daveyisgreat
New member
So this isn't really supposed to be a post that stirs up anything. I'm just going to tell my story.
I recently concluded my experiment with DiMarzio pickups. They were the first aftermarket pickups I'd heard of, all my favorite players played them when I was first starting out (Petrucci, Satriani, Vai, pre-Peavey EVH, etc.) so naturally when I changed the pickup in my first guitar, a Fender Prodigy, I went with a DiMarzio Fred. Then I put together a parts guitar and installed an Air Zone and an Air Norton. All the DiMarzio pickups I used were all clear upgrades from the stock pickup in my Fender that I had been used to after playing it the first couple years. And they do build great pickups that many people love.
I put together a super strat with a JB and Pearly Gates, and it sounded merely decent, so I wasn't really impressed with Duncans. But I always had wiring issues with that one because I tried a complicated 5-way wiring scheme that was never really sorted, so I never really knew how it sounded until I completely rewired it with a 4-way tele wiring kit. Wow. It just came alive. It totally changed my opinion about Duncans.
About a year ago I got a Concept Set and a Seymour Duncan Custom Shop single coil and installed it in an early 90s Ibanez with a mahogany/padauk body and traditional trem, that I got for a very low price -- the pickups cost the same as the guitar! The guitar is well worn and well played, and with these Duncan pickups in it, the guitar is an absolute monster. It's warm, articulate, smooth and raunchy all at once. Just a great guitar, no doubt in large part because of the pickups.
I also had a set of custom made DiMarzio Norton and Air Norton pickups that had gold covers, long legs, and single conductor braided leads. I installed them in a Les Paul Custom with an ebony board. It's a resonant, articulate, mid-rangey guitar, that I thought would be a good match for the midrange emphasis of the Norton. I was wrong. The neck pickup sounds good, with a warm, round character. But the bridge is all mids, all the time, and clumsily so. It's very one-dimensional, with the mids overpowering the lows and highs. That's not always the worst thing -- mids are great in a live situation when they cut through the rest of the band. But in this instance they are unpleasingly overpowering. And to top it all off, the pickups deadened the guitar's natural responsiveness through an amp. They sound and feel lifeless.
I got a set of Antiquities and I'm really excited to get them installed in my LPC. I'm anxious to bring the guitar back to life and enjoy its natural, lively resonance through my amp again!
And I had planned to drop the gold DiMarzios in another Ibanez guitar (an RG with a JEM neck) but I scrapped that idea when I came across the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop Eclair set. That's going to be a fun guitar with the Eclair pickups in it! Love the name. Eclair. Awesome.
So I've come around to Seymour Duncan pickups once again, and I'll be using them from now on. DiMarzio makes great pickups that many people really love, and that work great for them. But Seymour Duncan pickups work for me.
Thanks for reading!
I recently concluded my experiment with DiMarzio pickups. They were the first aftermarket pickups I'd heard of, all my favorite players played them when I was first starting out (Petrucci, Satriani, Vai, pre-Peavey EVH, etc.) so naturally when I changed the pickup in my first guitar, a Fender Prodigy, I went with a DiMarzio Fred. Then I put together a parts guitar and installed an Air Zone and an Air Norton. All the DiMarzio pickups I used were all clear upgrades from the stock pickup in my Fender that I had been used to after playing it the first couple years. And they do build great pickups that many people love.
I put together a super strat with a JB and Pearly Gates, and it sounded merely decent, so I wasn't really impressed with Duncans. But I always had wiring issues with that one because I tried a complicated 5-way wiring scheme that was never really sorted, so I never really knew how it sounded until I completely rewired it with a 4-way tele wiring kit. Wow. It just came alive. It totally changed my opinion about Duncans.
About a year ago I got a Concept Set and a Seymour Duncan Custom Shop single coil and installed it in an early 90s Ibanez with a mahogany/padauk body and traditional trem, that I got for a very low price -- the pickups cost the same as the guitar! The guitar is well worn and well played, and with these Duncan pickups in it, the guitar is an absolute monster. It's warm, articulate, smooth and raunchy all at once. Just a great guitar, no doubt in large part because of the pickups.
I also had a set of custom made DiMarzio Norton and Air Norton pickups that had gold covers, long legs, and single conductor braided leads. I installed them in a Les Paul Custom with an ebony board. It's a resonant, articulate, mid-rangey guitar, that I thought would be a good match for the midrange emphasis of the Norton. I was wrong. The neck pickup sounds good, with a warm, round character. But the bridge is all mids, all the time, and clumsily so. It's very one-dimensional, with the mids overpowering the lows and highs. That's not always the worst thing -- mids are great in a live situation when they cut through the rest of the band. But in this instance they are unpleasingly overpowering. And to top it all off, the pickups deadened the guitar's natural responsiveness through an amp. They sound and feel lifeless.
I got a set of Antiquities and I'm really excited to get them installed in my LPC. I'm anxious to bring the guitar back to life and enjoy its natural, lively resonance through my amp again!
And I had planned to drop the gold DiMarzios in another Ibanez guitar (an RG with a JEM neck) but I scrapped that idea when I came across the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop Eclair set. That's going to be a fun guitar with the Eclair pickups in it! Love the name. Eclair. Awesome.
So I've come around to Seymour Duncan pickups once again, and I'll be using them from now on. DiMarzio makes great pickups that many people really love, and that work great for them. But Seymour Duncan pickups work for me.
Thanks for reading!
Last edited:
