[darkbluemurder]

Yes, about two years ago they were taken out of the standard line and are only available from the custom shop since. At least they are not discontinued.

[mmmguitar]

Bump. I previously had luck using an Al Di Meola bridge humbucker to fatten up a thin-sounding guitar (A Strandberg), and decided to audition a Breed neck in the bridge position of another relatively anemic guitar (Vigier) after reading endorsements from Frank Falbo and others.

So far, I’ve found them to be more similar than different. I feel the DI Meola has a sweeter top end, with the Breed living up to the “fatter and more aggressive” comparison to the DI Meola and PAF Pro. Backing the Breed away from the strings doesn’t seem to open things up the way other humbuckers shooting for the “PAF on steroids” thing does; so I ended up just setting the pickup height according to how much output I wanted at the time (I currently have its levels balanced with a recording of the other guitar’s DI Meola). It splits really well, and toggling in a series 3.9k resistor and .047µF capacitor filter along the inside coil’s shunt to ground gives me a bit of twang with hardly any drop in output (The Di Meola, by comparison, loses its fatness and takes on a much twang-ier character when split or filtered in the same manner).

As someone who prefers mid-gain lead sounds and has had past experiences with the often-compared Air Zone and Tone Zone, I have to say I prefer the ADM and Breed Neck to either of them in terms of voicing, cleaning up when turning down the volume pot, and having pretty good split tones. Anyone going more for shred or metal-style sounds would likely prefer the Zone series.