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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« Last post by darkbluemurder on August 19, 2026, 10:40:50 AM »

Speaking of the HS-X series, DiMarzio was on the right way as regards the tone. However, they were so quiet, and not only in noise ...

Same for the Shock Wave pickups (long discontinued). I understand why they came with a preamp as they were just as quiet as the HS-X series.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« Last post by darkbluemurder on August 17, 2026, 09:54:34 AM »

Maybe I just haven't found the right guitar for it yet, but the AT-1 bores me to tears.

I hear you as I have moved mine from guitar to guitar until I think I found a good home for it (for now....)

I installed Duncan Classic Strat Plus's in for somebody. I wasn't that impressed. A bit dissapointing. They seemed to lack responsiveness to picking dynamics. They were good if you switched off the noiseless. There's a reason the Dimarzio Area series have become the industrty standard for noiseless SCs, I guess.

When the Classic and Hot Stacks came out in the 80s I had one of each. While they had healthier outputs than the HS-x series of DiMarzio, to me they did not sound anything like true single coils. The OBL ("Original Bill Lawrence") L 250 series also missed that mark IMHO.

Cheers Stephan

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« Last post by LPBII on August 12, 2026, 10:15:53 AM »

Maybe I just haven't found the right guitar for it yet, but the AT-1 bores me to tears.

I installed Duncan Classic Strat Plus's in for somebody. I wasn't that impressed. A bit dissapointing. They seemed to lack responsiveness to picking dynamics. They were good if you switched off the noiseless. There's a reason the Dimarzio Area series have become the industrty standard for noiseless SCs, I guess.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« Last post by darkbluemurder on August 11, 2026, 04:12:00 AM »

I have to also add the old Bill Lawrence with the single blade. I guess they were the first attempt to create a single coil sized humcancelling pickup but unfortunately it was also a "good sound cancelling" pickup. 

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The Pickup Place / Re: Pickups that have left you less than impressed?

« Last post by darkbluemurder on August 06, 2026, 08:52:58 AM »

Two more I really didn't like:

1. PJ Marx (I think they are long out of business) Jeff Watson Signature: sound was ok but even though fully epoxied it squealed like a stuck pig - by far the most microphonic pickup I have ever encountered. Since it was potted in epoxy there was no chance of improving things with potting. Very weird - their humcancelling single coil sized humbuckers were really good.

2. Evans (probably also out of business) humcancelling single coil sized humbuckers: these pickups had the endorsement of the late and great Jeff Healey but the two I had had a dead zone on the D string. I still have them in a box, never to return to any guitar. They could be used as paperweights though.

Cheers Stephan

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Everything you wanted to know about .... / Re: The AT-1

« Last post by darkbluemurder on August 04, 2026, 05:31:07 AM »

I have moved my AT-1 from guitar to guitar, always finding something lacking in the end - mostly too much bloated midrange.

That is until I put it in a bolt-on Junior type guitar with a Paulownia body and maple/rosewood neck. It replaced a Mo' Joe which was fine but lacked the substance on the higher notes. I had thought long and hard about what to put in there and initially thought "not the AT-1" as I did not think it would be a good fit. But I did - and I am glad I did. The guitar loves the AT-1. It filled the missing frequencies nicely to make the high notes fat. The bottom end is not overly tight but not flubby either. And, finally, it does not sound nasal in this guitar. Like the JB, the AT-1 appears to be more sensitive than the average humbucker to the guitar it is in.

It is the only pickup in that guitar, which has a volume and a tone control (both 500k audio) and a 3-way toggle wired for series/parallel/single coil.

Cheers Stephan

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The Pickup Place / Re: Neck Position: Fast Track 1 vs. Injector bridge vs. Virtual Solo

« Last post by darkbluemurder on August 03, 2026, 05:36:15 AM »

Now have the Inj. neck in middle position. Put both on some 5mm plastic spacers. Now they are veeeery similar in output to the stock bridge humbucker.
I used a four-layer switch (though I‘d only need two..) for the following combinations:
1 - neck
2 - middle
3 - neck + bridge
4 - middle + Bridge
5 - Bridge

There’s now splitting or other fancy stuff involved.

Cool simple set up.

I found that with some guitars, middle solo does sound similar to bridge + neck, especially since you have the brightest pickup in the middle position.

No idea how the bridge + middle sounds with neither pickup split. If you like it, great, leave as is. When I had set ups like this I always missed the sparkle on top. Since you have a 4-layer switch you could split both pickups in that position for a very distinct sound compared to the others which is still humcancelling - that's probably what I would do.  EDIT: check the polarity of the coils and make sure that the right coil of the bridge pickup is active in the B+M position.

Cheers Stephan

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The Pickup Place / Re: Neck Position: Fast Track 1 vs. Injector bridge vs. Virtual Solo

« Last post by gregr on July 31, 2026, 08:15:01 PM »

FYI: Finally found an Injector bridge to put it in the neck position of my Axis Sport HSS. Was 80€ used incl. shipping, not exactly cheap, but ok considering they cost around 110…120€ new.

Now have the Inj. neck in middle position. Put both on some 5mm plastic spacers. Now they are veeeery similar in output to the stock bridge humbucker.
I used a four-layer switch (though I‘d only need two..) for the following combinations:
1 - neck
2 - middle
3 - neck + bridge
4 - middle + Bridge
5 - Bridge

There’s now splitting or other fancy stuff involved.
The sound differences for most of the switch pos. is not too far from each other, which can be a good thing, but I might try to take out the spacers, maybe there’s more variety then.

Excellent!

I would love to hear a demo if that is at all possible and you’re willing, of course.


Congratulations!

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The Pickup Place / Re: Neck Position: Fast Track 1 vs. Injector bridge vs. Virtual Solo

« Last post by headcrash on July 25, 2026, 09:39:56 AM »

FYI: Finally found an Injector bridge to put it in the neck position of my Axis Sport HSS. Was 80€ used incl. shipping, not exactly cheap, but ok considering they cost around 110…120€ new.

Now have the Inj. neck in middle position. Put both on some 5mm plastic spacers. Now they are veeeery similar in output to the stock bridge humbucker.
I used a four-layer switch (though I‘d only need two..) for the following combinations:
1 - neck
2 - middle
3 - neck + bridge
4 - middle + Bridge
5 - Bridge

There’s now splitting or other fancy stuff involved.
The sound differences for most of the switch pos. is not too far from each other, which can be a good thing, but I might try to take out the spacers, maybe there’s more variety then.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Virtual Solo for the win

« Last post by LPBII on July 09, 2026, 09:15:55 PM »

I revisited the Solo in an SSS strat today. I liked it a few years ago but went back to a stock strat single in the bridge position for music I was playing at that time.
Also it was sounding strangely dark on the wound strings. Turns out that was because of the speakers I was using at the time.

So, with different speakers and back to playing more leads again, the stock pickup was lacking power as before.

One of the great things I discovered about the Solo this time around is that with the guitar volume down a couple notches and the tone up a few notches it is pretty much a stock strat bridge pickup. Then if you crank up the guitar volume and roll the tone back a couple notches, it turns into a pretty good paf. (I use a 250k pot on the middle knob hooked up to the bridge pickup) And the guitar looks stock.

The notch position with the middle pickup is very stratty at all volume settings.

 BTW, Take your time dialing in the pickup height. It matters with this one.