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.

 

[Cynical]

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

Do you mean "you haven't heard a guitar bright enough to make a dark-sounding bridge pickup work in well in the bridge", or do you mean "I haven't heard a guitar bright enough to make a high-output bridge pickup not sound really dark in the neck?"

The latter, I'd agree with entirely (a TZ in the neck is madness). The former, I can name plenty of examples; a lot of Ibanez RGs are bright enough that an Invader in the bridge sounds balanced as opposed to dark, and my Jackson KE-3 is bright enough that a C-Pig in the bridge makes it sound balanced rather than dark.

 

[soulforger]

Do you mean "you haven't heard a guitar bright enough to make a dark-sounding bridge pickup work in well in the bridge", or do you mean "I haven't heard a guitar bright enough to make a high-output bridge pickup not sound really dark in the neck?"

The latter, I'd agree with entirely (a TZ in the neck is madness). The former, I can name plenty of examples; a lot of Ibanez RGs are bright enough that an Invader in the bridge sounds balanced as opposed to dark, and my Jackson KE-3 is bright enough that a C-Pig in the bridge makes it sound balanced rather than dark.

Michael Romeo of Symphony X has used Tone Zones in the neck position of his Caparison guitars for years, he makes it work!

 

[freefrog]

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.

If memory serves me, the P90 sized TZ has a double thick ceramic magnet. Its two rows of screw poles are directly in contact with it.

I wouldn't expect another magnet to make it work in neck position. Any AlNi(Co) bar should just make it less focused and darker by weakening its magnetic field and increasing its inductance (which is already high: my archives state that 7.77H have been measured here on this exact model. With a normally sized A5 bar, it rised to 8.88H according to my notes. It's 1/4 to 1/3 more than for a regular P90, for the record).

1M pots would make more peaky the main resonant peak, without cancelling the rather heavy comb filtering effect that Dual-Resonance creates beyond this main resonant frequency for this model. It would potentially make the sound heavy in the hi-mids but still with dark harmonics.

If I had to make it work in neck position, maybe I'd try to pull off 6 screw poles: the 3 ones closest to the bridge under the wound strings, the 3 ones closest to the neck for the high strings.
You migth appreciate the contrary. Or find interesting to pull off the screw poles in the whole same coil of your choice. Or pull off 3 screws only in a coil under the bass strings... Experiment.
It should lower the inductance and weaken the magnetic flux, making the pickup weaker / brighter while keeping it in humbucking mode.

A more radical solution would be to wire the P90 TZ in parallel. It would give the brightest weakest tone this model is able to achieve by itself (by dividing by 4 its overall inductance in series and cancelling the comb filtering due to Dual-Resonance, this time).
You might also put a 10nF capacitor in series with the neck PU. Just be aware that it would change the behavior of any tone control after it and would alter the response when both pickups are enabled.

All of this boring post is based on past experiments with the model mentioned, FWIW. Now, do what you want and be happy.

EDIT - Below a screenshot about the DiMarzio P90 TZ with all vs half of its screw poles (I had forgotten I had that in my archives, currently way more crowded than my old brain).
it shows the electrically induced resonant peaks of the whole PU in series, with standard pots and 10' cable. Dotted lines = phase response. Bottom ragged lines = THD. The test had been done in such a way that it wouldn't show the effects of Dual-Resonance (which can be seen when each coil is excited separately in humbucking mode. Here both coils were excited in the same time by a perpendicular ultra-low impedance air coil).
The version with half screw poles is shown by the red line (and tighter, as expected)...
With the pickup wired in parallel, the resonant peak would be higher pitched, changing the balance between fundamental notes and harmonics for a single coilish tone.

 

[Coma]

So I got this 1997 PRS CE-24 a few years ago that came with a set of Pearly Gates. I'll probably remove the five-way rotary switch as it's wired a little weird and I'm not sure exactly what's going on anyway (position 1 is full bridge humbucker which is primarily what I use 99 percent of the time, 2 is split somehow - maybe out of phase, 3 seems like both humbuckers, 4 is full neck humbucker, 5 is neck split somehow, sounds brighter and out of phase), and I guess I'd rather have a three-way toggle put in.

Anyway, I'm looking for a hotter pickup in the bridge. Laying around, I've got a chrome-covered DiMarzio Tone Zone, a chrome-covered JB from a 1995 Hamer Special, and a Parallel Axis PATB-2 Distortion. Which one would balance best with the Pearly Gates neck? I usually prefer slightly darker/warmer sounding pickups in the bridge, mostly play old-school thrash metal like Megadeth, Overkill, Anthrax, etc., plus some harder rock similar to Motorhead, classic hard rock plus some other bluesy-type rock at times.

Pic for attention...

I think you're gonna be pleased with the Tone Zone. I play a lot of the same stuff you do as well. Slightly different construction, but I've got a Charvel 750 (mahogany body, thick maple cap, set maple neck, 24.75" scale length, Floyd Rose) with a Tone Zone in the bridge and I think it sounds fantastic.