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

« Last post by corypheus on Today at 01:51:34 PM »

1mohm vol pot really in my experience likes a treble bleed, even a simple one, since as the volume goes down the sound turns darker at a higher rate than with lower resistance volume pots.

I’ll take this a step further and say that if you’re interested in preserving top-end chime with a treble bleed cap (say ~180pF with a 500k control), you may be better off with a 1M pot (with 100pF). The reason being is you increase the high frequency load on the pickup as you decrease the volume.

Pretty much fully agreed on that, as it mimics my experience as well.

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

« Last post by gregr on September 23, 2026, 10:17:35 PM »

1mohm vol pot really in my experience likes a treble bleed, even a simple one, since as the volume goes down the sound turns darker at a higher rate than with lower resistance volume pots.

I’ll take this a step further and say that if you’re interested in preserving top-end chime with a treble bleed cap (say ~180pF with a 500k control), you may be better off with a 1M pot (with 100pF). The reason being is you increase the high frequency load on the pickup as you decrease the volume.

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

« Last post by corypheus on September 23, 2026, 10:48:38 AM »

That is certainly something worth trying.

With one caveat I forgot to mention, 1mohm vol pot really in my experience likes a treble bleed, even a simple one, since as the volume goes down the sound turns darker at a higher rate than with lower resistance volume pots. I use volume pot a lot since I am running essentially a single channel amp, so to get a semblance of clean I need to turn it down, but if you're set and forget type of player then the treble bleed serves little purpose.

Have a good one

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

« Last post by darkbluemurder on September 23, 2026, 08:04:46 AM »

That is certainly something worth trying.

I commented on the wood impact on the final tone elsewhere so I will not reiterate that here as this topic is limited to the AT-1.

Cheers Stephan

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

« Last post by corypheus on September 22, 2026, 09:53:51 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

I'm sure you know this even better than me, but I remember reading that AT1 on a 500k vol pot was basically designed to sound like a TB4 loaded with 250k volume pot. I always approached this as the "bible" and simply always mated AT1 with 1000k volume pot (I don't use tone pots), and had great success. It's still smoother sounding than a JB, but the bigger volume pot really opens the congested bloaty midrange, at least in my experience. This was mostly in two Les Pauls, so shorter scale heavier guitars (mahogany made if you tend to believe body woods have an impact on the end sound, fwiw).

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

« Last post by corypheus on September 22, 2026, 09:45:56 AM »

I have played Nita Strauss JivaJr that a friend swapped in DiMarzio Pandemonium and modded the guitar to accept schaller floyd rose. The guitar really negatively surprised me as the neck was twisted (mind you this was a fairly new guitar) slightly towards the bass side at the ending of the neck nearing the locking nut but the biggest surprise were the DiMarzios in it.

I found the bridge to be very in your face, which is a quality I actually personally like - but both of the pickups were lacking articulation and presence. Both were quite nasal sounding, congested in the mids and at the same time somehow they both felt stiff and dry.

I don't remember if I tried this years ago when they came out, I possibly could have, but I don't remember if I did and what were my thoughts back then - but trying them now really made me think they are possibly the worst DiMarzios I have tried, and I tried probably 90% of everything in the "high power" category and most in the other two as well. Could it possibly have been the guitar? Maybe, as the guitar wasn't really a good one.

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The Pickup Place / My review of the D-Activator Bridge

« Last post by nienturi on September 18, 2026, 09:14:53 AM »

Hello. This is my review of Dimarzio D-Activator

https://www.tonejourney.com/post/dimarzio-d-activator-bridge-review

Hope you like it

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The Pickup Place / Re: My X2N Review

« Last post by darkbluemurder on September 10, 2026, 04:40:42 AM »

Cool - I like that story.

My oldest pickups are with me since the late 80s, among them a Bill Lawrence OBL L-500 XL, Gordon Smith humbucker and a Gibson HBL+. The one that gets used now and then is the OBL - also very high output.

Cheers Stephan

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Gear Closet / Re: Roland Blues Cube BC-30 (original version)

« Last post by kookaburra on September 09, 2026, 06:24:29 PM »

I know I enjoy my Microcube, and the larger models I’ve heard others play sounded good!

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The Pickup Place / Re: My X2N Review

« Last post by kookaburra on September 09, 2026, 10:32:04 AM »

I always enjoy your reviews, thanks!

I used the X2N in 1981/82.  I wanted a hot pickup for the bridge of my Strat, and the local music store guided me that way.

I used it in a hard rock band, guitar, Tube Screamer, Twin Reverb w/Celestions in the combo, and a Celestion loaded 4x12.  Rocked like a mofo!

I managed to hold on to that X2N until the 90s, where I  dropped it in Hamer Scarab II.  Sounded great in that guitar also, with various British amps being used.

I sold that Hamer with the X2N in it, so that was the end of my enjoyable X2N journey.