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The Pickup Place / Re: Neck pickup to go with Air Norton in the Bridge of a Les Pasul

« on: August 20, 2025, 05:41:44 AM »

Guys, keep in mind, that a few 10s of Millivolts won't make a perceivable difference in output.
The PAF 36th neck isn't really quieter than the Air Norton, the latter only has a higher inductance, thus its resonant peak shifts a few hundred Hz more towards the lower frequencies. This evens things out a little regarding their positions in the guitar, but obviously not enough.
It's merely a matter of playing with pickup height, and maybe not being afraid to go for a high output bridge humbucker to balance out with a neck humbucker. You could always bring the bridge humbucker farther away from the strings.

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The Pickup Place / Re: 1990s B5 bridge humbucker

« on: August 20, 2025, 05:28:26 AM »

That B5 pickup is long sold, so I don't have pics any more.

On a side note: I spent the last two weeks reading on the guitarnutz2 forum and learned A LOT about pickups. Actually it was the first time in my life (after playing electric guitars for maybe 35 years, AND being an electrical engineer), I dove relly deep into what is technically important and really makes the sound of a pickup.
I mean, I've had the books by Manfred Zollner for like 10 years now, but tbh, Zollner gets VERY theoretical, and that guitarnutz2 forum mostly doesn't.

What I wanted to say: I wrote here in this thread, I don't like the Tonezone. Well, with with what I learned from guitarnutz2 AND reminding myself and you of this thread https://www.dimarzioforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=16029.0 , with the large DCR tolerances,  the snake oil DiMarzio EBMM EvH could very well sound like a Tonezone or vice versa.
So my main guitar at the moment, where the bridge pickup sits 5 ..7mm nearer to the bridge as in my EBMM Axis's, had a 12k A5 pickup, which I needed to bring very near to the bass strings, to have a balanced sound (and still does not come close to the Axis's). So I put one of my Dimarzio EvH pickups in there, just for the sake of testing, and - well it was really much better.
Now, knowing, that a Tonezone will sound VERY close, I found a cheap one, and put it in there - and turns out, I so much like it!!!
It sounds really, really good in that guitar. I have to admit, I don't like it in the guitar of my band buddy, an old EBMM SUB (chost-saving US-made variant of a Silhouette), where the bridge pickup is even a few millimeters further away from the bridge towards neck, so the TZ sounds quite muddy in there.

Long story short: I can say now: the Tonezone sounds GREAT!

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The Pickup Place / Re: HSS with Dimarzio Bridge HB

« on: August 20, 2025, 05:09:14 AM »

Thanks guys for all the hints and stuff. I ended up ordering a cheap Fleor single coil for neck position on Aliexpress (yeah...I know...) and put it in the middle position. Since switch position 4 is the only one to bring the middle pickup into play, and I rarely use it anyway, I decided to do so.
I ended up using the bridge side coil of the humbucker, expecting to cancel hum with the neck single coil, but it doesn't. I can live with that since - well I don't use it that often, and not with higian, I even don't use that guitar much any more.
Pos. 4 sound quite ok, maybe a bit thin, so maybe I'll change the wiring to using the neck side coil of the humbucker some time.

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The Pickup Place / Re: HSS with Dimarzio Bridge HB

« on: July 28, 2025, 01:45:24 AM »

Thanks gregr, been looking at that one as well.
Would this combination be the most or more authentic quack position, or the one using the bridge side coil of the humbucker?

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The Pickup Place / Re: 1990s B5 bridge humbucker

« on: July 27, 2025, 06:25:32 AM »

I was thinking Neck/Bridge but Front/Back could also be used to specify the location of each pickup.

Good point  While I have never heard of these terms being used by Dimarzio, I also don't consider myself an expert here 

I was thinking to just buy the thing, because it’s cheap, but neither do I like the Tonezone, nor do I need one.
I was hoping for some OEM PU made for Music Man, since the lugs don’t have a thread, and some EBMM models like the AXIS series would need it like that…

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The Pickup Place / Re: HSS with Dimarzio Bridge HB

« on: July 27, 2025, 06:12:10 AM »

Wind direction can and will vary depending on who made the pickup and when it was made.

