I've never heard the HS-3's sound so good

[357mag]

I recently picked up a rosewood necked Malmsteen Strat that came with the new Duncan YJM Fury pickups and I thought those pickups sounded pretty good. More power and aggression than Yngwie's last set. To be honest I never thought those Dimarzio HS-3's sounded any good. In all the previous Malmsteen Strats I've owned they just sounded kinda mediocre at best.

Now I sold my rosewood Malmsteen and replaced it with an older used maple necked model that came with the old Dimarzio HS-3's. After doing a setup I plugged it in last night and I was blown away by how good those HS-3's sound. Clear and airy like a genuine single-coil. Glassy. They never sounded like this for me before.

I'm so impressed with them in this particular Strat that I'm not gonna install the YJM Furys, at least not for probably awhile.

 

[KBliss]

Re: I've never heard the HS-3's sound so good

Ive been this close to getting an HS3 for eons. I know the Fury is his new ones, right? I saw Alcatrazz back in the day & loved his tone. I have an H/S/S Charvel Jackson type gtr. I just want a neck pickup- (I think I read he wanted the Fury cuz he records alot w out being in the room.) anyw, i love that Alcatrazz era tone. How hot do you play your HS3? What I want is something that is above average hot, not too hot, but easy to get that singing, clean lead with a lots of attitude. How different is the HS3 from a typical Strat? How dynamic/ compressed is the attack?

 

[Jessie's ghost]

Re: I've never heard the HS-3's sound so good

I love the HS-3 as a bridge pickup in a Strat. It sounds kind of thin if you're used to a loud, fat humbucker, but it's perfect for scratching out that Yngwie rhythm sound.

 

[357mag]

Re: I've never heard the HS-3's sound so good

The HS-3 is a low output pickup. I think it outputs only about 93mv. That's on the low side. It has a clear and airy tone since it is not designed to be a hot or overwound pickup. It came out in 1980 and it was designed to sound like a single-coil but with more smoothness and a bit more bass.

It is not a hot pickup.

I play my Malmsteen Strat through my POD X3 and I'm using a lot of gain with a JCM800. Dimarzio says the HS-3 works well with high gain amps.

Very quiet too.

 

[oilpit]

Re: I've never heard the HS-3's sound so good

I've never used one tbh, it's a very interesting formula, it's kind of an oxymoron of a pickup.

it is not designed to be a hot or overwound pickup.

It may not be hot...but it is very, very, VERY overwound.

 

[357mag]

Re: I've never heard the HS-3's sound so good

Don't know. The pickup feels very light. I always thought that as you wrap more wire around a pickup treble response decreases and bass response increases but output also rises?

 

[RayBarbeeMusic]

Re: I've never heard the HS-3's sound so good

DCR has squat to do with output in and of itself.

The reason those old HS pickups, as well as Fender, Duncan, Lawrence stacks have off the chart DCR is they are using a very old design where the bottom coil is a mirror of the top coil, and pulls output off the active coil, compresses the high end significantly, and results in a pickup with a ~15k-24k ish dcr and very low output.

I can't figure the fascination with those HS series pickups or any other old school stack, other than "Yngwie uses them". He's used them forever and he doesn't exactly change what gear he uses often. Well, basically never.

Newer designs like the Areas are lightyears ahead of those designs, and sound it. They have very low DCR because new technology allows the "dummy coil" to be very low DCR, in the neighboorhood of ~1k or less. So if you compare say, an Area '58 or Area '67 to an HS3, the HS3 has ~24k DCR, very low output, compressed dynamics and high end; the '67 is just under 6k DCR, more than half again as powerful, with less string pull for better sustain, and no compressed high end or squished attack.

Its like everyone being excited about a '78 Pinto because someone famous drives a '78 Pinto. I don't get it.

Why does Yngwie use them? I asked Steve Blucher about that once. He had no frickin clue why Yngwie hadn't adopted the newer, better technology, other than being set in his ways.

 

[357mag]

Re: I've never heard the HS-3's sound so good

DCR has squat to do with output in and of itself.

The reason those old HS pickups, as well as Fender, Duncan, Lawrence stacks have off the chart DCR is they are using a very old design where the bottom coil is a mirror of the top coil, and pulls output off the active coil, compresses the high end significantly, and results in a pickup with a ~15k-24k ish dcr and very low output.

I can't figure the fascination with those HS series pickups or any other old school stack, other than "Yngwie uses them". He's used them forever and he doesn't exactly change what gear he uses often. Well, basically never.

Newer designs like the Areas are lightyears ahead of those designs, and sound it. They have very low DCR because new technology allows the "dummy coil" to be very low DCR, in the neighboorhood of ~1k or less. So if you compare say, an Area '58 or Area '67 to an HS3, the HS3 has ~24k DCR, very low output, compressed dynamics and high end; the '67 is just under 6k DCR, more than half again as powerful, with less string pull for better sustain, and no compressed high end or squished attack.

Its like everyone being excited about a '78 Pinto because someone famous drives a '78 Pinto. I don't get it.

Why does Yngwie use them? I asked Steve Blucher about that once. He had no frickin clue why Yngwie hadn't adopted the newer, better technology, other than being set in his ways.

I will partially agree with you. The HS series are older designs. And Dimarzio has introduced pickups since then that sound quite a bit better. I've used those Area 58s and Area 67s, not to mention the Virtual Vintage '54 Pro and the Virtual Solo. Those are great sounding pickups.

