SweetClyde99
New member
My HSS Strat has been something of a problem child for me for a while. I’m primarily a Les Paul player, and I practically never play anything other than the bridge position with a humbucker in it, but I really like the weight, ergonomics, and neck and this guitar, and I love the aesthetics, so I’ve tried a number of different humbuckers in the bridge, trying to get the tone I want out of it.
All the pickups I tried left something to be desired, usually in the lows. It’s been really hard to get a decent palm muted tone under a good amount of gain with this guitar. A Tone Zone worth a capacitor in series to shave off some of those huge lows was a pretty good sound, but I just didn’t like the harmonic content of the Tone Zone in this guitar. The AT-1 gave me everything I wanted in the lows, but it actually warmed up the Strat too much, and I found myself wanting more treble.
After researching how the AT-1 uses Dimarzio’s Virtual Vintage technology to increase the inductance and reduce the highs, I did some googling to see how hard it would be to remove the Virtual Vintage poles, and the only thing I could find was someone drilling holes down into the bobbins beside the VV poles and prying them out. This didn’t seem ideal to me, as I really didn’t want to slip and drill into that coil, so I tried a few other approaches, most of which didn’t work (using a strong magnet to pull them out, using hot or super glue to glue a rod to the end of the VV poles and pulling them out once they dried, etc.). I ended up pulling out the actual pole pieces between the VV poles, which run all the way through the bobbins and can just be pushed out from the back; making as small a notch in the plastic as possible between the regular poles and the VV poles with a box knife, and then prying up a bit of the VV pole with a nail so that I could pull it out with some pliers. It actually went pretty well. I had to notch out a bit more plastic between the screws and the VV poles on the screw coil because there’s more space between the screws and the VV poles, but it still wasn’t bad.
The VV poles are out now, the pickup is back together and putting out more treble, and I still have all the VV poles in a bag so I can reverse the mod if I ever want put the pickup in a brighter guitar. You’d have to remove the bass plate and the magnet and squint pretty hard to see the tiny notches around the VV poles to see that anything was done at all.
All the pickups I tried left something to be desired, usually in the lows. It’s been really hard to get a decent palm muted tone under a good amount of gain with this guitar. A Tone Zone worth a capacitor in series to shave off some of those huge lows was a pretty good sound, but I just didn’t like the harmonic content of the Tone Zone in this guitar. The AT-1 gave me everything I wanted in the lows, but it actually warmed up the Strat too much, and I found myself wanting more treble.
After researching how the AT-1 uses Dimarzio’s Virtual Vintage technology to increase the inductance and reduce the highs, I did some googling to see how hard it would be to remove the Virtual Vintage poles, and the only thing I could find was someone drilling holes down into the bobbins beside the VV poles and prying them out. This didn’t seem ideal to me, as I really didn’t want to slip and drill into that coil, so I tried a few other approaches, most of which didn’t work (using a strong magnet to pull them out, using hot or super glue to glue a rod to the end of the VV poles and pulling them out once they dried, etc.). I ended up pulling out the actual pole pieces between the VV poles, which run all the way through the bobbins and can just be pushed out from the back; making as small a notch in the plastic as possible between the regular poles and the VV poles with a box knife, and then prying up a bit of the VV pole with a nail so that I could pull it out with some pliers. It actually went pretty well. I had to notch out a bit more plastic between the screws and the VV poles on the screw coil because there’s more space between the screws and the VV poles, but it still wasn’t bad.
The VV poles are out now, the pickup is back together and putting out more treble, and I still have all the VV poles in a bag so I can reverse the mod if I ever want put the pickup in a brighter guitar. You’d have to remove the bass plate and the magnet and squint pretty hard to see the tiny notches around the VV poles to see that anything was done at all.
