Hot, fat, and smooth neck pickups?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rex Rocker
  • Start date Start date
Yeah, I wouldn't say the PG is very fat either nor hot.

I'm starting to warm up to the DD-N, TBH. I may try to swap an A5 in there today. I've got one laying around. If not, probably A8.
 
Yeah, try the A5 first, because an A8 might be too much of everything for a neck pickup.

I enjoyed the DD-N myself at the time when I had it in a Cort Viva Gold II (sort of Ibanez S series clone) and did the A5 swap too. Weirdly enough it took away some of the nicer quirks of the ceramic mag too, so swapper beware. ?
 
Rex Rocker said:
What worries me is the 7.9K DCR.

I've had the Jazz N and the DiMarzio PAF 36th and even the '59B, and they couldn't keep up with hotter pickups like the BW or the 500T, no matter how much I raised them. I even have problems making the JB/Jazz set work. I guess I could lower the 500T to match, but it would seem almost wrong to me to see the bridge pickup further away from the strings than the Neck pickup, and the other, I like the tone of the 500T at the height I have it set right now. I don't want to compromise the tone of the bridge pickup just to make a lower output pickup work.

I know many people like their neck pickups mellow, and don't mind the mismatch. I personally don't like the disparity. Even if I use a compressor for my clean tone that evens that out or I don't really get a drop in volume in a high-gain tone, it does feel off. The gain tone, for starters, feels much drier and not saturated enough to the point it almost doesn't always punch through my noise gate when using low output pickups matched with high output pickups.

JME.
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Then my default "RebelYell" recommendation stands ?
 
JohnnyGtar said:
They've got matte bobbins and chrome polepieces, but the DiMarzio Air Norton or Gravity Storm will fit the bill.
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Air Norton is a great pickup. I have one at the neck in an all mahog LP Custom and it's fat & sweet.
Lots of mids, and the trademark DiMarzio vowel tone. But has enough cut for a really nice lead voice.

Also, I think they can be ordered in any color scheme theme you might want.
 
eclecticsynergy said:
Air Norton is a great pickup. I have one at the neck in an all mahog LP Custom and it's fat & sweet.
Lots of mids, and the trademark DiMarzio vowel tone. But has enough cut for a really nice lead voice.

Also, I think they can be ordered in any color scheme theme you might want.
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Steve Blucher sent me an Air Norton/Air Zone set for my Peavey Wolfgang. That guitar went from sounding great to sounding amazing.

The 36th Anniversary PAF pickups can be ordered with glossy bobbins but I don't know if they offer that option for other models. They really should do that if they don't already.
 
Man.. I sound like a broken record here but the tonenerd neck pickups I have in my chubtones are the perfect neck pickup. Before that my favorite wad the sentient but those sound thing in comparison to these.
 
eclecticsynergy said:
Air Norton is a great pickup. I have one at the neck in an all mahog LP Custom and it's fat & sweet.
Lots of mids, and the trademark DiMarzio vowel tone. But has enough cut for a really nice lead voice.
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My experience too. I have the Air Norton as a neck pickup in 3 totally different guitars, including a Burny Les Paul standard.
Since the coils are purposely mismatched, you can flip the pickup to be either brighter or smoother.
Normally with the bobbins facing the neck, it's smoother IIRC.

I found recently that the Duncan Screaming Demon in the neck reacts very similarly compared to the Air Norton, just a tad less hot and more open sounding.
Both pickups sound great when split with great character and enough output, so be sure to add a switch or push-pull pot for coilsplitting.
The 36th Anniv PAF and Pearly Gates neck for instance lose too much volume and 'push' when split and become quite thin/wimpy sounding then.
 
I would be afraid the Airbucker thing takes too much of a toll in the output of the Air Norton. I'd feel more confident with the regular Norton when matched with a 500T, personally. But I'm not sure if the regular Norton might get a bit too over-the-top too. Not output-wise, but EQ-wise and feel. I would fear it wouldn't be as soft and smooth as the AN.
 
@Rex Rocker nah man. DiMarzio specs the output in mV for each pickup and the Air Norton is most certainly not a wimpy, low output thingy as a neck pickup. Output is 270mV, only 10% less than a PAF Pro. The fact that even in split mode, the output doesn't drop that drastically like most pickups and keeps giving enough juice compared to a full humbucker should tell you everything.
It's not like it's an Air Classic neck (206mV).
I think the only reason DiMarzio has grouped it under the vintage output on their website, is when you would use it as bridge pickup. IMO they should've grouped it under medium output like many in the 290-300mV range.
Take an Evo Neck at 294mV. You wouldn't consider that one a low output neck pickup either, right?

I've never tried the regular Norton as a neck pickup, but since it's already on the tight, punchy and crunchy side as a bridge pickup, fat and smooth would not to be expected.... You're probably better off then with an AT-1 or classic staple Super Distortion in the neck.
 
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