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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.

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Everything you wanted to know about .... / Re: The Tone Zone

« Last post by nienturi on July 01, 2026, 01:46:21 AM »

Thanks to nienturi's excellent review of the Air Zone (thanks for posting this on here), we have 8.3k for the screw coil and 9k for the slug coil, assuming the coils of Air Zone and Tone Zone are identical.

Cheers Stephan

I also have Tone Zone measurements
Thanks BTW.

Dimarzio DP155 Tone Zone
Magnet – Alnico 5
Advertised DCR: 17,31K Ohm (Series)
Measured DCR: 17,45 K Ohm (Series)
Measured DCR: 8,25 K Ohm (Slug Coil)
Measured DCR: 9,29 K Ohm (Screw Coil)
Inductance @100Hz: 8,79H (Series)
Inductance @100Hz: 3,77H (Slug Coil)
Inductance @100Hz: 4,03H (Screw Coil)
Gauss: 340G Screw, 375G Slug
https://www.tonejourney.com/post/dimarzio-tone-zone-dp155-review

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Everything you wanted to know about .... / Re: The Tone Zone

« Last post by darkbluemurder on June 29, 2026, 04:51:57 AM »

Thanks to nienturi's excellent review of the Air Zone (thanks for posting this on here), we have 8.3k for the screw coil and 9k for the slug coil, assuming the coils of Air Zone and Tone Zone are identical.

Cheers Stephan

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Everything you wanted to know about .... / Tone Zone 7 half air mod. Who’s done it?

« Last post by wxs3 on June 26, 2026, 12:34:07 AM »

Just as the title says. Has anyone done a tone zone 7 half air mod?

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The Pickup Place / Re: Rail Strat humbuckers: splitting or parallel?

« Last post by darkbluemurder on June 22, 2026, 04:44:26 AM »

Ugh, Gregr... you're tempting me!
Alright, it's decided: the experiment is happening.

My favorite guitar has a BC-1 in the bridge position and a Cruiser Bridge in the neck position.

Using a Super Switch, I've already worked out the wiring to get these options:
1) Bridge in series
2) Bridge in parallel
3) Bridge partial split with a 2.2k resistor
4) Partial split bridge with a 1.2k resistor + (full) neck in parallel
5) Neck in series

In the next few days I will try!

I like that set up with the pickups you are using. As the Cruiser is bright and low output already it does not make much sense to me to split or parallel it on its own. On the other hand, with the powerful bridge pickup you are using the split and parallel sections should have sufficient output to work well.

Have fun.
Stephan