Dimarzio Super Distortion

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PimpDaDdy

New member
Almost blasphemy to consider I know, but has anyone had any experience good or bad with Dimarzio pickups? I have been a die hard Seymour Duncan fan but I need some more tonal options in a guitar I have been playing with. It's a Les Paul Custom. I didn't hate the 490T stock pickup models but I had to crank the **** out of the treble and presence to get the metal tone that I was looking for with some bloom to pinch harmonics. I have tried a lot of what Seymour has to offer in various guitars and I'm having trouble finding THAT sound. This is what my experience has been with some of my bridge pickup options:

JB: AWESOME pickup for some styles! Needs more bass for chugga chugga heavy metal riffs. Great top end. Harmonics kill. Good for medium gain. Kind of like a skinny girl with big boobs and no ass. Their really nice to play with, I just seem to want more meat on those bones.

Custom: Good all around pickup. Not outstanding at anything. I really like it for heavy chording. Chords sound full and clear. Not enough life in the lead sound for me. Harmonics could be better. Yes I am a harmonic freak! This is the girl you take home to mom. Well rounded and does most things pretty well but won’t make you forget the skinny girl with big boobs or the one night stands.

Distortion: Can drive your amp really hard but sounds sterile and overbearing at times. Good for high gain but lacks articulation and soul to my ears. I didn’t like it for much of anything but high gain. Cleans and medium gain just sounded nasty to me. Not nasty in a good way either. This is the girl that was crazy in bed. She’s kind of a bitch, lacked substance and in hindsight was really only good for one thing.

I’m not giving up on Duncans and would still consider buying them if I found the right sound. Any opinions would be appreciated.
 
Re: Dimarzio Super Distortion

I had a DiMarzio Super Distortion in the bridge position of my hotrodded MIJ Tele for years. With that guitar's original 250K pots, I liked that PU's sound. I've tried them with 500K pots in other guitars, and didn't like them very much.

In the right situation though, the SD is a real nice pickup though. As I recall, even Al DiMeola used them.

That hotrodded MIJ now has a couple Duncan '59s, and 500K pots, and it's a better all around guitar now. Arguably, one of my best.

MIJbrickWall.jpg


The sound samples of the Duncan Distortion sound a bit clearer and more defined than the DiMarzio SD. I've never used one, but I'm sure it's worth trying if you're into distortion pickups.

Pete
 
Re: Dimarzio Super Distortion

The SuperD + Les Paul anything = pure tonal goodness.

I have a SuperD myself and love it. It's great in Les Pauls and Strats alike. A lot of folks like to compare it to the Duncan Distortion, for valid reasons. But to me, they are quite different.

The Duncan has a hotter wind to it, and it compresses more. The SuperD gets most of it's power from the big ceramic magnet.

The SuperD is pretty sensitive to height adjustment but once dialed in, it's wonderful. You don't have to keep it close to the strings at all, about 1 nickel on the treble side and 2 nickels on the bass side to start and then tweak from there. There's a good amount of lows/low-mids that give it a nice growl but you still get some sweetness on the highs. It's very full sounding, very fat, but not overbearing, to me anyway.

This pickup was made to slam the front end of an amp before all the high gain amps were available. Back when it came out (1972), all that was out there were the Marshall Plexi's, JMP's and the like. You wanted more it was either a Fuzz or hotter pickups.

However, it does clean up nice with a rollback of the volume knob (old school). I like the quality. It will also respond well to picking dynamics like no other pickup in it's class.

The bloom of pinch harmonics doesn't come from the highs and presence all the time. It's mostly the mids. Try pinching with a mid-scooped sound then with the mids cranked up. Big difference.

Now, having said all that, what sound are you going after? Examples?
 
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Re: Dimarzio Super Distortion

maybe a patb or some emg pups would be more in your liking. other ideas might be a norton or tone zone if you want more power.
 
Re: Dimarzio Super Distortion

i have a les paul with a gibson 500 t in the bridge and a sd jb in the neck and all i can say is this set up on this les paul is smokin.
 
Re: Dimarzio Super Distortion

Right. I should have mentioned what sound I am going for. I play a little bit of everything of course right. LOL. I have been fighting with the idea of getting EMGs. I have tried them and you can color your sound anyway you want but they just sound sterile to me. I guess what I am trying to find are some Zakk Wylde sounds but in a passive pickup that still has some soul. I’m looking for bone crunching heavy rhythms, palm muting chugga chugga sounds, screaming harmonics and a bit of a soft tubular high end. By tubular I mean a softer attack, articulate neck pick up sound like the Jazz, well defined bass that can stand up to some decent gain. If it cleaned up ok that would be kewl too.