But the HS-3's which are in this 5 year old Malmsteen Strat I have now just really sound impressive. And I've heard them in several other Malmsteen Strats and they sounded like ass.

Why do they sound so good now? My guess is they match perfectly with the particular piece of wood I got now.

 

[xntrick]

Re: I've never heard the HS-3's sound so good

I will partially agree with you. The HS series are older designs. And Dimarzio has introduced pickups since then that sound quite a bit better. I've used those Area 58s and Area 67s, not to mention the Virtual Vintage '54 Pro and the Virtual Solo. Those are great sounding pickups.

But the HS-3's which are in this 5 year old Malmsteen Strat I have now just really sound impressive. And I've heard them in several other Malmsteen Strats and they sounded like ass.

Why do they sound so good now? My guess is they match perfectly with the particular piece of wood I got now.

I have to agree with you, i have a similar guitar and i was using the HS-3 in the neck. I swapped it out with the Area 67 but not like it as much as the HS3, that pickup has such a sweet tone in the neck position.

 

[oilpit]

Re: I've never heard the HS-3's sound so good

Newer designs like the Areas are lightyears ahead of those designs, and sound it. They have very low DCR because new technology allows the "dummy coil" to be very low DCR, in the neighboorhood of ~1k or less. So if you compare say, an Area '58 or Area '67 to an HS3, the HS3 has ~24k DCR, very low output, compressed dynamics and high end; the '67 is just under 6k DCR, more than half again as powerful, with less string pull for better sustain, and no compressed high end or squished attack.

Its like everyone being excited about a '78 Pinto because someone famous drives a '78 Pinto. I don't get it.

Why does Yngwie use them? I asked Steve Blucher about that once. He had no frickin clue why Yngwie hadn't adopted the newer, better technology, other than being set in his ways.

The Area pickups are meant to sound like noiseless vintage Strat pickups, I don't think that was ever the intention with the HS series, they definitely don't sound like traditional Strat pickups. I think the reason that Yngwie used them for such a long time was that he liked the way the crazy hugh DCR made it sound.

But Yngwie has moved on to newer, better technology with the YJM Fury set, and they still have a wicked high resistance. He is clearlymore interested in tone than tech.

 

[arellanon]

Re: I've never heard the HS-3's sound so good

I like the HS line from DiMarzio. They are very unique and are a great alternative to single coils and humbuckers in terms of tone. Have yet to try the Area Series though I do love the Virtual models I have tried (Solo and Heavy Blues II).

 

[Strat111]

Re: I've never heard the HS-3's sound so good

I had HS3s in the neck & bridge of my Strat. I was using 250K pots w/.047 caps, like a Strat. I found the bridge to be perfect, but the neck was a bit dark for me, and I love dark. So I called Dimarzio and spoke to a tech. He told me that the volume should be 500K, and the tones should be 250K. He said that is how HS3s were to be wired. I forgot to ask him about the cap, but I assume the .047 would be ok, as I didn't have a problem rolling off highs. I needed some highs added to my neck pup. I have moved on to a more vintage setup now, but have wired my pickguard w/HS3s the way the tech told me. One day I may put it back on my Strat.

 

[RayBarbeeMusic]

Re: I've never heard the HS-3's sound so good

The HS3s were supposed to sound like noiseless vintage pickups, that's just as close as technology allowed at the time.

The new SD version is still using the exact same old technology as the HS.

So yeah whether you like them better is subjective, but if what you want is something that sounds like a real single with no noise, they dont do that as well as the Areas, not even close. If what you want is that super low output compressed high YJM tone, well, there you go.

 

[appar111]

Re: I've never heard the HS-3's sound so good

The HS3s were supposed to sound like noiseless vintage pickups, that's just as close as technology allowed at the time.

The new SD version is still using the exact same old technology as the HS.

So yeah whether you like them better is subjective, but if what you want is something that sounds like a real single with no noise, they dont do that as well as the Areas, not even close. If what you want is that super low output compressed high YJM tone, well, there you go.

Super compressed is not what I hear when I listen to any Yngwie... loud and clean, yes, but definitely not compressed.

 

[pinto79]

Re: I've never heard the HS-3's sound so good

Its like everyone being excited about a '78 Pinto because someone famous drives a '78 Pinto. I don't get it.

Hey!

Everyone should be excited about driving a '78 Pinto because they are awesome!

I have trouble finding a good home for my YJM pickups (Same as the HS-3 but with vintage stagger...)

 

[RayBarbeeMusic]

Re: I've never heard the HS-3's sound so good

Super compressed is not what I hear when I listen to any Yngwie

Super compressed high end from the pickups............super compressed everything else from his signal chain. He's maxing out an old DOD ovedrive into the front end of a Marshall, slamming that 1st tube stage right to the rail.....there are compression artifacts all over his tone, easily recognizable if you've ever experimented with gain staging that way.


The only reason you'd mistake it for "clean" is 1) his technique is very clean, 2) those pickups have such low output, that when you slam them through that much gain they come across sounding 'clean'. There is nothing clean about his tone, it's distorted as F*ck.

You might want to take another listen.

 

[The_Lombard_Duke]

Re: I've never heard the HS-3's sound so good

I always loved the HS series, in my Strat I used to have a YJM, HS-2 and HS-3 combo, and they were great at high gain and very quiet.
I also have a old gray box DOD 250 though I use a VOX AC 30 the sound was 99% Yngwie, in particular from his less produced albums like Marchin' out.