586

The mini bar (off topic & misc) / Re: Who are the SDUGF members on here?

« on: June 17, 2013, 09:12:43 AM »

I'm a forum troll/lurker there :|

Oh yeah you can also count Frank Falbo but I'm not too sure how active he is there since he left SD.

587

The Pickup Place / Re: Neck & middle singles for metal/rock strat

« on: March 15, 2013, 10:57:49 AM »

For the neck since you're looking for something round and rude for more detuned metal here's my suggestions

Fast Track 2 (see Rob Marcello of Danger Danger http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baPMMDDosGE )
The Chopper (Trying to find a good video. The two players that I can think of that use it are Ron Thal of Bumblefoot/Guns N Roses and Henrik Danhage of Evergrey/Death Destruction)
Injector neck (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHGv5FCS2j8 )

For the middle position, my recommendation for that guitar is either the Cruiser neck or one of the Area models.

588

The Pickup Place / Re: De-airing Dimarzio pups??? at-1 vs. axis bridge w/pics and ohm readings

« on: February 14, 2013, 10:18:23 PM »

My answer is.. sell me the Axis pickups and get an AT-1 which has a bit more sparkle and less of the mids/bass the axis pickusp do(at least to me).

589

Everything you wanted to know about .... / Re: Gravity Storm Review

« on: January 16, 2013, 12:55:25 AM »

Very informative review, thanks Budd. Since you know how the Breed bridge sounds and can compare it to the Gravity Storm bridge, i have 2 questions.

1) The Breed has a good attack in the mids, not super punchy, but good. Is the GS softer in the mids attack, like other Airbuckers? (according to DiMarzio's specs, it is an Airbucker)

2) Do the high notes scream less than the Breed? I have heard many Airbuckers that sound tired & lifeless in the high registers, and don't like that at all.

The Gravity Storm does seem to have a softer attack. It's not as aggressive as the Evolution of Evo2 I find. Granted it's about as soft as getting punched with punching gloves. It still hits hard just less of the edge. As for the scream, it's not as lifeless and tired as some of the air buckers. The Gravity Storm is unique when it comes to playing high up the neck. The fatness the pickup has really prevents the tone from sounding thin and lifeless. The scream on the Gravity Storm is more like the big guy at a football game during a scoring goal than a teenage girl at a some boyband concert. It definitely has some solid power behind it.

590

Everything you wanted to know about .... / Re: Gravity Storm Review

« on: January 16, 2013, 12:41:29 AM »

Great review - thanks for the work you put into these!  The funny thing to me is that the song Gravity Storm is listed on Dimarzio's website as a clip representing the Evolution.  So, I don't know what the story is there.  Maybe they put it in the wrong place, or maybe the accidentally let the cat out of the bag! 

The obvious question - Transition or Gravity Storm?  Which neck is tighter and punchier? My first thoughts were that the GS would be less prone to mud than the Trans, but based on your reviews, it seems the opposite is true.  Which bridge would you choose for an all-around versatility?  Thanks again! 

The Gravity Storm would be the tighter one. As for punchier, the Gravity Storm is more like a punch to the face while the Transition is more like a solid punch to the chest. The versatility really depends on your what you're playing predominantly and what you consider as a nice to have. For my needs, I find the Transition to be more versatile.

591

Everything you wanted to know about .... / Re: Gravity Storm Review

« on: January 14, 2013, 05:41:29 PM »

Overall, I’m quite impressed with these pickups. They have the power, tightness and crunch that you’d want from a pickup design for hard rock/metal or anything you’d play with a bit or a lot of distortion from blues right up to really aggressive metal. The bridge pickup definitely blew me away here and I do see the neck pickup taking over a lot of the recommendations that the Air Norton and LiquiFire tend to get, especially for solo instrumental/shred stuff. The inability for me to get a clean sound just by rolling down the volume takes a bit away from the versatility of the pickups, but that’s easily remedied by switching to a proper clean channel.

If you’re looking for a set of pickups for instrumental metal/shred but want something more aggressive than the Tone Zone and don’t want the darker rounder sound from the Air Norton in the neck? Get the Gravity Storm set. If the key words in your tonal description includes tight, aggressive and crunchy, get the Gravity Storm set. Heck if you have a single humbucker guitar and need an awesome bridge pickup that’s got versatility, GET THE GRAVITY STORM. It’s that good!

