Gibson Dirty Fingers

Re: Gibson Dirty Fingers

The Good, the Bad, The Ugly!

This is not all bad. I cut my teeth with my 335-S, and love pre-Rollins Black Flag as well as Black Sabbath...The original Dirty Fingers bristles with energy, but the powerband seems misplaced.

The Bad:

Used in high gain situations the bottom end seems missing, and the mids and top seem to crowd each other out. It sounds like thin-crunch over thin-crunch. Repeating consistent chord after chord is hard with a Dirty Fingers because the finger-squeeks with the most minute changes can be heard from the speakers (I am still speaking of high-gain tone).

I abhor over-technical music by "poofy" musicians...but the Dirty Fingers is just too much!

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The Ugly:

Forget that this pickup is a ceramic pickup. Yes it is powerful, but seems more like a bastard set of two Strat pickups put together like a humbucker.

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The Good:

What is good about the Dirty Fingers is the lower-gain tone! Very "surf-y" for a Gibson! Low-drive palm mutes are less spanky/more consistent than a Strat, but cover the territory of that Agent 007/Surf Music/Biker Flick era. My 335-S has a coil-split switch, and some of the best tones out of it are from the NECK Dirty Fingers! The neck tone is thick and tasty! If this is a different winding, I have no idea.


Perhaps the most awesome thing with the 335-S's mahogany/ebony combo, is the very unique/thick/balanced/powerful/nut-smashing tone of both Dirty Fingers pickups together! WOW! This seems rather rare from the guitars I have tried over the years.

I will also recommend that anyone wanting this pickup for high-gain, use a tube amplifier to take some of the hard edges off of this pickup!!!!

I love the Woody Weatherman/Corrosion of Conformity tone, so I am set on a bridge Invader this summer for my 335-S. Yup!


The Dirty Fingers IS one odd bird!
 
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