Depending on the situation you can reverse the wires or reverse the magnetic polarity in order to get the desired result.

Yes of course, but changing magnetic direction in a standard single coil will not be possible with most.

But my basic assumption should be that be correct, shouldn‘t it?

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The Pickup Place / HSS with Dimarzio Bridge HB

« on: July 26, 2025, 04:32:20 PM »

Hey there, just a quick question (although I think I know the answer):
For position 4 in a HSS configuration I’d like to use the bridge (or screw) coil of the humbucker. This coil should be south. So the middle SC should be north and normal wound. Is this correct?

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The Pickup Place / Re: 1990s B5 bridge humbucker

« on: July 26, 2025, 02:02:15 PM »

Does the neck pickup have an N on the back?

Nopes. It has an „F“ there, so it most likely is a bridge humbucker.

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The Pickup Place / Re: 1990s B5 bridge humbucker

« on: July 23, 2025, 03:33:51 AM »

Does anyone have any infos? It basically looks like a black EVH custom with black back, and  "B 5" stamped on it. It measures 17,2k and is F-spaced.

May it be "Breed"?

Well the one I'm talking about has a classic pole pieces configurations, no double row allen key type ones.
It could be a Tonezone, from visuals and the DC resistance, but with black baseplate an B 5 stamped in ... ?
Other than that I am out of ideas :-)

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The Pickup Place / 1990s B5 bridge humbucker

« on: July 22, 2025, 05:18:55 AM »

Does anyone have any infos? It basically looks like a black EVH custom with black back, and  "B 5" stamped on it. It measures 17,2k and is F-spaced.

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The Pickup Place / Accuracy of DCR values

« on: February 20, 2025, 03:34:22 PM »

Does anyone have a feeling of how accurate large scale (and supposedly highly automated) pickup makers can wind their pickups to a certain spec or advertised value?

I have some examples:
I have two EvH Custom bridge pickups, one measures 16.74k, the other one 17.46k. A third one I had that I sold was more like 18k IIRC. In the "Remembering EvH" story it is "advertised" as 17k.
Then I have an f-spaced VHPAF measuring 9.90k, while Tonejourney's f-spaced specimen measures 9.59k, and it was advertised as 9.13k (dunno if as f-spaced).
Finally I have a 36th PAF neck that measures 7.67k, advertised as 7.31k.

I consider this to be quite a large range of values.
I'm just curious, there is nothing wrong with the pickups I own(ed).

But considering the hype around the gazillion PAF type pickups ...
(I mean, ok, there's probably still capacitance and inductance values that result from wire pull strength, or various layering techniques and whatnot. But does this translate into audible differences?)

Curious what's your point of view on that 

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The Pickup Place / Re: neck humbucker (or BB) to complement PAF type bridge HB

« on: November 22, 2023, 06:19:41 AM »

The classifieds on this Forum are very quiet so I would not place a bet on anything coming up there soon.

In the most popular German classifieds portal, Air Nortons come up consistently (regular and F-spaced, mostly black but sometimes zebra or double cream) but Nortons have become scarce for no obvious reasons.

With "here" I meant German "Kleinanzeigen" formerly run by ebay. 
At the moment there are a few, but I really like the look of that double cream neck humbucker on that specific guitar, so I hope for a double cream Air Norton F-spaced to come up.
I think I could more easily make a Norton out of an Air Norton, if I needed to, than the other way round.

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The Pickup Place / Re: neck humbucker (or BB) to complement PAF type bridge HB

« on: November 20, 2023, 02:38:24 PM »

Thanks LPBII an Gregor for the input!

My guitars do have the 5way switches, and the wiring is outer coils in parallel in Pos. 4, and inner coils in parallel in Pos. 2.
With that "reference guitar" these sounds do quack way more, than in my problem child.

