on: November 08, 2017, 04:15:56 PM »
Modding pickups with dif mags etc is all the rage over at the *other guy's forum*, you rarely see it discussed here.   What are the chances of getting a sticky post where those of us who've done it can post the mod and the tonal results? 

Some DiMarzios give great results with a magnet change, pole piece removal/change, etc.

11
The Pickup Place / 36th Anniversary Bridge DP223 with A2 magnet.....
« on: October 15, 2016, 11:46:09 PM »
A customer of mine is having me work up one of his new G&L Legacy guitars with HSS format, and said he wanted it to sound 'vintage', something he doesn't usually like or ask for.  Well, ok.  I did the fretwork, set up. 

"Vintage" to me, with singles, screams "67 neck, 58 middle", which means PAF bridge, something that will play nice with lower output singles and a 250k volume.  I thought about a few options, but went with a 36th bridge since I had one the right color.

Keep in mind, this has never been my favorite pickup.  It replaced the VHPAF in the DiMarzio line up, which always rubbed me the wrong way since I like the VHPAF better, and I've always found the 36th harsh in the highs on high strings and not vocal enough in the mids. 

With that in mind, and knowing I'd have to flip the magnet anyway so the screw coil hum cancelled with the south pole '58 with both split, I decided to try A2 in there, both to tame the highs and drop the output a tad. 

How did it work? Well holy sh*t, it worked GREAT.  I really, really like that pickup with A2 in the bridge of a strat with 250k volume.  I used a 550k tone with .001uf cap.  Even with tone all the way up, it's articulate but not harsh at all, and the midrange is very vocal in a truly expressive way.  With the tone rolled back, it gets no 'under a pillow' effect like a higher output bucker would get, it just becomes darker and fatter.

I'll be doing that again on one of my own guitars when I get the chance.  If you get a chance to try it, I'd highly recommend putting A2 in that pickup. 

12
The Pickup Place / Imperium 6?
« on: October 14, 2016, 10:44:45 AM »
Anyone tried these yet?

I generally like rolled off highs on a bridge, but the bridge here looks quite dark, sort of G storm EQ curve, which I found inarticulate.  The neck model looks like it might make a good bridge PAF.

13
The Pickup Place / Identify this Dimarzio/IBZ Bucker?
« on: September 17, 2016, 10:07:31 PM »
F spaced, 9.1k DCR, Alnico Mag, standard fillister screw/slug pole format (no hex screws).  Bobbins say "Dimarzio/Ibz". 

Doesn't match any specs I can find for Dimarzio/Ibz pickups.  It's either too hot to be a PAF, or not nearly enough DCR to be a hotter model.

14
The Trading Post / WTB Bluesbucker
« on: March 30, 2016, 09:47:10 PM »
Regular spaced, cream, cream/black, or black.

15
The Pickup Place / True single coil that is loud but still bright?
« on: June 20, 2015, 12:09:11 AM »
I just picked up an EBMM Silhouette Special, and I'm liking it.  Neck is very much like my early 90s G&Ls. 

It has the "Silent single" system, which works about as well as the Suhr/Ilytch SSC thing did, maybe better actually, but I'm not thrilled with the stock singles.  They sound ok with gain but clean they are rather wimpy.   I want to see if I can find some true singles that will work better. 

I tried a ton of them back when I had an SSC but its been a while.   What I'm looking for is something loud but still fairly glassy (think Injector neck w/500k pots), and preferably Alnico 3 or 2 because the string pull from the alnico 5 slugs is no fun. 

Any suggestions?

Pages: [1] 2