592

Everything you wanted to know about .... / Re: Gravity Storm Review

« on: January 14, 2013, 05:41:06 PM »

Lead tone wise, the tone from the bridge had enough cut but wasn’t piercing and quite ear pleasing. The neck pickup had a much smoother rounder tone but is nowhere near as round as an Air Norton or a LiquiFire and definitely rounder than the Evo neck while being thicker than the Breed Neck. Great for solo instrumental playing, which makes a lot of sense since this was a pickup designed for Steve Vai.

Rolling down on the volume to get a cleaner tone though, I wasn’t really all too impressed. No matter how hard I tried to get a nice clean sound using my volume control, I just wasn’t able to get anything that I would consider acceptable for a clean sound. The bridge rolled down had this brittle crackle to it and the neck was only a marginally better.  Usable for some dirty blues but not really a clean tone worth I’d use. Seeing that it’s something I actually do a lot, I probably wouldn’t use these pickups in a guitar when I’m using an amp that doesn’t really have a real clean channel. They are however, definitely pickups I’d use for recording any kind of stuff where I want my tone to sound like I’m getting hit by a brick wall.

On a proper clean channel, the bridge pickup actually impressed me quite a bit. Normally bridge pickups sound too brittle and piercing for clean sounds but surprisingly, the Gravity Storm bridge had this sound that reminded me of a thicker single coil neck pickup which was really awesome. The actual neck pickup on clean wasn’t quite as impressive tough.

On the plus side the neck pickup isn’t very boomy sounding. Something I find as an issue with a lot of neck pickups but on the downside, the top end sounded a bit muffled to me. Single notes jazz lines on the neck maintained a very consistent fat tone throughout the fretboard with a softer attack, almost like a semi hollow body with some flat wound strings. Although I did find that I had to cut back on the bottom end and mids a bit to help make it shine a bit better though. Using the same wide open setting as I was with the bridge pickup, the neck pickup sounded a bit dull.

593

Everything you wanted to know about .... / Re: Gravity Storm Review

« on: January 14, 2013, 05:40:40 PM »

With regards to the actual pickups, I ended up getting a complete set of the neck and bridge humbuckers with the really awesome black covers and black bolts. I’ve installed countless DiMarzios and while this isn’t the first time I’ve seen something like this as I’ve had Bare Knuckles with the same look, it is the first time I’ve had DiMarzios with this look and do these ever look super awesome!! They have this great aggressive look that just screams METAL and definitely an option I highly recommended for those of us that are looking for something different.

The guitar I decided to install these pickups in was my Caparison Dellinger II MC Titanium. It’s a mahogany bodied super strat with a true metal finish and black hardware.  It was the only guitar I had that seemed like a natural candidate to complement the look of the pickups. The guitar itself was plugged straight into my Egnater Seminar amp as well as through a Diezel preamp for really high gain stuff and a Fender Blackface preamp for really clean stuff and now, the actual review.

Plugging into the low/medium gain channel of my amp, I was very impressed with the tight crunchy tone I was getting. It had the presence and punch you’d expect from something like the Evo2 but with more body and a smoother top end. I can totally understand why Steve Vai described the sound as a thunderous cloud of ice cream. It’s got the roar you’d expect from a thunder cloud but the sweet smooth texture of ice cream. I know I’m talking abstractly here but it’s definitely a great definition of it. The lower gain setting was really great for blues/rock tones where you want solid crunchy distortion that doesn’t sound thin.

The note definition the bridge pickup has is fantastic. When playing complex chords, all the notes ring through without any problems. Moving over to some higher gain sounds, the tone got thicker and meatier but still had that awesome bite that cuts through without any added fuzz, perfect for any hard rock or metal application. I actually had so much fun playing that I actually forgot I was supposed to focus on the subtleties of the pickup to do a review on.

594

Everything you wanted to know about .... / Gravity Storm

« on: January 14, 2013, 05:40:00 PM »

OK, so I got these the same day I got the Transition pickups from DiMarzio to review and to be totally honest, I had mixed feelings about them right from the beginning. This was mostly because all the YouTube reviews I found of these really sounded REALLY bad to my ears and not offense to Steve Vai, but I wasn’t really too stocked about his tone on Gravity Storm. Hearing a bunch of people playing the same song poorly didn’t really help sell me on the pickups even though the folks reviewing them were saying great things about them.

With the Evolution, Evo2 and Breed all being really awesome pickups, I really had high expectations from the pickups and really hoped all the video reviews were just doing a bad job at show casing them.