I have seen or listened to quite a few Les Paul Standard video clips. The standard pickups are 490R and 498T, which are relatively high output, especially the 498T.
These will have a significantly lower resonant peak than a PAF, which to my ears may contribute quite a lot to that 2..2.5kHz quack. This would also underline what I hear in the reference guitar with its high impedance and lower resonanz peak pickups.
It does not underline, that the problem child does not quick like the reference guitar, when I install its original high impedance lower resonant peak pickups.

I also stumbled upon that fact, that in the middle position, in a Les Paul, the paralleled pickups effectively see the load of the two volume pots paralleled, which results in a 250k load. This might lower the resonant peak a little.
So I just soldered a 470k resistor into that problem child's electronic compartment, so that there is a ~250k load for all sounds except bridge humbucker alone.
Although I have no direkt AB comparison, I think I hear a tiiiiinnyy little more quack, in all positions (except bridge humbucker of course).
But I might be biased.

Still I'm kinda stuck. I'm still waiting for a used Air Norton or Norton to come up in classified ads here, which I assume are lower resonant peak, but still PAF-ey enough...

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The Pickup Place / Re: neck humbucker (or BB) to complement PAF type bridge HB

« on: November 18, 2023, 04:32:26 PM »

Spend some time experiementing with the height of the 36thN in the neck position.  Also experiement with the height of the screws.  Lowrering the pickup itself and then raising the screws can help getting that bell like tone in the neck position. The 36th N can get bell tones.

I don't know if your guitar is 24 frets or 22 frets, but the position of the screw coil in relation to the scale length matters as far as getting a bell like chime out of the neck position pickup, in my experience.  Ideally, you want one of the coils under where the 24th fret harmonic would be. If its a 24 fret guitar, maybe try putting the pickup in backwards to move the screw coil closer to the bridge after the screws are adjusted higher than the slugs.

With the Duncan Designed, or even the 36thN, you could try an A3 magnet. A3 bar magnets under humbuckers give more chime. I actually learned that from somebody here.  A3 is low output but that's not really a concern in the neck position. Just adjust height to balance the bridge position, and then tweak the screw adjustement.

Did you try a BB? The BB in the neck with a Tone Zone in the bridge really worked for me on a bright superstrat. I think the screw coil is the  active coil on it. Be aware that the BB plays like it has more output than listed, at least in my experience. In parallel, it can sound almost Fender SC like.

I also built a mahogany guitar for somebody a few years ago and used the 36th N in the bridge with an Air Classic N in the neck. I was surpized how chimey the neck postion sounded. That set was perfect for that guitar

Thanks for your input!

These guitars have their pickups mounted directly to the wood, so experimenting with height is way more difficult and only possible with some restraints.
I did put some washers to get the PAF-ey pickups closer to the strings, which would push the mids a little (apart from raising the level...). But the quack just does not happen.

I figured that the frequency of the quacky ü-vowel should be somewhere around 2kHz ...2.5kHz.
So SC chime is not what I'm after and is not what I hear from that link I posted.
I think it depends from the resonant peaks of the pickups to some extent. For most SC's that peak should be in the 3kHz to 3.5kHz area.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Air Norton Bridge Position

« on: November 16, 2023, 05:15:50 AM »

I have done maybe a year ago and there was something I didn't like, think it was something with the highs.
Also I think I was missing some of the high mids of the stock EvH custom DiMarzios.

I guess I'd see things a little differently now, because since a few months I am really, really digging a more PAF-ish output: I got a VHPAF, put it into one of my EBMM Axis Sports (bridge position, that is), and it is killer.

Having a PAF 36th DP103 there in the neck ATM, I could imagine an AN bridge could cure the, or some of the, lack of bass when switching from neck to bridge.

What I especially like with the VHPAF is the punch when riffing hard. I mostly play Fryette clones, and I am all about dry, stiff, punchy, jumps-outta-the-cab-at-you drop D chugs.

While I still like the stock EvH custom DiMarzios, these do compress, I can clearly feel that there is some give with my right hand. The VHPAF translates my right hand movements more accurately, if you will.
 
I wonder how the AN compares to the PAF 36th bridge in terms of  compression (considering VHPAF and 36th bridge feel quite the same).