A friend of mine that is a great guitarist said he liked the Dimarzio Tone Zone. I think it sounds awesome but I’m worried it’s not going to have enough heat for me or possibly be too dark in a Les Paul. He keeps telling me to forget about the pickups and just play. I have to find my sound first then I can stop thinking about pickups and bridges and tone woods and just work on my technique and let it rip.
 
Re: Dimarzio Super Distortion

Oh ya.

ErikH,

Thanks for that "mid" advise! I'm not a big mid scooper but I'll at least play with it and see how the two extremes affect my harmonics.
 
Re: Dimarzio Super Distortion

Ok, well, in the passive world, I'd definitely stick with a ceramic pickup for the extra power. The two choices I can leave out there are the Duncan Custom and the DiMarzio SuperD, and you've tried the Custom already. If you want more heat than those, yeah, the Tone Zone is hot. Not sure how it will sound in a Les Paul. Not all Les Pauls are dark sounding. With the ebony board, you may be ok with it actually. Doesn't hurt to try. I have no problem doing ZW stuff with the SuperD.

What amp do you use? That's a bigger factor than any pickup.
 
Re: Dimarzio Super Distortion

PimpDaDdy said:
Right. I should have mentioned what sound I am going for. I play a little bit of everything of course right. LOL. I have been fighting with the idea of getting EMGs. I have tried them and you can color your sound anyway you want but they just sound sterile to me. I guess what I am trying to find are some Zakk Wylde sounds but in a passive pickup that still has some soul. I’m looking for bone crunching heavy rhythms, palm muting chugga chugga sounds, screaming harmonics and a bit of a soft tubular high end. By tubular I mean a softer attack, articulate neck pick up sound like the Jazz, well defined bass that can stand up to some decent gain. If it cleaned up ok that would be kewl too.
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The Super Distortion has a very thick and powerful tone with lots of low mids that will push an amp hard without it becoming too woofy. It along with the EMG 81 are my two favorite rhythm pickups. The Super Distortion for low to med gain amps, and the EMG 81 for high gain.
 
Re: Dimarzio Super Distortion

Ok, well, in the passive world, I'd definitely stick with a ceramic pickup for the extra power. The two choices I can leave out there are the Duncan Custom and the DiMarzio SuperD, and you've tried the Custom already. If you want more heat than those, yeah, the Tone Zone is hot. Not sure how it will sound in a Les Paul. Not all Les Pauls are dark sounding. With the ebony board, you may be ok with it actually. Doesn't hurt to try. I have no problem doing ZW stuff with the SuperD.
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Hmm?I'm not an expert on this by any means (Actually, I'm pretty new to the entire pickup world, so corrections are always welcomed), but what about the evolutions? They're pretty powerful and they have ceramic magnets as well.
 
Re: Dimarzio Super Distortion

Never tried the Evolutions myself so I couldn't tell ya.

One other thing that I just remembered about the SuperD, and screamingdaisy's post reminded me. You'll want to back the bass down on your amp some. I had to otherwise it did get too woofy for me, hence the pickup height adjustment (2 nickel recommendation).
 
Re: Dimarzio Super Distortion

PimpDaDdy said:
JB: Kind of like a skinny girl with big boobs and no ass. Their really nice to play with, I just seem to want more meat on those bones.

Custom: This is the girl you take home to mom. Well rounded and does most things pretty well but won’t make you forget the skinny girl with big boobs or the one night stands.

Distortion: This is the girl that was crazy in bed. She’s kind of a bitch, lacked substance and in hindsight was really only good for one thing.
Click to expand...

hilarious stuff dude
 
Re: Dimarzio Super Distortion

I'm a user of both brands - but prefer duncan for the most part. That said erikH and I are totally on the dsame page with the SuperD. I find that that it's a little tamer than you might think. 13k was a pretty hot pup back in the day. I think that's a lot of what I like about it. That said, I love my duncan distortion! Really different pups though...
 
Re: Dimarzio Super Distortion

Have you tried a Custom5 yet? It's my fav out of all the Duncan bridge buckers.
 
Re: Dimarzio Super Distortion

if you are lookin for zakk wylde but in a passive why not try the d activators they are made by dimarzio and seem promising. evolutions are more shred but they are tight like the custom more output and more high end with great harmonics. if you do go active go with the mustaine livewires they are like the jb jazz set but active and no flabbiness on the bottom like the passive versions. they have more gain too. i donno the super distortion reminds too much of the 70 warm bassy distortion, deep purple sounding. i dont think youd get much zakk wylde maybe randy rhoads. Maybe try the dime bucker too it has the same eq as the new blackouts which are modeled after the zakk wylde set
 
Re: Dimarzio Super Distortion

At the risk of starting a flame war. I like the SuperDistortion. It's that Ace Frehley sound and the Offspring sound.
 
Re: Dimarzio Super Distortion

from your discriptions the super distortion would be like the 40 year old milf, shes got ass and nice boobs but shes just way too old school.
 
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