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The Pickup Place / Re: SSS Strat Pickup Combinations

« Last post by darkbluemurder on January 27, 2025, 03:26:58 AM »

I found that linear pots (BXXX) work best for clean and semi-clean tones, especially with a treble bleed. For higher gain tones I cannot hear much happening until I turn it down almost completely.

Injector neck is a great choice for the neck position, in particular with 500k pots.

I am still to try a Fast Track 1 in either neck or bridge position.

Cheers Stephan

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The Pickup Place / Re: SSS Strat Pickup Combinations

« Last post by gregr on January 26, 2025, 05:04:43 PM »

I’m finishing up another pickguard which I think is noteworthy. This time it was built around the Fast Track 1 in the bridge.

As you may already know the Fast Track 1 sounds like a single coil with humbucker tendencies. It is dynamic with a lot of output. It’s lean with a healthy amount of treble, though it lacks the pure bell sound and top end chime of a single coil, though additional presence can be had with larger value pots without sounding brittle. It can get strident with 500k controls, however.

An Injector Neck was fitted in the neck position which I believe is an excellent match, both in terms of output as well as frequency response. Like with the Fast Track 1 it can benefit from larger pots and can produce some really nice chime in split mode.

The middle position was fitted with an Area 61 which compliments the other two pickups nicely, both in terms of frequency response as well as dynamics. It’s a tad lean but well worth it since it’s able to deliver nice quack with the Injector when both are split. I reversed the polarity of the Area 61 with neodymium rod magnets so that hum is cancelled in positions 2 & 4.

The volume control is a B500k with a treble bleed that is 220pF in series with 20k. The middle control is currently an A500k with a 22nF cap acting as a master tone control. The outer control is a B500k with an 820pF cap acting as a presence control. It is only active in position 5 (neck only), where it is combined with the master tone control. I’ve configured the other end of the control so that it begins shunting the noise cancelling coil of the Injector around 8, fully shorting it when on 10. The active coil of the Area 61 is currently hard-wired with a 240k shunt resistor and the Fast Track 1 is currently shunted with a 510k resistor in position 1 (bridge only).

EDIT: The master tone control will later change as will the loading.

43

The Pickup Place / Re: Air Norton Bridge Position

« Last post by HeyNorton! on January 26, 2025, 08:38:38 AM »

The output is on par with that of a PAF. I tried one with an HFH in the neck but couldn’t gel with it. It was really lean and devoid of growl when compared to other pickups with similar output. I found it to be bright, but I think unbalanced is a more apt description. I only tried it in one guitar so take it with a grain of salt. If I were to give it another go it would be in an HSS configuration.

I’m looking forward to your review.

You know, I found the norton the same way. 
I radically lowered the treble side to balance it, and was much happier with it.
It stayed as a bridge pickup for close to 15 years.

When I tried it in another guitar, it was the same unbalanced bright.  Once again radical lowering helped a bunch.

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The Pickup Place / My NORTON Review

« Last post by nienturi on January 24, 2025, 05:13:52 AM »

Hello,

I have new review on Tone Jpurney. This time it is for Norton;

https://www.tonejourney.com/post/dimarzio-norton-review-dp160

Hop you enjoy!

45

News & New Guys / Re: Happy New Year 2025

« Last post by nienturi on January 08, 2025, 01:17:34 AM »

Thanks Stephan I wish everything great to us all

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News & New Guys / Happy New Year 2025

« Last post by darkbluemurder on January 06, 2025, 09:40:03 AM »

Hello all,

I wish you all a Happy New Year 2025.

Cheers Stephan

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The Pickup Place / Re: Gravity Storm bridge, what neck pickup?

« Last post by frankencat on December 27, 2024, 12:30:04 AM »

I haven’t seen a lot of reviews on the GS neck pickup but yeah, I guess that makes sense.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Gravity Storm bridge, what neck pickup?

« Last post by greenlion on December 18, 2024, 08:12:23 PM »

Um.... why not the Gravity Storm Neck?  It is one of the best neck pickups Dimarzio makes and it is made to match the Gravity Storm Bridge. I love that set in Basswood Ibanez RG's and mahogany/maple Les Paul type guitars.

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The Pickup Place / Re: PAF pickups that are close in brightness to singles?

« Last post by Ampli_Fuzz on December 15, 2024, 08:02:37 PM »

The neck version of the PAF Master is A5. Is it really darker than an Air Classic? I was thinking about a PAF Master set for my SG, but I hate dark neck humbuckers. What would be a good match for the PAF Master bridge to keep the amount of bass the same when switching from one to the other?

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The Pickup Place / Re: Gravity Storm bridge, what neck pickup?

« Last post by nienturi on December 13, 2024, 08:38:42 AM »

Since i have no idea about your intention/desire/aim for tone, i can only list some of my reviews for you:

https://www.tonejourney.com/post/dimarzio-aldimeola-dp201
https://www.tonejourney.com/post/dimarzio-air-norton-dp193-at-neck-review
https://www.tonejourney.com/post/dimarzio-paf-pro-review
https://www.tonejourney.com/post/dimarzio-air-classic-neck-review-dp190

Next thing you know, i have no experience with GS; on paper it must be somewhat like a Tone Zone. But those catalog data might quite be misleading sometimes