Seeing that if I’m not too sold on them, there was no way I could ever recommend them to anyone and there was no better way to prove myself wrong than to test them out myself. Because honestly, I can’t be the only person out there that thought the YouTube video reviews of the Gravity Storms sucked.

So before I start the actual review, let me set the stage by saying right off the bat that these pickups completely restored faith I had lost from those videos. They definitely lived up to any expectations anyone would have for a product associated with Steve Vai.

595

The mini bar (off topic & misc) / Re: Just waht IS the Relationshio between Seymour Duncan and Larry Dimarzio?

« on: January 11, 2013, 12:57:01 AM »

Damn now you're making me want some multibuckers.

596

The Pickup Place / Re: Steve Morse neck in the bridge?

« on: January 02, 2013, 03:23:29 PM »

It could work in a very very bright sounding guitar (thinking an all maple monster here). The last time I tried a Steve Morse neck, it was actually in the neck position and it definitely sounded like a darker fuller sounding vintage paf. Would imagine it could carry most of the characteristics in the bridge position. Probably not something I'd do in a guitar that's fairly balanced or darker in tone to begin with though. Give it a shot and lets us know your experience

597

Everything you wanted to know about .... / Re: Mo'Joe

« on: November 29, 2012, 01:04:08 PM »

I figure I might as well add my 2 cents to the Mo ' Joe.

In my experience, it's definitely more of a pickup for heavier rock  and heavy blues tones. While you can use it for metal there are better voiced pickups for that from DiMarzio. If you're looking for a pickup that'll do instrumental shred stuff like the Joe Satriani stuff, it's great, but if you're looking to do more of the metal shred stuff, you will very likely want a bridge pickup that's heavier sounding.

For all you pedal and effects guys, the Mo Joe does handle processing quite well and also cleans up pretty good.

Overall, I'd say that this is definitely a very versatile pickup that would handle a vast majority of styles. Great 'rock' tone with harmonics galore. If you liked the Fred, you will love this. I haven't tried it in the neck position, but I'm pretty sure it would work in the neck if paired up with a higher output pickup in the bridge like a Breed or something.

As for pairing it up with a neck pickup, any of the neck pickups from the PAF family would work well like the Paf Joe, Paf pro, air classic, paf 36th, virtual PAF as well as the bluesbucker and the humbucker from hell. Basically, any of the pickups with more of a vintage vibe would work well. It also works well with the majority of dimarzio strat pickups.

I agree with this: you can downright shred with this pickup (I do), but it is more of a classic humbucker than a hot rod pickup. Its quite toney and had a millions tones in it. Somehow people think you need an ultra distorted sound to shred, but the problem is that load of gain does not cut thru a full band mix well. What you need is clear projection with enough edge to fly fast, loud and clear. This pickup does that well, but I like it more for vintage tones.

Like most guitar players who play lots of different material, I have more than one guitar - this pickup is on my guitar that imitates a strat, telecaster, and vintage les Paul. I have other guitars that play heavier. The heavy guitars are useless for playing classic rock and roll (convincingly) and thats what I use the Mo Joe for. Imagine trying to play Simple Man with a X2N (or Slayers Deaths Head with a vintage single coil) - gotta use the right tool for the job...

Would you happen to have any sound clips of the Mo Joe in action?

598

Guitar Lounge / Re: H-S-H models? (other than Ibanez)

« on: November 26, 2012, 01:28:52 PM »

Pretty sure ESP made an M3 a few years back that had the HSH setup. Ibanez is think still has the largest selection of guitars with the HSH setup though.

I also believe Schecter in Japan offers models with the HSH setup. You don't really see them here in North America much though.

599

The mini bar (off topic & misc) / Re: Just waht IS the Relationshio between Seymour Duncan and Larry Dimarzio?

« on: November 26, 2012, 01:05:50 PM »

I love Steve, he's one of the guys I make sure I meet to see every time I goto NAMM. Although I do believe that in an interview somewhere with Steve Blutcher, he mentioned that he didn't know anything about pickups before he started with DiMarzio. Most of the patents that DiMarzio holds have both Steve's name and Larry's name on it so I'm pretty sure Larry's not just sitting on his ass for the last couple of decades.

Seymour and Larry are both great guys and I'm pretty sure they'd get along real well if they were in the same room together.

600

Everything you wanted to know about .... / Re: The Norton

« on: September 03, 2011, 01:18:55 PM »

I already have the pickup. I want that pedal now.