Need bridge pickup advice...

[Kirk Dahnke]

Tone Zone in the neck?!?! Good lord, that's going to be mud city; that's a bridge pickup, and a very dark one at that.

It's a pickup designed specifically to be a "problem solver" for overly-bright guitars without having as much output as most pickups that do that (like an Invader or War Pig). You'd never put a bridge Invader in the neck, but that's basically what a Tone Zone in the neck would be (but maybe even darker, the TZ is just *that* crazy dark).

Not perfect, and not the P90 version, but I could see it possibly working in the neck. Maybe try a 1 meg pot?

 

[Top-L]

Tone Zone in the neck?!?! Good lord, that's going to be mud city; that's a bridge pickup, and a very dark one at that.

It's a pickup designed specifically to be a "problem solver" for overly-bright guitars without having as much output as most pickups that do that (like an Invader or War Pig). You'd never put a bridge Invader in the neck, but that's basically what a Tone Zone in the neck would be (but maybe even darker, the TZ is just *that* crazy dark).

I remember reading the old Dimarzio ad copy when they were releasing these pickups.

It never occured to me to ask, what is an "overly bright" guitar??

This certainly wouldn't be a LP or SG style guitar. I think maybe they were talking about strats, but those overcome it with 250K pots.

Maybe a Floyd guitar?? IME, those tend to be darker than strats.

I think the Tone Zone is just a really solid all around pickup in the Dimarzio flavor (which usually have more bass than other brands). The Tone Zone came stock in many high end Ibanez guitars for a decade or more.

Also worth checking out a Super 3 sometime. I think the Tone Zone was like a S3-lite.

I think alot of these pickups came out when people were mostly still playing Marshalls. Modern amps seem to have more/tighter bass, resonance knob, etc.

 

[Kirk Dahnke]

I remember reading the old Dimarzio ad copy when they were releasing these pickups.

It never occured to me to ask, what is an "overly bright" guitar??

This certainly wouldn't be a LP or SG style guitar. I think maybe they were talking about strats, but those overcome it with 250K pots.

Maybe a Floyd guitar?? IME, those tend to be darker than strats.

I think the Tone Zone is just a really solid all around pickup in the Dimarzio flavor (which usually have more bass than other brands). The Tone Zone came stock in many high end Ibanez guitars for a decade or more.

Also worth checking out a Super 3 sometime. I think the Tone Zone was like a S3-lite.

I think alot of these pickups came out when people were mostly still playing Marshalls. Modern amps seem to have more/tighter bass, resonance knob, etc.

Thank you! The P90 sized Tone Zone was free. Just trying to make it work in a P90 Les Paul Custom clone. I ordered a Tonerider bridge Hot P90 already. I know I want that in the bridge. Since the TZ was free, I could sell it if I can't get it to sound good. I have other P90 guitars with a normal set up. And I have 2 vintage MIJ LPCs with excellent Brandonwound Humbuckers. So I'm not really looking for the sound of another LPC with an inferior bridge humbucker. What I'd really like out of the P90 TZ is a P90 Super Distortion sound in the neck. One of my favorite Doom guitarists has a Gold top with two Super D P90s.
So I'm trying to mod the TZ to get closer to that. Whatever it takes. 1 meg pot, magnet swap, etc. The P90 TZ actually uses ceramic magnets to get the same sound of the regular TZ that has Alnico magnets. I think all I need is a bit more treble out of the TZ in the neck. Also the P90 TZ is 16.77K, so pretty hot.

 

[Cynical]

I remember reading the old Dimarzio ad copy when they were releasing these pickups.

It never occured to me to ask, what is an "overly bright" guitar??

This certainly wouldn't be a LP or SG style guitar. I think maybe they were talking about strats, but those overcome it with 250K pots.

Maybe a Floyd guitar?? IME, those tend to be darker than strats.

I think the Tone Zone is just a really solid all around pickup in the Dimarzio flavor (which usually have more bass than other brands). The Tone Zone came stock in many high end Ibanez guitars for a decade or more.

Also worth checking out a Super 3 sometime. I think the Tone Zone was like a S3-lite.

I think alot of these pickups came out when people were mostly still playing Marshalls. Modern amps seem to have more/tighter bass, resonance knob, etc.

"Overly bright" would be a lot of Ibanez RGs or the '90s MIJ Jacksons. Bolt on, floating trems (both Ibanez's Edge and Jackson's licensed Floyd of the late '90s tend to be brighter than an OFR), maple neck, some bright body wood, lightweight kind of guitars.

They were put on a lot of Ibanez guitars stock because those Ibanez RGs were exactly the kind of super-bright guitars the TZ was designed for.

I'll never understand why, when Jackson started including Seymour Duncans on those guitars, they went with JBs in the bridge -- they sound *terrible* in those guitars, they need something like an Invader or a War Pig to actually sound good IME.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

I've never tried a guitar bright enough to make a dark-sounding pickup be bright. I don't think any amount of acoustic zing from a guitar can change what a dark pickup is doing electrically.

I'm not saying tonewood doesn't make a difference, but I'm not sure how a Tone Zone in the neck can be balanced out by... anything, really. Even in that clip, the pickup just almost sounds like it's in a different room in the clean samples.

Distorted, it's not too bad, though. And if Doom is your objective, then yeah, maybe.

JME/JMO

 

[Chistopher]

JMO/JME

I've never heard of this pickup set before

 

[Rex_Rocker]

I've never heard of this pickup set before

I've never had a Tone Zone in the neck either. But I've had Air Nortons and JB's in the neck... and both of those are dark in the neck no matter the guitar, so I can extrapolate, I suppose.

 

[Top-L]

I've never had a Tone Zone in the neck either. But I've had Air Nortons and JB's in the neck... and both of those are dark in the neck no matter the guitar, so I can extrapolate, I suppose.

Its all relative. If the amp EQ has enough range and both pickups match, then it should be ok.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

Its all relative. If the amp EQ has enough range and both pickups match, then it should be ok.

That's the thing. I have not tried a bridge pickup so dark where I can see something like a Tone Zone in the neck working out.

Unless the OP wants that intentional mismatch.