C
CurlOfTheBurl
Active member
I just did a partscaster for a very good friend of mine. He wanted noiseless single coils to go with a humbucker bridge.
I did a bunch of research, and decided to do the rare thing of mixing pickup brands:
Neck: DiMarzio Area 58
Middle: DiMarzio Area 67
Bridge: Seymour Duncan TB-4 (sue me... it's still my favorite bridge humbucker)
All with 250K pots: one vol for the singles, a tone for the singles, then just a volume for the JB.
Standard 5 way switch.
The DiMarzios might be the best Strat pickups I've heard/played... noiseless or not. And they are noiseless. Yesterday when I gifted the guitar, I had my Helix set up with a QSC K10.2, and my buddy was doing the Hendrix thing with a lightly broken up Marshall plexi model and beaming. All of the pickups stay together as you up the gain (pedals or amp), and obviously the JB is a known quantity.
For reference, I was going for a single coil sound similar to Duncan SSL-1, Fender 57/62 types. These DiMarzios really do nail it, and I don't feel like I've compromised by going noiseless. Every other noiseless pickup I've demoed sounded dull and lacked some of the dynamic response you get from the real deal. These don't.
I imaging the Area 61 is also a great pickup, but I did not use it for this guitar.
What I had never done, though, was used a JB with a 250K pot. THIS is a revelation. I don't think I'd do it in a Les Paul, but in this Strat, it seems to help balance it out. This is the first pickup configuration for a fat strat where going to the bridge pickup doesn't yield a huge volume/gain increase from the singles. The output is balanced between them and the JB's high mids are dulled a bit by what I assume is the 250K pot.
I'm thinking I'll have to do a partscaster for myself with these electronics. This guitar slays.
For reference, the body was roasted alder and neck was roasted maple with a rosewood board... so pretty standard Strat woods... all from Warmoth.
I did a bunch of research, and decided to do the rare thing of mixing pickup brands:
Neck: DiMarzio Area 58
Middle: DiMarzio Area 67
Bridge: Seymour Duncan TB-4 (sue me... it's still my favorite bridge humbucker)
All with 250K pots: one vol for the singles, a tone for the singles, then just a volume for the JB.
Standard 5 way switch.
The DiMarzios might be the best Strat pickups I've heard/played... noiseless or not. And they are noiseless. Yesterday when I gifted the guitar, I had my Helix set up with a QSC K10.2, and my buddy was doing the Hendrix thing with a lightly broken up Marshall plexi model and beaming. All of the pickups stay together as you up the gain (pedals or amp), and obviously the JB is a known quantity.
For reference, I was going for a single coil sound similar to Duncan SSL-1, Fender 57/62 types. These DiMarzios really do nail it, and I don't feel like I've compromised by going noiseless. Every other noiseless pickup I've demoed sounded dull and lacked some of the dynamic response you get from the real deal. These don't.
I imaging the Area 61 is also a great pickup, but I did not use it for this guitar.
What I had never done, though, was used a JB with a 250K pot. THIS is a revelation. I don't think I'd do it in a Les Paul, but in this Strat, it seems to help balance it out. This is the first pickup configuration for a fat strat where going to the bridge pickup doesn't yield a huge volume/gain increase from the singles. The output is balanced between them and the JB's high mids are dulled a bit by what I assume is the 250K pot.
I'm thinking I'll have to do a partscaster for myself with these electronics. This guitar slays.
For reference, the body was roasted alder and neck was roasted maple with a rosewood board... so pretty standard Strat woods... all from Warmoth.
