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The Pickup Place / attaching ferrous plate under VV Blues bridge pickup

« on: December 13, 2017, 10:20:48 AM »

I've been thinking about soldering a ferrous plate underneath my bridge pickup for increased output and a little thicker sound. Has anyone tried this with the VV or Area series? If so, what were the results?

Thanks!

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The Pickup Place / Area series VS both old and new Virtual Vintage single coils.

« on: January 09, 2017, 12:32:59 PM »

I am a strat player who is in love with the truest single coil tones possible. I play full time in a variety of situations that don't allow for 60 cycle hum... I started using the Virtual Vintage series shortly after they came out in the mid '90's.. I really liked them, because at that time, they seemed to be the closest to the real deal... The only problem that I had with them is in the bridge position.. I like a fairly fat sound in the bridge, more like a tele bridge tone, but still very single coil sounding. Just fatter and warmer.. I have an old VV Solo Pro and  VV Blues (both from the '90's) that I tried in the bridge pos of my strats, but no matter what I did I couldn't dial out this super high-end, upper presence-y frequency that was like an icepick to my ears.. While both of these pickups sounded hotter and fatter, neither of them had any warmth... Fast forward to the present. I'm currently using the Area 58 and 67 in the middle and neck, which are superb.. I still haven't found a bridge pickup that can do what I described earlier.. I'm leaning toward the 54 Pro or the Injector series.. Any thoughts?

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The Pickup Place / EMG's VS. trad single coils?

« on: March 05, 2016, 10:01:09 AM »

Hello - I am a strat guy and love the sound of traditional single coils, but after much experimenting I've settled on the Dimarzio Area series for live use, as I'm a full time musician and can't sound like I'm standing next to a garbage truck on stage every time I turn on the overdrive.. Of course the Area series aren't perfect, but compared to real single coils I do find them quite convincing... Has anyone had success with EMG's? I know they won't sound exactly like a true single coil, but I play live so much and I want something that will be quiet and not lose fidelity or signal through a bunch of pedals and cables.. And I've read that they respond very well to the volume knob on the guitar, which I use very much. Supposedly, as you turn down the knob you don't lose any part of the frequency. I've tried many different high pass filters (treble bleeds) through the years and hated all of them, as they rolled off all of the bass, mid, and character of the pickup while preserving only treble frequencies... A big thing for me too is to not lose those beautiful 2 and 4 notch sounds.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

4

The Pickup Place / Why doesn't AT-1 split well?

« on: December 22, 2015, 09:16:12 PM »

Hello! I have a PRS Custom 24 that came stock with the HFS in the bridge, which sounded horrible in every way, and the Vintage Bass in the neck which I quite like.. After experimenting with different bridge pickups I tried the AT-1. I liked it quite a bit in series, but tapped it sounded incredibly weak and anemic compared to the much lower output Vintage Bass pickup, which sounds great in series or tapped... I found this disappointing and confusing that such a higher output pickup would sound so weak tapped, and I'm quite sure I didn't wire it out of phase, as I tried several wiring combinations to get every position in phase.. Could it have something to do with the air technology causing the weak sounding split? Thanks!

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The Pickup Place / The AT-1

« on: November 20, 2015, 06:15:00 PM »

Hello! Does anyone happen to know if the AT-1 uses airbucker (spacer) technology?

Thanks!

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The Pickup Place / The AT-1

« on: November 20, 2015, 06:13:48 PM »

Hello! Does anyone happen to know if the AT-1 uses airbucker (spacer) technology?

Thanks!