1

The Pickup Place / Re: Super Distortion or the Super 3

« on: March 12, 2026, 11:56:36 AM »

Indeed - the 36th anniversary bridge is in the hot PAF category whereas the other DiMarzios mentioned are high output. JB,  Norton and Breed are between those in output. In this group, JB and Breed are midhyped whereas Norton leans more towards a hot PAF.

Cheers Stephan

2

The Pickup Place / Re: Super Distortion or the Super 3

« on: March 09, 2026, 01:29:28 PM »

To be more specific on the differences between a JB and a Super D:

- Super D has more output and punch
- JB is a mid-hyped pickup, Super D has mids but more in the lower range. In some guitars it can take on a rather dark midrange color
- JB has smoother highs, Super D can sound fizzy or brittle in the high end if the guitar accentuates that. If this occurs, this can sometimes be countered by bringing down the load on the pickup from 500k to approx. 380k (i.e. adding a resistance of 1.5 meg to 1.6 meg to ground).

Cheers Stephan

3

The Pickup Place / Re: Super Distortion or the Super 3

« on: March 09, 2026, 05:08:34 AM »

I have never played a Super 3 but I played both the JB and the Super Distortion and can confidently say that those two pickups are very very different.

4

Everything you wanted to know about .... / Re: FRED

« on: March 03, 2026, 03:50:36 AM »

I noted that the FRED is very guitar sensitive and load sensitive. The upside is that it is very tweakable as a result. In a recent project (an alder bodied guitar with maple/rosewood neck and a floyd rose trem) it was close with 500k and spot on with a 2m2 ohms resistor to ground to make the total load approx. 410k. The middle position benefitted as well (neck pu is a Duncan Full Shred neck).

Cheers Stephan

5

Everything you wanted to know about .... / Re: FRED

« on: February 16, 2026, 05:58:56 AM »

Glad my post helped. Indeed, HSS is one application where the FRED shines because it works well with a 250k load.

Cheers Stephan

6

The mini bar (off topic & misc) / The Trading Post - Clearing Action

« on: January 27, 2026, 05:59:46 AM »

I removed some old threads in this section (older than 2020) as I assume they were no longer relevant. If I inadvertently removed something which you as OP deem still relevant please feel free to repost.

Cheers Stephan

7

The Pickup Place / Re: Bridge pickup for Strat

« on: January 19, 2026, 04:03:52 AM »

From the rails/blades type pickups I played the Super Distortion S and the Chopper, the Chopper being my clear favorite of those two. No experience with any of the Duncan models in the bridge position.

Cheers Stephan

8

The mini bar (off topic & misc) / Re: Spam

« on: January 06, 2026, 05:12:56 AM »

From time to time I see spam threads on this forum, and these are so far the only instances where I exercise my moderator power - such threads will be invariably removed with no exception.

Cheers Stephan

9

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

« on: December 19, 2025, 04:58:48 AM »

That is a small offset but I guess this still qualifies as Dual Resonance. I just checked in the stickied post and found that the Satch Track is not listed. And since I assume you measured the coils back-to-back, we can rule out variances due to temperature changes.

The description on the current website does not help much insofar. "Articulate, vocal and musical, it is our most advanced Fast Track-style pickup to date."

You can only infer from the wording "most advanced Fast Track-style pickup to date" that it would not have fewer technologies than the other Fast Track-style pickup but we are talking marketing language here so I would not jump to conclusions.

Cheers Stephan

10

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

« on: December 18, 2025, 09:00:26 AM »

It is certainly worth trying as it costs nothing and can be redone at any time. Keep in mind though that various pickups react very different when the load of a tone control is removed. From my personal experience the Injector neck as well as the Chopper are quite sensitive to this whereas with other pickups the difference was rather minimal (i.e. audible but not significant). As the Satch Track's specs are close to the Chopper's this could have a significant effect. It is also a matter of whether the guitar in question produces the frequencies. In some cases it is not really the tone that changes much but the playing feel - this is hard to describe but the guitar "feels faster" and more open. You have to try to see whether you like the effect.

It also depends on the value of the tone pot. Going from a 250k to no tone control is a bigger step  than going from 500k to no tone control. So if you have a 250k right now, you could go to 500k or 1meg, lighten the load on the neck pickup and still have a tone control for it.

I have a tele (my Pinepartscaster) that has a Chopper T in the bridge and an Injector neck in the neck. 500k volume. I started out with a 500k tone pot and a 0.0015uf cap (yes, not 0.015uf) but that made both pickups slightly nasal. I then removed the tone control but that made both pickups too harsh. I settled on a 1meg tone control as a happy medium - now the pickups are open, articulate and neither nasal nor harsh.

Cheers Stephan

11

The Pickup Place / Re: Can anyone identify this old 80s stacked single?

« on: December 16, 2025, 05:08:26 AM »

Actually the Virtual Vintage single coil series were only released in the mid 90s so if the Seller says he bought the pickup in the mid 80s it is impossible that it is one of those. So if it has pole pieces it is most certainly a HS-1. If it does not have polepieces it could be a Shock Wave - this was a set developed for the use with a preamp but it works passively as well, sounds quite good but is low output as well.

Personally I would go straight to the Areas as IMHO they have a convincing single coil tone paired with healthy output.

Cheers Stephan

12

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

« on: December 15, 2025, 04:20:22 AM »

I would be cautious about the Virtual Solo in the neck position as it has Alnico 5 magnets which have more string pull than the other models mentioned. Anything else fine - Chopper and Satch Track would be the closest to the humbucker camp.

Cheers Stephan

13

The Pickup Place / Re: Can anyone identify this old 80s stacked single?

« on: December 15, 2025, 04:18:15 AM »

In the 80s DiMarzio had the HS-1, HS-2 and HS-3 models but I believe they were all higher DC resistance. Even though their output was rather low - even lower than standard single coils. I guess they had to use very thin wire to get enough turns on both coils.

I have to check the old catalogue whether this could be one of the Virtual Vintage models which are now discontinued in favor of the Area series.

Cheers Stephan

14

The Pickup Place / Re: Difference between The Breed and Dominion?

« on: December 10, 2025, 08:26:48 AM »

By now it is back in the regular line up, even though there is a footnote saying that it is made to special order with a production time of 4-6 weeks.

Cheers Stephan

15

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

« on: December 10, 2025, 08:23:26 AM »

Glad to see the set is back in the regular line up, albeit as a special order model with longer production time.