The folks at DiMarzio Inc. were nice enough to send me an evaluation set of the new DiMarzio Injector pickups along with an Area 67 a couple of weeks back and they've been sititng on my desk waiting to be installed in a guitar. Wish I had the time to do this earlier but it seems like everyone wants to bring in guitars for setups and upgrades RIGHT BEFORE Christmas and everything, anyways I finally got around to doing it (only because I came down with the flu and stopped taking clients).
NOTE: This review is long and boring, so if you want the summary go right down the end
THE TEST GUITAR:
The guitar the pickups went into is an ESP Vintage Plus strat with a floyd rose trem. The pickups that were on there before the injectors went in were the DiMarzio Cruiser, some stock ESP single coil that I never used, and a Duncan Hybrid that I was going to yank out sooner or later and replace with an AT-1. Needless to say the fact that the Injector Bridge pickup is actually a single coil meant that I wouldn't be using this pickguard. So I went and got myself a stock 11-hole Fender pickguard, but sadly, because this is an ESP strat with a Floyd, the pickguard needed to be *ahem* "modified" to fit. So after about 30 mins of reworking the pickguard with a dremel tool to route out the space for the floyd and the neck pocket (for some reason the neck pocket is actually spaced out like a Tele and not a strat... go figure..)
THE ELECTRONICS:
Anyways, since this was a fresh pickguard it gave me the liberty to screw around with the electronics and since your standard strat config is 1 Vol and 2 Tones it gave me a lot of things to play. However seeing that I never used the tone control and I was too lazy to figure out what I actually wanted I just went with a single 500k volume pot, a tone pot that wasn't conencted to anything and a master TBX tone control (only cause I had it lying around). Also went with a fancy Schaller E+ Megaswitch so I could get the middle position to run both neck and bridge pickups at the same time.
Although the pickups worked with both 250k and 500k pots, the only reason why I chose to go with the 500k pots was simply because I found the 500k pot first so it wasn't done for any tonal purpose although using it will yield a slightly brighter tone.
THE BRIDGE PICKUP:Ok, first let me say that I have NEVER been a huge fan of single coil pickups in the bridge position. Every guitar I've ever had either had a humbucker in the bridge position or a single coil sized humbucker. Standard single coils just never really cut it for me, until I plugged in this guitar and turned up the volume on the Injector bridge.
The first thing I noticed different about the bridge pickup is how much fuller it sounded in comparison to most standard singles. Where as most singles have a lot of top end, the Injector has a lot of beef to it, which is fantastic for me since the thin bottom end was always my problem with single coils in the bridge position. Clean its got the nice sparkle and jangle you'd expect from a strat single coil but definitely fuller sounding. It's not over the top bright and handles clean jazz stuff fine. With a tad bit more dirt, the pickup starts to really shine. Cranking the gain up yield an awesome crunch tone that's perfect for any kind of blues/rock rhythm tones. Lead tones coming out the bridge pickups cut through easily but aren't over powering. It's got great harmonics and is very responsive to pick attack.
With the gain cranked up to metal levels, the pickup starts to sound a litle buzzy. The girth is there so palm mutes are still good but chords just sound way too buzzy. It's like plugging in a metal zone into a tiny amp. HOWEVER, turning down the tone control fixed the buzziness and the pickup becomes totally usable for metal applications. (thank GOD I had a TBX Tone Control installed!!!). With the top end rolled down a little bit, its starting to sound a bit more like a Crunch Lab with less bottom end and you could totally swear that this was actually a humbucker and not a single coil. Metal/shred lead tones are very articulate and cut through easy and you dont lose out on the harmonics. All and all I'd say that the injector bridge pickup is by far one of the most versatile single coils pickups around. It's not going to win awards for vintage tones but if you're looking for something that can handle a wide spectrum of stuff and always found humbuckers muddy, you should seriously try this out.
THE NECK PICKUPNow to the neck pickup. Clean, the neck pickup does jazz stuff very nicely, almost like what you'd epect out of a P90 with a tad bit more sparkle, playing rock oriented clean passages, the pickup had a lot of the clarity and glass that you'd expect from a single coil in the neck position. Although I personally preferred the DiMarzio Cruiser that was in there before as it had a more fluid tone.
Cranking the gain on the neck pickup produces a nice fat rhythm tone for blues rock stuff. The bottom end is nice and tight with a fair amount fullness. Think of it as a strat pickup with bigger tighter bottom end or a humbucker with tighter bottom end and more top end sparkle. Blues Rock lead tones are nice right across the fretboard. It handles so well that you could literally get away with just using the neck pickup for an entire song. With the gain reaching metal levels, the pickup starts to sound pretty crappy as a rhythm pickup, but then again, why in the world would you be using a neck pickup for metal rhythms to being with?? For metal/shred style lead stuff and all the Paul Gilbert-esque neo-classical shred stuff, the pickup works REALLY REALLY well. Clean and articulate are two words that come to my mind when it came down to it. The extra brightness DiMarzio added to the neck pickup really helps it cut and when I had someone else shred on my guitar (cause my shred skills aren't exactly up to par anymore), the notes come out very clear and well definited. If you're into the metal shred thing and want something different than the Air Norton or YJM, you should seriously give this a try. To be honest, I actually like the Injector neck a whole lot more than the YJM/HS-4's I used to have in this guitar before I put the cruiser in.
COMBINED WITH THE AREA 67 AND TOGETHERWhen either pickup was combined with the Area 67 in the middle position, the tone was very much what you'd expect from any strat in the # 2 and 4 inbetween positions. Nothing truly out of the world note worthy, just exactly the spank you'd expect (it was better than the cruiser and that stock single middle pickup that was in this guitar before). Great clean or with light amounts of distortion. I'd never use the in between positions for high gain applications personally.
With both pickups on, the clean tones sound very nice with an almost acoustic glass like quality. A very note worth combination IMO.
OVERALL OPINION/SUMMARYOverall, I'm VERY pleased with how these pickups are, and coming from a guy that's predominantly humbucker driven that's saying a lot. I find that the bridge pickup outshines the neck pickup but thats probably because I spend more of my time on the bridge pickup. If you're looking for a set of pickups that are very versatile to handle everything from Jazz, Blues/Rock to Metal (without going super over the top) these pickups are really something to consider. The Injector bridge has given me new faith in my strat to bring as my only guitar out to a gig in how well it handles everything. My only beef with the pickuips is that the bridge pickup can be a bit buzzy when the gain is cranked (and you can hear it off the Fuzz Universe album), but with the tone control rolled down it's totally awesome. The pickups aren't very 'vintage' sounding, so if thats what you're looking for, you're best off elsewhere but if you're out for a modern rock tone or a metal shred tone I'd highly recommend these and I'm sure I'll be recommending them a lot more around here.
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